Place-Making by Cows in an Intensive Dairy Farm: A Sociolinguistic Approach to Nonhuman Animal Agency

Abstract

Based on recent ethnographic fieldwork at an intensive dairy farm, this chapter examines the usefulness of posthuman critical theory for developing a new sociolinguistic approach to nonhuman animal agency. We explore how dairy cows, as encaged sentient beings whose mobility is profoundly restricted by bars and fences, negotiate their environment as a material-semiotic resource in linguistic acts of place-making. Drawing on the fields of critical posthumanism, new materialism and sociolinguistics, we explain how dairy cows imbue their physical space with meaning through materiality, the body and language. By developing a non-anthropocentric approach to language as a practice of more-than-human sociality, we argue for establishing egalitarian research perspectives beyond the assumptions of human exceptionalism and species hierarchy. The chapter thus aims to contribute towards a new understanding of nonhuman agency and interspecies relationships in the Anthropocene.

Speaking about Farming

“…All dairy cows are still forced into a routine of being impregnated, giving birth, not raising their children, being milked, and when they are less "productive" they are sent to slaughter. Cows have been bred to give more and more milk since the 1970s, leading to normalized exhaustion and illnesses (Cornips et al 2021). The way in which cows are housed also influences their physical health, for example, a third of the dairy cows never experience a life outside, leading to an increase in infections of their hooves and udders (Cornips et al 2021;Wakker Dier 2021).3 Fifty to seventy percent of all Dutch dairy cows are sent to slaughter when they are around four years old due to health or fertility problems, while they could live into their twenties (Wakker Dier, 2021).…”

“…Cows have been bred to give more and more milk since the 1970s, leading to normalized exhaustion and illnesses (Cornips et al 2021). The way in which cows are housed also influences their physical health, for example, a third of the dairy cows never experience a life outside, leading to an increase in infections of their hooves and udders (Cornips et al 2021;Wakker Dier 2021).3 Fifty to seventy percent of all Dutch dairy cows are sent to slaughter when they are around four years old due to health or fertility problems, while they could live into their twenties (Wakker Dier, 2021). Male calves are separated from their mothers directly after they are born and housed in solitary igloos, then live in small groups until they are old enough to be sent to slaughter, often with long journeys to the slaughterhouses (ibid).…”

“…This makes it difficult to form long-lasting friendships, learn from others and co-create collective and cultural knowledge (Blattner, Donaldson and Wilcox, 2020;Gygax, Neisen and Wechsler, 2010;Marino and Allen, 2017). Their captivity affects how they can express themselves, not just in terms of space for movement, but also emotionally and linguistically (Cornips and Van den Hengel 2021;Gillespie 2018).…”

“…Even under these conditions, cows have many ways of creating meaning, using body language, vocalizations, gestures, eye contact, and in general engaging actively with their material surroundings and the other beings they encounter, like humans (Cornips and Van den Hengel 2021). However, compared to cows who live in sanctuaries, their repertoire of creating meaning is severely limited (Blattner, Donaldson and Willcox 2020;Dumon Tak 2017;Gillespie 2018;Meijer 2021).…”

“…Relatedly, multispecies farm relations are affected by the industrialization of farming. Machines now complete much of the labor previously undertaken by human workers, and more cows spend their lives inside than ever before (Cornips et al 2021;Theunissen and Jansen 2020;Stuart and Gunderson 2020). This leads to a loss of interspecies interaction, and for both cows and farmers to a loss of interaction with the natural world.…”