CfHAS Seminar - Dinesh Wadiwel - June 8th 10am BST - 'A Confrontation with Fixed Capital: Lessons from Marx's Value Theory on Animal Agriculture'

Talk is online (zoom) and open to all

'A Confrontation with Fixed Capital: Lessons from Marx's Value Theory on Animal Agriculture' (Dr Dinesh Wadiwel, Associate Professor in human rights and socio-legal studies, University of Sydney, Australia) - Thursday 8th June 2023 1000-1130 BST.

Register for the talk here<https://edgehill.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/cfhas-seminar-registration-2-dr-dinesh-wadiwel-a-confr>

Abstract for the talk:

There has been a growing scholarship on animal labour, which has highlighted the role of non-human animals within systems of production and explored the implications of this framing for rights and welfare. In this talk, drawing from my forthcoming book Animals and Capital <https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-animals-and-capital.html> (Edinburgh UP 2023), I will explore how Karl Marx's value theory might help to make sense of the position of animals as labour within food systems. I will argue that applying Marx's approach to understanding animals as labour assists us to makes sense of how animals might have been positioned by capitalism as sources of surplus, and the unique strategies deployed by capital to maximise efficiencies through intensification. I will also argue that this approach allows us to view the factory farm in a new light. This nightmare of capitalist agriculture is not so much about 'human animal relations' but instead represents an antagonistic confrontation between animals and 'fixed capital'; that is enclosures, machines and technologies designed to tie down, subordinate and extract value from animal bodies.

Best,
Richard - https://sites.edgehill.ac.uk/cfhas/