Subjecting cows to robots: farming technologies and the making of animal subjects
Subjecting cows to robots: farming technologies and the making of animal subjects
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DOI：
10.1068/d77j
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发表时间：
2007-01-01
影响因子：
3.8
通讯作者：
Holloway, Lewis
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Holloway, Lewis
最近在农业中对人与动物关系的描述倾向于关注人类的经验，并将动物的主体性本质化，赋予它们一种类似于人类所拥有的中心主体性。相反，本文开发了一个了解的合作生产的家畜动物的主体和技术，用于养殖家畜动物，农业科学家，农民和设备制造商的文本分析的基础上产生的影响，引入新的机器人挤奶技术到奶牛养殖。特别是福柯的主观性和生物权力的概念，我探讨了与机器人挤奶牛的主体性的特殊形式的出现。通过对大量二手资料的分析，本文表明，尽管机器人技术被认为是为奶牛提供“自由”、更好的福利和更“自然”的体验，但其他支配关系与这些技术及其空间性有关。这些表现在对动物身体和行为的操纵，对奶牛以特定方式移动和行动的期望，以及正常化和个性化过程中。我认为，非人类的动物在农业主体性，因此是异质的，流体，并在特定的动物，人类和技术之间的关系，并在特定的农业微观地理条件。本文最后承认，这些关系需要进一步的实证探索，无论是试图了解动物的变化的经验和存在方式，以及它们在特定情况下的伦理含义。
Recent representations of human-animal relationships in farming have tended to focus on human experience, and to essentialise animal subjectivity in granting them a centred subjectivity akin to that assumed to be possessed by humans. Instead, this paper develops an understanding of the coproduction of domestic livestock animal subjectivities and the technologies used in farming domestic livestock animals, based on an analysis of texts produced by agricultural scientists, farmers, and equipment manufacturers relating to the effects of introducing new robotic milking technologies into dairy farming. Drawing particularly on Foucault's conceptions of subjectivity and biopower, I explore the emergence of particular forms of bovine subjectivity associated with robotic milking. Through an analysis of a wide range of secondary sources, the paper shows that, although robotic technologies have been presented as offering cows 'freedom', better welfare, and a more 'natural' experience, other relations of domination come into effect in association with such technologies and their spatialities. These are expressed through the manipulation of animal bodies and behaviours, in expectations that cows move and act in particular ways, and through normalisation and individualisation processes. I argue that nonhuman animal subjectivities in agriculture are thus heterogeneous, fluid, and contingent on specific sets of relationships between animals, humans, and technologies and on specific agricultural microgeographies. The paper ends by acknowledging that these relationships need further empirical exploration in terms of both attempts to understand animals' changed experiences and ways of being, and their ethical implications in particular situations.