Qualitative Research in Psychology

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Slaughterhouse workers, bullfighters, and

cockfighters in Ecuador: paradoxical moral and
affective action on non-human animals

Juan José Ponce León & Ivan Darío Ávila Gaitán

To cite this article: Juan José Ponce León & Ivan Darío Ávila Gaitán (15 Mar 2024):
Slaughterhouse workers, bullfighters, and cockfighters in Ecuador: paradoxical moral
and affective action on non-human animals, Qualitative Research in Psychology, DOI:
10.1080/14780887.2024.2322986

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14780887.2024.2322986

Published online: 15 Mar 2024.

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QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN PSYCHOLOGY
https://doi.org/10.1080/14780887.2024.2322986

Slaughterhouse workers, bullfighters, and cockfighters in

Ecuador: paradoxical moral and affective action on
non-human animals
a b
Juan José Ponce León and Ivan Darío Ávila Gaitán
a
Facultad de Psicología, Departamento de Psicología Social y Metodología, Universidad Autónoma de
Madrid, Madrid, Spain; bDepartamento de Filosofía, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogota,
Colombia

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
The process of killing non-human animals demands certain Bullfighters; cockfighters;
psychosocial, affective, and moral processes. In the case of so- slaughterhouse workers;
called ‘death-saturated environments’, psychic numbing and speciesism; violence
systematic desensitisation related to violent attitudes and beha­
viours against non-human animals acquire contradictory dimen­
sions. To understand these processes in depth, this article
proposes a theoretical perspective based on the social psychol­
ogy of human-animal relations. Empirically, the study examines
the experiences, attitudes, and worldviews of men in Ecuador
whose jobs involve inflicting pain and death on animals and
focuses on the ways in which these subjects deal with ‘moral
stress’ and ‘the caring-killing paradox’. It examines how slaugh­
terhouse workers, bullfighters, and cockfighters establish
ambivalent relationships with the animals, characterised by
a certain paradoxical moral and affective action. Eleven in-
depth interviews, lasting one to three hours, were conducted
for this purpose, and are analysed through the qualitative data
analysis software Atlas.ti, using thematic analysis as a qualitative
research technique.

Introduction
The relationships that we have historically established with non-human ani­
mals have been essentially relationships of power and domination,1 for exam­
ple, on farms, in laboratories and in public ‘entertainment’ spaces such as
circuses, zoos, bullrings or cockpits. At the same time, in a rather contra­
dictory way, in most cases these relationships have been conditioned by
affection and by relationships of care and feeding towards these same
exploited animals. Arluke (1994) called this contradiction the ‘caring-killing
paradox’, defining it as a paradoxical moral and affective action.

CONTACT Juan José Ponce León juanj.ponce@estudiante.uam.es Facultad de Psicología, Departamento de

Psicología Social y Metodología, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, St. Iván Pavlov, 6, Fuencarral-El Pardo, Madrid
28049, Spain
1
This article presents advances from the doctoral thesis of the main author.
© 2024 Taylor & Francis
2 J. J. PONCE LEÓN AND I. D. ÁVILA GAITÁN

