Animal–industrial complex

The term animal–industrial complex (AIC) encompasses systematic and institutionalized exploitation of animals. Proponentes of the term animal–industrial complex claim that activities described by the term differ from individual acts of animal cruelty in that they constitute institutionalized animal exploitation.

Definitions

The term animal–industrial complex was coined by the Dutch cultural anthropologist and philosopher Barbara Noske in her 1989 book Humans and Other Animals, saying that animals "have become reduced to mere appendages of computers and machines." The term relates the practices, organizations, and overall industry that turns animals into food and other commodities to the military–industrial complex.

Richard Twine later refined the concept, regarding it as the "partly opaque and multiple set of networks and relationships between the corporate (agricultural) sector, governments, and public and private science. With economic, cultural, social and affective dimensions it encompasses an extensive range of practices, technologies, images, identities and markets." Twine also discusses the overlap between the AIC and other similar complexes, such as the prison–industrial complex.

Origin and properties of the complex

According to Kim Stallwood, the animal–industrial complex is "an integral part of the neoliberal, transnational order of increasing privatization and decreasing government intervention, favouring transnational corporations and global capital." According to Stallwood, two milestones mark the shift in human attitudes toward animals that empowered the animal–industrial complex, namely, Chicago and its stockyards and slaughterhouses from 1865 and the post-World War II developments such as intensive factory farms, industrial fishing, and xenotransplantation.

According to Stallwood, the animal–industrial complex breeds animals in the billions in order to make products and services for human consumption, and all these animals are considered legal property of the animal–industrial complex. The animal–industrial complex is said to have transformed the already confused relationship between human and non-human animals, significantly increasing the consumption and threatening human survival, and the pervasive nature of the animal–industrial complex is such that it evades attention.

Sociologist David Nibert posits that while it has its origins in the enslavement of animals during the establishment of agricultural societies, the animal-industrial complex is ultimately "a predictable, insidious outgrowth of the capitalist system with its penchant for continuous expansion". According to Nibert, this complex is so destructive in its pursuit of resources such as land and water to rear all of these animals as a source of profit that it warrants comparisons to Atilla the Hun. As the human population grows to a projected 9 billion by the middle of the century, meat production is expected to increase by 40%.

See also

• Animal liberation
• Animal rights movement
• Commodity status of animals
• Critical animal studies

Further reading

• Matsuoka, Atsuko; Sorenson, John (2018). Critical Animal Studies: Towards Trans-species Social Justice. Rowman and Littlefield International—Intersections series. London: Rowman & Littlefield International. ISBN 978-1-78660-647-1.
• Nocella II, Anthony J.; Sorenson, John; Socha, Kim; Matsuoka, Atsuko (2014). Defining Critical Animal Studies: An Intersectional Social Justice Approach for Liberation. Institute for Critical Animal Studies. Bern: Peter Lang. ISBN 978-1-4331-2136-4. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help) ISSN 1058-1634
• Taylor, Nik; Twine, Richard (2014). The rise of Critical Animal Studies. From the Margins to the Centre. Routledge Advances in Sociology. New York: Routledge. ISBN 9781138125919.
• Twine, Richard (2010). Animals as Biotechnology: Ethics, Sustainability and Critical Animal Studies. Science in Society Series. New York: Earthscan (Routledge). ISBN 978-1-84407-830-1.