Making Sense of ‘Food’ Animals by Paula Arcari

Author:Paula Arcari
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789811395857
Publisher: Springer Singapore

The Constitution of Bravery

At least in Western cultures, bravery is commonly constituted as an emotion of distinction, and almost, at times, an emotional practice in and of itself. The capacity to ‘steel’ yourself, stand strong in the face of fear, and have ‘the courage of your convictions’ (rather than change them) is universally elevated and there is a tacit understanding of what bravery or courage looks like. Practices involving health care, emergency services, and the armed forces come to mind. But there are others where discomfort appears to be more purposefully sought in order to create the opportunity for bravery. The rise of extreme sports (Brymer and Schweitzer 2013) and adventure tourism (Carnicelli-Filho et al. 2010) can be seen as part of this quest, where “the search for new emotions and sensations different to those in daily routine has become a decisive factor” (Carnicelli-Filho et al. 2010: 953)—particularly, as these authors note, the emotion of fear and, it follows, what it takes to overcome it. There is also the rise of dark tourism, or thanatourism, which provides travellers the opportunity to seek out what were once sites of others’ suffering and death (Stone and Sharpley 2008). Here, “a strange combination of empathy and excitement” turns these sites of tragedy into tourist attractions (Tarlow 2007: 51). As Beedie and Hudson (2003) note, these new tourist practices have successfully commodified adventure, or rather the emotions associated with it, much like, as I will be discussing in Part IV, visibility of meat production is being commodified, perhaps in part provoking (and selling) a similar excitation of associated emotions.

What these practices share is an element of fear or discomfort in “confronting death and dying” (Stone and Sharpley 2008: 576) in some form, with a concomitant element of social distinction that ensues from participating in them because “achieving an adventurous objective requires some kind of social validation to be meaningful” (Beedie and Hudson 2003: 637). With the term ‘requisite bravery’, I argue that it is the fortitude associated with facing and overcoming discomfort that invites social validation—the discomfort is expected (solicited even), but bravery is required to ‘complete’ the practice. The “capital potential of participation” (Beedie and Hudson 2003: 637) in practices associated with heightened emotions, especially fear, emphasises that these emotions are very much socially constituted and associated with practices in different ways. As Theodore Kemper observes, “a large class of emotions results from real, imagined or anticipated outcomes in social relationships” (1978: 43). These observations support Ahmed’s (2004a) notion of an affective economy and are also reflected in dramaturgical theories of emotion where one emotion (e.g. bravery) is offered in exchange for another of higher emotional value (e.g. respect) (Turner and Stets 2006: 26).

In terms of food-related practices, bravery has already been associated with food tourism, also known as culinary tourism or food adventures (Molz 2007; Mykletun and Gyimothy 2010). Jennie Molz notes the double meaning of the ‘Intrepid’ traveller in denoting the traveller’s character as well as the nature of their practices.

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