Intensive Speciesism Regions in Brazil

Abstract

This chapter brings together ethical, social and territorial implications of the meat industry in the regions of Brazil where animal husbandry is the main economic activity. This article thus articulates concepts elaborated in the field of environmental ethics applying them to sociological analysis of territorial development using the notion of ‘regions of intensive speciesism'. The notion is elaborated as a conceptual tool to highlight territories whose socio-economic development pattern accepts the production of meat as a supposed “regional vocation”. In such territories, non-human sentient beings are unquestionably put into the same category as things. The identification of this pattern enunciates interrelated implications of meat production that are not usually recognized. These implications include the high rates of health problems affecting workers in slaughterhouses; the symbolic and economic domination over territories and people by the agroindustry; and the drastic moral inconsideration of sentient beings. The article is based on the case study of Concórdia, a micro region located in the state of Santa Catarina in the south of Brazil.