The Invention of Halal Stunning: A Techno-Moral History of Redefining Animal Welfare and Islamic Practices in the Laboratory

• In Event: Being Religious, Being Scientific: The Dynamics Of Science And Religion In The Laboratory

Abstract

This essay explores the ways in which halal meat is produced through a network of techno-moral discourses, scientific experiments, and non-human actors. The case examined here is the invention of “halal stunning.” In this case, to redraw the boundaries of halalness involves debates around “humane slaughter,” the construction of “reversible stunning,” as well as the cooperation between religious scholars and animal scientists. In order to highlight the timeliness of the issue, this paper starts with the recent global controversy of religious slaughter, describing the ways in which specific animal welfare groups, media, politicians, and governments have come to construct the false opposition between “animal rights” and “freedom of religion,” and between science and religion. Such a perspective, I argue, underestimates the degrees to which religion and science are compatible and ignores the fact that they have long closely worked together. Through the idea of “co-production” (Jasanoff, 2004) and “the enacted actors” (Law and Mol, 2008), I describe a phenomenon in which Islamic decrees promote scientific practices, and technologies also reconstitute the content of what is considered halal. By seeing laboratory as a boundary object (Star 2010), this article narrates a techno-moral history in which laboratory connects meat scientists, animal welfare activists, international trade agents, religious scholars, and reactive animals, finally materializing “halal stunning” in New Zealand and successfully being accepted by Muslim-majority countries. This case study helps deepen our understandings of the complexity of food ethics in the contemporary world, and broadens the field of religion, science and technology.

Author

• En-Chieh Chao, National Sun Yat-sen University