Making Sense of Cattle: A story from farm to food

Sammanfattning: This thesis explores how those involved in a mobile-slaughtering mode of beef production engage with, and experience cattle bodies throughout the beef producing process. These experiences are examined in relation to historical accounts of how people have experienced cattle bodies in both pre-industrialized and post industrialized modes of beef production. Furthermore, an ethnographic study of a Swedish mobile-slaughtering company was conducted, followed by analysis using hermeneutic phenomenology and the concepts of liminality and Ellis’ boundary labour (2014). This thesis has shown that cattle bodies are experienced differently depending on the context of interaction, and that these experiences are both similar and different from those in pre-industrial and industrial beef production. This research contributes to a larger body of research exploring human-animal interactions, and contributes to understanding the experiences of those who are engaged in beef production.