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Muck and magic

Cultural transformations in the world of farm animal veterinary surgeons

Bibliographic Data

ID2402295
AuthorsLindsay Hamilton (0000-0002-1253-171X, Keele University, corresponding author)
Year2007
Volume8
Issue4
Pages485-501
Publication date2007-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthnography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1466-1381 • E-ISSN: 1741-2714
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1466138107083564
OpenAlexW2112084441
LanguageEN
Citations received24
References cited9

While the presence of muck, dirt and animal detritus is a quotidian and generally unremarkable feature of everyday working life for farm vets, it has special relevance to social scientists seeking to understand how they assemble their professional identities. But the cultural significance of muck and mess as a material condition of working life for vets - and other professionals more generally - has been largely under-theorized by researchers and demands further ethnographic analysis. Drawing on Bourdieu's concepts of symbolic and cultural capital, as well as anthropological insights informed by the sociology of science, this article explores the meanings that one group of farm vets ascribe to muck. The ethnographic account that follows seeks to reveal the ways in which the presence of muck, mess and disorder functions as a cultural artefact bestowing power and prestige that both structures and regulates the vets' social and professional relations

Aesthetics · Cultural capital · Dirt · Environmental ethics · Ethnography · Muck · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Prestige · Social science · Sociology · Symbolic power · Anthropology · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Law · Ecology

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Unique citing works24
Citations per year1,41
Citation span2009 - 2026 (18)
Citation velocitycurrent
Highly citedNo
Citation typesNeutral: 24
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