Reconfiguring the Senses

Abstract

While new sensor technologies can be positive for certain aspects of animal farming and support farmers in their daily practice, there are also downsides. Drawing on a purposing sample of documentary sources in France and the United Kingdom, the chapter examines the sociotechnical imaginaries built in France and the United Kingdom around new sensor technologies in cattle farming. These imaginaries, the chapter argues, underlie broader norms and powers, conventions and etiquettes vis-à-vis sensory practices and human-animal relations in cattle farming, and what rural modernity is and should be. By reconfiguring the senses and producing a new sensorium in cattle farming, cattle sensor technologies are reconfiguring human relations with cows and cattle farming organizations.