Paper short abstract:

An ethnography of the Muslim festival of sacrifice in Mumbai as a moment of worship, labor, commerce and play: I argue that the association of animal slaughter with disgust and cruelty entails an ethical judgement where an act of violence is imbued with an affect of horror.

Paper long abstract:

In India, Hindu nationalist discourse associates the slaughter practices of Muslims as an imaginative repertoire for the evocation of disgust. The link between the violence of slaughter and the experience of disgust is crucial for the production of the Muslim as cruel other. However, I argue that the association between a violent act, material substance and the experience of disgust is not straightforward. Through an ethnography of the practice of bull slaughter at the Deonar abbatoir during the Muslim festival of sacrifice in Mumbai (Qurbani), this paper offers insights into the variety of emotional dispositions in a slaughterhouse. I draw attention to the ordinariness of the sacrifice event as a moment of worship, labor, commerce and play. Furthermore, I draw attention to a discursive tradition of slaughter (zabihah) in Mumbai that recognizes the violence of the act, without the moral judgment of cruelty nor the evocation of disgust. I argue that the association of slaughter with disgust entails an ethical judgement wherein an act of violence is imbued with an affect of repulsion and horror. Crucial to understanding this ethics of disgust is a consideration of how the discourse of non-violence produces on abstract ethical claim that necessarily castes a disdainful eye on supposedly violent others. This paper suggests that the de-linking of violence, cruelty and disgust is crucial for a nuanced theorization of multispecies interaction and slaughter.