The Butcher of the Future: Between Aesthetics, Sustainability and Criticism

Abstract

After the industrialization processes of the 19th century expanded to meat production, meat was long considered a symbol of progress, wealth and prosperity (Kassung 2021). Current perspectives on the future of meat, on the other hand, are more critical: it is associated with harmful consequences for the environment, linked to physical illnesses, and the ethics of animal husbandry are also increasingly questioned in the mainstream as part of animal rights movements (Rückert-John 2017). The re-evaluation of meat as a foodstuff and the production conditions associated with it does not leave the profession of butcher unscathed. As a result of this change in values, the butchery trade is in a structural crisis and is subject to increasing pressure for legitimacy. This is evidenced not least by the decline in butchery businesses and the unpopularity of the training profession. In order to withstand this legitimation pressure, the craft is working out various strategies to increase appreciation and recognition against the background of a changing and polarized market, according to the thesis of this proposal.

The concept of social space (Bourdieu 2015 [1985]) as well as micro-sociological approaches that consider the negotiation of recognition in stigmatized occupational fields (Hughes 1958) form the theoretical framework of the contribution. Qualitative surveys in the field of butcher stores serve as the empirical basis of the contribution. Against the background of growing criticism, an attempt is made by the actors of the craft to revalue meat by staging and aestheticizing it as a healthy, sustainable and culturally valuable food. Negative consequences of meat (production) for health and the environment are negated by recourse to pre-industrial fictions of the butcher as a local provider. The profession of the butcher is narrated as a masculine cultural profession with which values such as innovation and dedication are associated. This paper examines the strategies of re-staging the profession and opens a perspective on the changing values in the field of food production and its future developments. Since the specificity of this craft lies in the handling of food - especially meat - an approach that lies at the intersection of the sociology of nutrition, gender studies, and feminist STS is used for further theoretical reference.