Selling Eden: Environmentalism, Local Meat, and the Postcommodity Fetish. (July 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Stanescu, Vasile
• Other Names: Almiron Núria guest-editor.; Faria Catia guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: American behavioral scientist. Volume 63:Number 8(2019)
• Page Start: 1120
• Page End: 1136
• Publication Date: 2019-07
• Subjects: locavore -- humane meat -- free-range -- compassionate carnivore -- Joel Salatin -- Michael Pollan -- critical animal studies -- climate change -- commodity fetish; Social sciences -- Periodicals; Political science -- Periodicals; United States -- Social conditions -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- Periodicals; 300
• DOI: 10.1177/0002764219830462
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0002-7642

Abstract

Advocates for eating locally raised animals claim that their practice is helpful in protecting the environment. However, the opposite is true. As such, their references to "nature" have less to do with a scientific stable ecosystem and, instead, represent a call for a return to a "natural" order of human's supposedly benevolent domain over other animals. Instead of a science-based environmental policy, local meat operates as a type of "postcommodity fetish." It is because of the desire to escape the confines of consumerist culture, to return to romanticized idea of Edenic-purity, which underlies the desire to purchase "locally" produced animal products.