The Anthropocene stinks! Odor, affect, and the entangled politics of livestock waste in a rural Iowa watershed

Bibliographic Data

ID4476136
AuthorsChristopher Neubert (0000-0003-1087-2825, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, USA, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume38
Issue4
Pages736-752
Publication date2020-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironment and Planning D Society and Space (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0263-7758 • E-ISSN: 1472-3433
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0263775820919768
OpenAlexW3021249226
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited57

Recent interventions in geography regarding the Anthropocene have demonstrated how Western logics of order and containment have produced massive geologic transformations. This paper focuses on odor as a sense that, when engaged critically, disrupts those logics by exposing the porousness of the body to other bodies and spaces. Visceral reactions to smell produce affective responses in the body which are informed by circulating political discourses. Thus, this paper explores how research focused on odor can reveal the complicated dynamics through which bodies are enrolled into subject formation and become a terrain of political struggle. Research on the everyday experience of hog manure in a rural Iowa watershed forms the case study through which these questions are raised. Since the transition to concentrated livestock agriculture at the end of the twentieth century, the disposal of animal waste has caused serious concern. This waste is often collected and later spread on fields across the state, producing foul odors and potential toxins. Political discourses that maintain this system claim waste is ordered and properly maintained, generating positive affective responses to foul odors and thereby maintaining support for industrialized agriculture

Agriculture · Anthropocene · Archaeology · Environmental ethics · Environmental planning · Geography · Political science · Politics · State (computer science · Watershed · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Human-Animal Interaction Studies · Law

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