The afterlives of the lively commodity: Life-worlds, death-worlds, rotting-worlds

This article engages with Rosemary-Claire Collard and Jessica Dempsey's theory of lively commodities in a discussion of cows raised for dairy exchanged in farmed-animal auctions. Taking their theorization of the lively commodity as a starting point to better understand the commodification of nonhuman life, I propose an extension of this work that attends to a continuum of commodity forms understood through the life and death of the cow. Cows raised for dairy move through the auction yard as a site of capitalist exchange as lively, soon-to-be-dead, and once-living commodities, their value determined by the stage of their life-course and their bodily condition. As such, the auction can be understood as a landscape of life-worlds, where the cow's liveliness determines her value; and death-worlds and rotting-worlds, where the afterlives of the lively commodity are extracted as capital. Ultimately, the article calls for an upending of the commodification of nonhuman life and a new imaginary of the kinds of life-worlds that are possible beyond logics of capital.

Automated summary

This article discusses the theory of lively commodities and applies it to the exchange of dairy cows, emphasizing the continuity of commodity forms and the different states of cows in auctions. By analyzing the performance of cows in auctions from various perspectives, it points out the impact of commodification on nonhuman life and calls for a change in this situation.