["They always think you're a killer"-slaughterhouse workers' reactions to moral stigma].

Abstract

Slaughterhouse work has a bad reputation and many slaughterhouse workers experience moral stigmatization, although meat consumption is the dominant diet in Western societies. So far, moral stigmatization of slaughterhouse workers has not been analyzed systematically. The article answers the following research questions: Which coping strategies regarding moral stigmatization can be found among slaughterhouse workers and how do these strategies relate to hegemonic narratives about their job? The article answers the research questions using concepts from sociological theories of culture, stigma and dirty work and is based on a qualitative content analysis of 13 problem-centered interviews with workers from six German slaughterhouses. The analysis showed that slaughterhouse workers are responding to moral stigmatization by questioning the cultural ideas on which stigmatization is based and by arguing for the validity of their own cultural ideas about "slaughter animals". The interviewed slaughterhouse workers also use rigid group boundaries to delegitimize the authority of external actors to judge slaughterhouse work. The article is innovative because it systematically analyzes how slaughterhouse workers cope with moral stigmatization.