This paradox is associated with what Rollin (1987) called ‘moral stress’,
characterised by a specific type of stress and job dissatisfaction in people who
work with animals, which arises when ‘people are required to perform actions
they have difficulty justifying on moral grounds’ (Rohlf and Bennett 2005,
202). This triggers mechanisms that seek to alleviate such stress and that
function as an affective armour, hindering or preventing the subject feeling
any type of moral concern and, therefore, psychoaffective suffering.
Although the majority of researchers who kill animals do not identify as
animal people, they still present a type of selective attachment (Arluke 1988).
This differentiation in interspecies bonding seeks to protect them from the
psychological consequences that would entail from having to kill an animal
with whom they have developed an emotional relationship. Similarly, in the
case of slaughterhouse workers, a type of empathic suffering has been identi­
fied, which means that the fact of being intimately involved in the intentional
killing of animals may have the consequence that the workers find themselves
affected by the very suffering they inflict (Baran, Rogelberg, and Clausen 2016,
364). Thus, this type of work naturally demands a certain psychological
distancing through a process of systematic desensitisation, which will result
in the numbing of empathy (Dillard 2007; Emhan et al. 2009; Joy 2002; Leibler,
Janulewicz, and Perry 2017). This has been called ‘perpetration-induced trau­
matic stress’ (MacNair 2002), both because of the psychological consequences
and moral stigma and because of the serious risks and accidents at work that
these workers suffer (Baran, Rogelberg, and Clausen 2016; Joy 2002; Lander
et al. 2016; Tirloni et al. 2012).
In this context, this research seeks to study the way in which the caring-
killing paradox is configured in male workers whose work involves inflicting
pain and death on non-human animals, and was conducted with three groups,
slaughterhouse workers, cockfighters and bullfighters, from Ecuador. The
study of these psychological and affective mechanisms was intertwined with
the constitution of ideological devices based on speciesism that would allow
them to strengthen and even vindicate their practices marked by violence
against animals. Although the three practices express the caring-killing para­
dox and are some of the most visible in the Ecuadorian context, people’s
experiences cannot be equated in a reductionist manner. Each practice, as
argued, involves different psychological coping processes. For slaughterers, the
tension is much higher than in bullfighters and cockfighters, and they develop
particular rituals, such as drinking the blood of animals. Bullfighters and
cockfighters, to the extent that they receive reinforcement of their masculinity
associated with values such as honour, manage tensions more easily.
Additionally, unlike slaughterers, bullfighters and cockfighters occupy
a significantly different social position. Slaughterers perform a job with little
recognition and, as workers, are objectified (Wadiwel 2023). The death of the
animal and its transformation into merchandise is not under their control, and
 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN PSYCHOLOGY 3

neither does it serve a function of subjectivation associated with virile values.

The differentiated production of subjects could be considered as the psycho­
logical and ideological correlate of biopolitical operations that are simulta­
neously necropolitical or ‘sovereign’ (Ávila 2013; Wadiwel 2015), as they
contribute to the differentiated shaping of the human and the animal and
the corresponding interplay of ‘giving life’ and ‘giving death.’
Speciesism is understood from its psychologising matrix as unfavourable
attitudes, emotions, beliefs, and behaviours based on belonging to a certain
species (Caviola, Everett, and Faber 2019). Speciesist prejudice is articulated
with other forms of discrimination (Kristof et al. 2019). Moreover, speciesism
operates at an institutional and structural level, and should not be understood
as a universal concept. For example, it intensifies in the modern-colonial
context and takes on specific forms in the Latin American context (Ponce
León 2021). It should be noted that this study does not focus on the socio­
logical, economic, or philosophical aspects of speciesism, already addressed by
other authors (Matsuoka and Sorenson 2018; Taylor and Twine 2014), but
rather on the ideological and psychological dimensions, which have been little
studied within this field. For this reason, this study assumes a situated point of
view, and aims to contribute to the field of the critical psychology of human-
animal relations (Adams 2018), by focusing attention on the psychological and
affective mechanisms and responses that these workers use to process the
possible moral stress associated with their work.

Positionality statement
We write as authors located in the Global South, particularly from Ecuadorian
and Colombian contexts. Both of us are gendered as white-mestizo men of
popular provenance and with family histories marked by rurality. The fact of
being white-mestizo men, with a certain history of family social ascent and
cultural capital, has allowed us to enter and have a place as faculty members
and researchers, although not without difficulties. Likewise, we have a long
history of involvement in left-wing political activities, anarchist tendencies,

Table 1. Sample composition.

Participants Type of killing Age Starting age
A. S Bullfighting 40 years 9 years
M. C Bullfighting 40 years Early childhood
G. A Bullfighting 52 years 21 years
L. N Slaughtering 54 years 18 years
V. G Slaughtering 67 years 24 years
M. N Slaughtering 48 years 15 years
H. G Slaughtering 32 years 12 years
A. M Cockfighting 47 years 7 years
E. J Cockfighting 54 years Early childhood
G. L Cockfighting 73 years Early childhood
J. P Cockfighting 53 years Early childhood
4 J. J. PONCE LEÓN AND I. D. ÁVILA GAITÁN

and animal advocacy organizations, including activities in animal shelters and

sanctuaries. This positionality, at least partially, has allowed us to contribute to
shaping the field of critical animal studies in Latin America.2

