Love in reshaping human-pig relationships: from livestock to companion
Love in reshaping human-pig relationships: from livestock to companion
In an increasingly urbanized world where pigs are predominantly never seen alive, whose dead bodies are understood as pork, the practice of pig keeping for companionship rather than food production offers a novel way to rethink human-pig relationships. Drawing from interviews with current and former pet pig keepers, one pet pig breeder and animal rescue workers in the UK, as well as ethnography at a pig sanctuary and the home of a pet pig keeper, this paper examines the ethical potential and political challenges of love in human-pet pig relationships. It describes how pigs are transcending the boundaries of their identity as farmed animals and occupying new spaces as loved pets, in turn, shifting their political and ethical status. Whilst love is a transformative affective force that disrupts societal understandings that dictate which animals are deserving of love and companionship and disrupts the subject-object and edible-inedible dualisms that frequently dictate societal understandings of pigs, these relationships also carry ethical tensions surrounding the commodification of pet pigs and the challenges of navigating care within a societal framework that primarily places pigs as livestock.
Animal geographies, human-animal relations, love, multispecies ethics, pet-keeping, pigs
1077-1097
Goldie, Kate
4b242e0a-9865-490c-a1ac-482f9b37b61a
Roe, Emma
f7579e4e-3721-4046-a2d4-d6395f61c675
2025
Goldie, Kate
4b242e0a-9865-490c-a1ac-482f9b37b61a
Roe, Emma
f7579e4e-3721-4046-a2d4-d6395f61c675
Goldie, Kate and Roe, Emma
(2025)
Love in reshaping human-pig relationships: from livestock to companion.
Social and Cultural Geography, 26 (9), .
(doi:10.1080/14649365.2025.2498948).
Abstract
In an increasingly urbanized world where pigs are predominantly never seen alive, whose dead bodies are understood as pork, the practice of pig keeping for companionship rather than food production offers a novel way to rethink human-pig relationships. Drawing from interviews with current and former pet pig keepers, one pet pig breeder and animal rescue workers in the UK, as well as ethnography at a pig sanctuary and the home of a pet pig keeper, this paper examines the ethical potential and political challenges of love in human-pet pig relationships. It describes how pigs are transcending the boundaries of their identity as farmed animals and occupying new spaces as loved pets, in turn, shifting their political and ethical status. Whilst love is a transformative affective force that disrupts societal understandings that dictate which animals are deserving of love and companionship and disrupts the subject-object and edible-inedible dualisms that frequently dictate societal understandings of pigs, these relationships also carry ethical tensions surrounding the commodification of pet pigs and the challenges of navigating care within a societal framework that primarily places pigs as livestock.
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Accepted/In Press date: 18 March 2025
e-pub ahead of print date: 7 May 2025
Published date: 2025
Keywords:
Animal geographies, human-animal relations, love, multispecies ethics, pet-keeping, pigs
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 506311
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/506311
ISSN: 1464-9365
PURE UUID: 0e7d2958-d9c4-4eb3-afa2-0ebce7ee1433
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Date deposited: 04 Nov 2025 17:37
Last modified: 05 Nov 2025 03:13
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Author:
Kate Goldie
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