Meet, greet and eat: Farmed animals as dark tourism attractions

Abstract

Abstract

The growing popularity of the countryside as a place of consumption and recreation has contributed to the diversification of farming into tourism and the commodification of farm animals for touristic use. For example, in the UK, a number of livestock farms have opened their premises to the public, configuring and promoting them as tourism attractions whereby visitors can experience the immediacy and vitality of animal life often portrayed as unfettered and joyful. At the same time, they have also responded to concerns around the negative impact on health and sustainability of conventional farming systems by opening farm shops that offer, amongst other things, their own fresh farm reared meat direct to the consumer. Drawing upon the concept of embodied ethics in organizational studies (Hancock, 2008) and embodiment in tourism research (Baerenholdt et al., 2004, Veijola & Valtonen, 2007), we problematize this idyllic view of farming and farm animals as a curious form of dark tourism whereby non-human animal life and death become intimately entwined as objects of profoundly embodied consumption practices. Gaze, touch, and practices of embodied incorporation are all combined as the living are looked upon, petted and often internalised as anthropomorphic friends and companions, while the dead are equally evaluated by eye and hand and, ultimately, both ingested and excreted. Therefore, by paying particular attention to embodied engagement between people and farm animals, we take an ethical perspective that is sensitive to the embodied and situated nature of animal dark tourism.