• Milking economies: Multispecies entanglements in the infant formula industry

    Author(s):
    Claudia Hirtenfelder (see profile) , Carolyn Prouse
    Date:
    2021
    Group(s):
    Animal Studies, Bovine Scholarship Network
    Subject(s):
    Animals--Study and teaching, Human geography, Economics
    Item Type:
    Article
    Tag(s):
    dairy, infant formula, milk, Multispecies entanglement, transnational markets, Animal studies, Political economy
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/wywn-vn31
    Abstract:
    In 2016 the Chinese infant formula company Feihe International signed a deal with the Canadian Dairy Commission (CDC) to process Canadian cows’ and goats’ milk for infant formula export to China. Our purpose in this paper is to understand how this deal – and the new Feihe formula factory located in Kingston, Canada – is underpinned by a series of multispecies entanglements across cow, human and goat mothers in China and Canada. To do so, we analyse official correspondence between the CDC, Feihe and City of Kingston; market reports for the dairy, goat and infant formula industries; and news articles about the Feihe infant formula plant. Conceptually, we develop an anti-colonial, multispecies entanglement framework to chart the violent inclusions, exclusions and typologizations that make milk and formula economies possible. We are specifically interested in how the Feihe–CDC deal (re)configures entanglements across species, nation, race, science and motherhood. To understand these relations, we heuristically imbricate two different sets of entanglements that underpin this deal: milk drinking, empire and genetic purity across race, breed and species; and motherhood, science and technology across humans, goats and cows. We use our threefold entanglement framework to better understand the violence of these imbrications and to work towards a multispecies feminist ethic in the infant formula industry.
    Metadata:
    xml
    Published as:
    Journal article     Show details
    Pub. DOI:
    https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486211036113
    Publisher:
    SAGE Journals
    Pub. Date:
    5 August 2021
    Journal:
    Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    2 years ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved
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