CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2017
| Author | Salgam, Didem |
|---|---|
| Title | Biopolitics Over Farm Animals And Sexualization Of Meat: The Case Of Nusret The Butcher's Sexualized Performative Acts Of Butchering Meat |
| Summary | This thesis seeks to explore the ways in which human exceptionalism operates by problematizing the sexualization of the body parts of dead farm animals, namely meat, with the premise of going beyond the binary understanding of human and non-human animals division, as well as the binary gender categories of woman and man. The discussions in this thesis are empirically informed by the production and circulation of Nusret’s videos and photographs in which he performs sexualized masculine domination over meat and/or skinned, headless bodies of farm animals. This thesis is built upon the investigation of two main questions. The first question this thesis inquires is what Nusret’s sexualized performative engagement with meat and/or skinned, headless bodies of farm animals in sexualized ways connotes in terms of human and non-human animals relation of power, gender and sexuality. Acknowledging the contributions of the feminist critique on the sexualisation of meant, I show the limitations of ecofeminist theorist Carol Adams’ theoretical concept of absent referent through which she explains the permissibility of the production and consumption of meat as a “food” and as a sexual object (Adams, 1990, p. 66). I argue that this concept is not applicable to explain and understand the cases in which violent reality behind meat is spectacled. Instead, I suggest that the permissibility of the meat consumption as a food and as a sexualized object lies in biopolitical anthropocentrism. Examining Nusret’s sexualized engagement with meat and/or skinned, headless bodies of farm animals, I argue that he represents and reinforces socio-culturally and politically accepted normative masculine domination in his interspecies sexualized relation with meat and/or skinned headless bodies of farm animals. I also show that meat that is sexualized is not always associated with a female body, as it is argued by ecofeminist theorists; rather it sometimes refers to a female body and sometimes signifies a phallus. The second question that this thesis inquires is how the production and circulation of Nusret’s videos, and his performative citational repetition visuals on international (social) media reiterate the power relations of species, gender, and sexuality. I argue that viewing the sexualized violent masculine domination over meat, which is imbedded in Nusret’s videos, as entertaining and pleasurable – rather than mourning after those farm animals reveals the un grievability of farm animals’ lives. Keeping in mind the feminization of mourning, I claim that considering the lives of farm animals not grievable life (Butler, 2016), but deadling life (Stanescu, 2013) indicates the gender and sexuality aspect of (disavowal of) mourning after farm animals. I also suggest that the circulation of the performative citational repetitive videos of Nusret bolsters the sexualized masculine domination. Keywords: Sexualization of meat, human exceptionalism, sexuality, performativity, citational repetition |
| Supervisor | Yoon Hyaesin |
| Department | Gender Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2017/salgam_didem.pdf |
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