Methodology
Participants

The study sample included eleven Ecuadorian men, between 40 and 73 years
old (mean = 50.90). The bullfighters and cockfighters had been socialised in
their activity from early childhood, with the exception of one bullfighter who
started at the age of twenty-one, as illustrated in Table 1. These two groups
were of middle socio-economic status. The slaughterhouse workers, in turn,
were from highly impoverished sectors and began their trade at the age of
twelve. All participants had a minimum of twenty years involvement in the
work.
Initially, the selection of participants was based on theoretical sampling
principles (Charmaz 2006). The analytical decision behind this was to choose
men whose jobs involved perpetrating direct violence against animals in the
Ecuadorian context, specifically bullfighters, cockfighters and slaughterhouse
workers. The selection of these cases not only had great theoretical relevance,
as mentioned in the introduction, regarding the caring-killing paradox, but
also empirical support. Although it has been found that women working in
slaughterhouses have a greater propensity to express physical and verbal
aggression than men and, therefore, may experience equal psychological risk
from this type of work (Taylor, Signal, and Richards 2013), it has also been
argued that men may suffer more than women due to the repression of
affections and the tendency to hide feelings, a response related to traditional
masculinity (Porcher and Cousson-Gélie 2004). A link has been empirically
demonstrated between hegemonic masculinity and a predisposition to support
animal exploitation (Dhont and Hodson 2014; Dhont et al. 2014; Rothgerber
2013). It has also been found that males tend to be more involved in hunting,
animal abuse and cruelty, as well as bestiality (Herzog 2007). Therefore, due to
the marked masculinisation of this type of work, this research decided to focus
specifically on males, due to the analytical value behind the study of the
psychosocial processes of genderisation of interspecies relations and animal
exploitation practices.
The latter characteristic made the sample difficult to access (Heckathorn
2002), on the one hand, because the sampling frame was unknown and, on the
other, due to the socially stigmatised nature of these lives. Hence the need to
get into the field through key informants. The first contact was made through
2
We would like to thank Professor José Manuel Cárdenas for his careful reading of this text and the anonymous
reviewers for their comments that improved this article.
 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN PSYCHOLOGY 5

a veterinarian known to the main author, who has links with bullfighters and
ranchers. As from this first contact, the method used was snowball sampling,
due to the difficulty in the accessibility of the sample (Naderifar, Goli, and
Ghaljaie 2017). After the first attempt, it was relatively easy to connect other
workers, under the recommendation of the first contact.

Analytical approach

The qualitative study design followed a constructivist grounded theory

approach (Charmaz 2006), which aims to preserve the basic components of
the original grounded theory, without accepting its positivist starting point,
assuming a relativist epistemology and emphasising a reflective/diffractive
stance (Charmaz 2009; Haraway 1988). Therefore, this analytical approach is
significantly close to reflective thematic analysis (TA) (Braun and Clarke
2006). This opened up the possibility of generating situated knowledge
(Haraway 1988), constructed in a specific local and cultural environment.
These analytical approaches are reconciled by theoretical sensitivity and
reflexivity (Braun and Clarke 2021), in both cases taking distance from the
positivist paradigm. The strongest reason behind using an inductive method
like grounded theory for the qualitative study design along with thematic
analysis to approach the data is to explore these new research issues. This
analytical and methodological decision rested on the exploratory quality of
this study.

Procedure

Data collection was carried out through the in-depth interview technique. At
the beginning of each interview, socio-demographic information was collected
through closed-ended questions, including data about age, employment time,
and socio-economic status. Each interview focused on the experience and life
history of the informant related to his activity, emphasising the emotions and
moral feelings around the human-animal relationships that his job entails. The
in-depth interview is an intensive process that makes it possible to limit the
voice of those who investigate (Sarantakos 2013), and offer it to the partici­
pants, providing great flexibility to achieve quality information. Therefore, the
interviews were conducted as an open and non-directive conversation, with
the open introductory questions: ‘How did you get started in the business?’
and ‘What are the most relevant memories of your getting into the business?’
This enabled the main author of this study (JJPL), who conducted the inter­
views and developed the study design as part of his doctoral thesis, to receive
spontaneous responses that were then thematised to develop and permanently
adjust a flexible interview guide. The second author (IDAG) was responsible
for refining the analysis of the empirical data based on triangulation with
6 J. J. PONCE LEÓN AND I. D. ÁVILA GAITÁN

theory. The interviews took place in the homes or offices of the informants and
in three cases were conducted via video call. The interviews lasted from 1 to 3
hours and were transcribed in their entirety.

