Geographies of halal: slaughter, ethics and edibility in the British halal meat industry

Thesis

This thesis focuses on how halal meat production and consumption in the UK is shaped by relations of distance and proximity to animal killing, in order to understand how the intersection of sacred and secular values shapes producers’ and consumers’ ethical dispositions towards the animals they rear, kill and consume. Throughout the thesis, I draw upon interviews with halal meat producers, retailers, and certifiers, as well as slaughterhouse and farm visits and responses to an in-depth online consumer survey. My work develops literature in animal geographies, critical animal studies and animal ethics on distancing animal death, as well as debates in food geographies and cultural anthropology on material semiotics of consumption and reconnecting with food production. The results chapters progress through the halal meat supply chain, with each chapter focusing on a specific practice of production or consumption, and the spaces and distance/proximity relations implicated in each. The first results chapter addresses slaughtering, situated in the modern British halal slaughterhouse, the predominant site of animal killing for halal meat in the UK. The chapter demonstrates how the halal ritual creates unique configurations of proximity and distance regarding animal death, both leaving open the ability to be affected and providing protection from the emotional impacts of killing animals for food. However, there is a tension between practices of ritual slaughter and the realities imposed by commercial demands. The next three results chapters move to the realm of consumption, with the second results chapter examining halal consumers’ witnessing of animal killing and rearing, told through the narrative of significant space-times of slaughter and their (un)ethical effects. I argue that British Muslim consumers make an interesting case for studying relations with animal death because, by virtue of the unique configurations of their identity, they straddle ‘domestic’ and ‘postdomestic’ animal relations. The following chapter explores how knowledge intermediaries shape distance/proximity relations in common sites of halal meat purchasing, most notably the butcher shop, and how these are changing with time. The final results chapter explores how the embodied eating experience affects halal consumers’ proximity and/or distance to food animals’ lives and deaths and how they perceive the implications of this for their bodies and souls, blurring sacred and secular concerns. Throughout the thesis, I draw attention to the spatial, multi-scalar, temporal, embodied, contingent and culturally- and religiously-laden nature of halal meat consumption, developing geographical work on the ethics and politics of meat production and consumption.

Authors: Mazhary, H

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-kz9nwoymj
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: ethical consumption; meat reduction; consumer behaviour; animal welfare; materiality; halal meat; British Muslims; religion; meat consumption; spirituality; animal slaughter; animal ethics; religious dietary code; ritual
• Subjects: Human geography; anthropology of food; animal studies