The use of shock images in social networks provide insights into the processes and structures of factory farming and are disseminated in order to make the hidden suffering of farm animals visible. The internalization of images and imaginings works both to create proximity to the animal and distance from the animal product. Questions of personal responsibility and the responsibility of others follow.
REBECCA THRUN: This article uses exemplary analyses of empirical data collected through qualitative interviews with vegans to shed light on how they perceive certain ways of treating animals as violent practices. The analysis in this article focuses on the functions and effects of language, not only in terms of its role in maintaining existing carnivorous structures and practices, but also in terms of dynamic processes and potentials for change. This approach presupposes a notion of structural and symbolic violence. Specifically, this study examines how the vegan research partners perceive, experience, and articulate carnivorous dietary and consumption practices as violence against so-called farm animals. The analysis shows that images are highly significant, namely in the context of figurative language, when talking about images and with regard to one’s own iconic imaginaries. The (linguistically co-determined) construction of closeness to and distance from the animal product offers important insights into the socio-cultural and psycho-social dimensions of an animal-related “vegan” understanding of violence and harm….
By reconstructing the articulation and experience of animal-related violence,… identity-relevant dimensions (of vegans) cannot be excluded. They are closely interwoven with normative claims of a perception, mediation and overcoming of animal consumption as a practice of violence. Questions of personal responsibility and the responsibility of others follow. As has been elaborated at various points, moral evaluations are documented, which develop an affirmative power. The logical argument here is emotionally tinged, just as emotions are rationally tinged. This can only be separated ideally in the context of analysis, when different weightings are taken into account, or connotative levels can be reconstructed via linguistic images in order to consider otherwise interwoven things separately.
In this context, 1.) linguistic images and analogisations as well as reinterpretations play an important role. Connections to taboo ideas or human practices of violence, for example, have been elaborated here. In addition, 2.) talking about images in their function of making violence against animals visible is central. On the one hand, the motivational power of pictorial impressions to change one’s habits was addressed. However, the material showed that pictorial impressions can also subsequently legitimise and stabilise a change in habits — that is, they must be viewed in a differentiated manner with regard to the narrative construction of contexts of meaning and significance. Also, 3.) the internalisation of images and imaginings (interwoven in places) works both to create proximity to the animal and distance from the animal product. This was addressed with reference to linguistic constructions such as tortured meat. As an extension, the question arises as to how 4.) violence is represented visually in concrete terms. Here, for example, the analysis of selected images from investigative animal rights activists or in the context of a representation of vegan organisations is useful.
In this context, the media context of origin and storage and an outreach approach should also be considered in the analysis.For violence research, the analysis of the (linguistic and figurative) demarcations of amoral consideration of humans AND animals is an important starting point for the raising of awareness of violent practices in general. The study of human experience of animal-related violence opens up perspectives to illuminate violence more in the interspecies context.
The focus on (symbolically structured) relations of proximity and distance, for example, also regarding aesthetics and taste, enriches research perspectives in a special way. It helps to show contingencies in the perception of responsibility for violence — not only in the context of rational arguments, but also in relation to affective ties and blockades. In this way, social lines of conflict can also be reconstructed in an empathetic way. Although ecological and economic dimensions inherent in veganism were not considered in depth in this article, the inclusion of a future perspective is also relevant. According to Jonas, the principle of responsibility can be linked to questions of temporal limitation and dissolution of the understanding of violence to also include the living conditions of later generations in research on structural violence. SOURCE…
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