Data analysis
The material was processed using constant comparative analysis, which is one
of the basic components of grounded theory (Charmaz 2006). This is an
iterative process that helps identify a latent pattern in the perspectives of
multiple participants (Bowen 2006). This process facilitated the convergence
of themes, which, with the reflective perspective (Braun and Clarke 2021) that
was acquired, allowed a permanent dialogue to be established between the
analytical frameworks (‘moral stress’, ‘caring-killing paradox’) and the empiri­
cal images that emerged from the data, a comparative process that is known as
‘retroduction’ (Ragin 2007).
The analysis of the interviews was made through the Atlas.ti program.
Thematic analysis, as outlined by Braun and Clarke (2006), was employed to
analyse the transcribed data. This method proved particularly valuable in
identifying and describing patterns within the interviews. The transcripts
were meticulously examined to discern both surface-level and underlying
meanings. Concerning these transcriptions, we followed the recommended
steps for a proper analysis (Braun and Clarke 2021). The first step involved
becoming familiar with the data by carefully reading the interview transcripts
before the initial coding.
This initial coding was conducted through the software function that
enables the generation of free quotes (Woolf 2014) and the thematic units
were grouped into categories through two methods in the program, the in vivo
coding system and the creation of hyperlinks between the quotes. This process
favoured permanent comparison between the quotes and the codes, which
helped to polish the categories developed. As from the eighth interview, signs
of saturation were identified, at which point no new codes or categories
emerged (Bowen 2006). From there, following the principles of theoretical
sampling (Charmaz 2006), the subsequent interviews were refined to go
deeper and look for variations in the categories.

Ethical considerations
The interviews with the participants were scheduled after a first telephone
contact, in which the main author invited them to take part in the study. At the
beginning of the interviews, participants were fully informed about the pur­
pose of the research and how the data would be used. Their participation was
voluntary, and their consent was verbally informed and recorded. Prior to
 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN PSYCHOLOGY 7

initiating the study, the Research Ethics Committee of the first author`s
university approved the Research Plan.

Results
This research focused on the subjectivation processes of Ecuadorian men
within the framework of interspecies relationships, established in contexts
where pain and death are inflicted on animals. The categories below emerged
from the analysis of the way in which the participants describe the animals, the
practices around bullfighting, cockfights and slaughterhouses and the subjec­
tive construction they made around their activity.

“Lovers” and “passionate” about animals: between instrumental relationships

and ornamental affection
Bullfighters and cockfighters: pride, honesty, and bravery
The analysis of the interviews allowed us to locate a certain type of subjective
construction conditioned by the type of relationship that these subjects estab­
lish with the animals. Kalof (2014) divides ‘blood sports’, which involve
animals, into 1) male humans against male non-human animals, which
would include bullfighters and bullfighting, and 2) male animals against
male animals, which corresponds to cockfighters and cockfighting.
In the case of cockfighters and bullfighters, ‘love of animals’ and a type of
‘passion’ regarding bullfighting and cockfighting, respectively, are frequently
mentioned. This gives rise to a discourse that affirms a type of species ‘con­
servationism’. In these cases, assuming the role of ‘lover of brave bulls’ or
‘passionate about fine roosters’ implies a process of committed involvement
with these animals.
In the case of the cockfighters, this deep involvement marks the following
stages: mating,3 breeding, training, preparation, combat, and recuperation of
the cock after fights. According to the cockfighter J.P: ‘For me the cockfighter
is a person who loves his cocks; he is the one who takes care of his line of
animals and is the person in charge of creating a new line, or new blood for the
growth of the breeding farm’.
This type of material relationship implies an exercise of biopower and of
racialisation of the species (Ávila 2013), in which the life and death of these
animals is modelled and controlled. Breeding involves a process of classi­
fication and objectification for instrumental purposes. As the cockfighter
J. P remarks, regarding the implications of being a cockfighter: ‘You must
have knowledge of the growth or development of chickens, then you have
3
This involves carefully choosing the bloodline and genetic crosses of the cocks. The aim is to ensure the ‘best
lineage’.
8 J. J. PONCE LEÓN AND I. D. ÁVILA GAITÁN

