Socialising Animal Disease Risk: inventing Traceback and reinventing animals

Abstract

Through a discussion of how the inventive practices of farm animal genomics interact with animal disease and food risk, this paper aims to expand our notion of what constitute the social dimensions of animal genomics, and why attention to animals and the contemporary issues surrounding them can offer us insights into genomics in general. Through a case study of the circumstances surrounding the invention of the DNA TraceBack technology in the midst of the BSE crisis, I argue that, rather than just examining genomics in and of itself, we should follow the inventions of genomics and their inseparable informational material environments. Then we can see the need for a social science approach that is more attentive to the inseparability of politics and science at the material level and can invent new, more inclusive, problems and research questions.

Digital from farm to fork: Infrastructures of quality and control in food supply chains

“…Second, the identifier can be used to verify whether any given cut of meat an any stage in the chain is actually what the system says it is. TraceBack has been used by retailers as a supply chain audit tool in this way since its commercial rollout (Donaldson, 2007).…”

Practices of attention, possibilities for care: Making situations matter in food safety inspection

“…This shift in the distribution of their attention is largely a result of EU regulatory requirements for traceability (Bonnaud and Coppalle, 2013;Popper, 2007;Singleton, 2012). To be safe, meat must now be an 'informed' material (Bingham and Lavau, 2012;Donaldson, 2007), accompanied by records that must be inspected at various points of the food chain, records of animal identity and health, animal movements, animal husbandry, the handling and movement of meat, and the organisations involved (Bonnaud and Coppalle, 2013;Singleton, 2010;.…”

The Object of Regulation: Tending the Tensions of Food Safety

“…This system of traceability has been rolled out in the EU over the past couple of decades, amidst evergrowing worries about emerging infectious diseases and how food may be implicated in their gestation and spread. Meat is being made "informed" (Barry, 2005;Bensaude-Vincent and Stengers, 1996;Donaldson, 2007) in new ways. As it becomes more articulate, it gathers traces of its journey and transformation from farm to fork.…”