Deviant accumulation at farmed animal sanctuaries

Abstract

In much of Western society, animals such as chickens are considered commodities. As such, they are bred and raised to produce eggs, meat, and entertainment. Farmed animal sanctuaries challenge this status quo by rescuing, rehabilitating, and caring for these animals. In so doing, sanctuaries implicitly and often explicitly challenge chickens’ and other farmed animals’ status as commodities. What does decommodification entail? How do we get from capitalist lively commodities to other interactions with living beings? Drawing on mixed methods ethnographic fieldwork, this paper theorizes the decommodification process, elaborating the more-than-capitalist political economy of chicken rescue and sanctuary. I make the case that the political economic work of sanctuaries begins, though occasionally tragically ends, with processes akin to hoarding. In turn, I suggest that we think of hoarding less stigmatically and more in terms of political economy, as deviant accumulation. Building on Marx's understanding of hoarding as a process of accumulating without exchanging, deviant accumulation is accumulation that challenges capitalocentric norms. As such, by taking animals out of a system of exchange value, all sanctuaries practice deviant accumulation. Deviant accumulation thus becomes a practice that is potentially radically anti-capitalist: a practice from which different and non-anthropocentric values can emerge. I explicate the concept of deviant accumulation, how sanctuaries practice it, and to what ends.