to know how to classify the animals, because not all the animals end up
being valuable, like in any family, they can be brothers, but not all are the
same’.
In this way, techno-scientific devices and veterinary knowledge compose
a type of daily bond marked by instrumental reason. As J. P continues: ‘After
that you become a kind of veterinarian because you start caring for your
patient, which has wounds that, if not treated well, can become fatal’. In
turn, the animals are considered like children, formed, and modelled for
specific purposes, in this case combat. According to the cockfighter G. L:
‘(. . .) your baby turns out to be a boxer. What do you do? The baby has
grown, he’s ready to enter the ring.’ Likewise, J. P says: ‘that is, see that it goes
to training like a normal athlete’.
This is a process of ‘ontologisation’ of the activity designated by the human.
The cock is not just a cock, but a ‘fighting cock’ and the bull is a ‘fighting bull.’
But, above all, their lives matter and they deserve care within the parameters of
effectiveness and good performance in the activity. At the same time, the
cockfighter or bullfighter affirms himself as a human person through the
creative and moulding activity, where figures of paternity intersect with
those of technical, scientific, artistic, and artisanal creation.
Sometimes this preparation process seems to suggest certain degrees of
affection, but these may be associated more with a type of ornamental and
functional affection, similar to that which one might develop for a toy.
According to cockfighter A. M: ‘I don’t think anyone likes it – imagine that
we are children and we go out to play with our toy and it turns out that it loses,
they smash it with hammer blows in front of you.’ Like a toy, it makes sense
due to its functional and ornamental beauty, and it is associated with passivity,
while the human being, creator of toys, occupies the active position. However,
this kind of psychological and emotional closeness with the roosters enables
a kind of affective expression, related to their past and their life history (Young
2017).
In the case of bullfighters, emphasis is placed on the bullfighter’s training
with small bulls and progressively with larger and ‘brave’ animals. This
relationship contains intense emotional charges, according to the bullfighter
M. C: ‘We are people who are willing to give our lives for a real commitment of
intense feelings, love, passion, to do everything with humility and passion.’ To
the figure of the father who sees his (pro)created child grow and of the doctor,
technician, scientist or craftsman who moulds the body and behaviour, is
added that of the shepherd who not only cares for the life of his flock, but
also would be willing to make sacrifices for its health and life, which translates
into safeguarding good breeds.
Thus, this subjectivation process implies two intertwined relationships: a)
one which is material, containing a concrete everyday link through which
corporality and interaction give rise to a type of interspecies relationship, and
 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN PSYCHOLOGY 9

b) another which is symbolic, through which affects and representations are

distributed around the animal, activity/passivity, and male subjectivity.
As the bullfighter M. C describes:

I fought a bull that was magnificent. This thing happened to me and I tell you that it
becomes a friend and that you almost want to hug it, obviously you can’t hug it because
it’s going to catch you. But the president did not understand it that way and I had to kill
it. So at that moment of taking the sword, the only thing I asked for, sadly, was to kill it
well and quickly so that it would suffer as little as possible. But I did feel sorry that they
didn’t pardon it, because it was a cow bull, a bull worthy of being a stud.

These types of experiences that contain affective expressions about sadness

suppose a kind of admiration for the species or breed, through which the
cockfighter or bullfighter projects themselves onto the animal and, at the same
time, are distinguished from it and affirm themselves. The stereotypes
assigned to the cock or to the bull, such as bravery, courage, bravery, honour,
and dominance, are exalted and, in addition, form a type of selective attach­
ment that conditions the future of the animal’s life.
In the transcript above, a type of affective contradiction can be seen on the
part of the bullfighter, with a moral consideration at its core: a ‘worthy’ or
‘noble’ bull would not deserve to die. Similarly, the cockfighter
G. M comments: ‘He won all the fights in his life and didn’t lose one. He
lasted 13 years. He was an extraordinary cock. That cock had fans everywhere
(. . .). I was going to make him a tombstone. He’s buried round the back’. On
the other hand, animals that do not have these characteristics or show ‘cow­
ardice’ in the arena are discarded and finally destroyed. For their part, the ‘fine
cocks’ or ‘brave bulls’ may be pardoned and even move to the category of
‘pets’, exploited until old age as breeding studs. Thus, following Jones (2010),
roosters are conceived as a symbol of courage and as an extension of the
cockfighter’s own masculinity.
This characteristic regarding the ‘passion’ for the animals also let us identify
another typology, which marks an important distinction between good cock­
fighters, bullfighters or slaughterers and bad ones. This differentiation is
centred on the relationship that these men establish with the animals. For
example, in the case of cockfighters, a good one is one who not only comes to
the cockpit to bet but is also a breeder. As the cockfighter J. P declares: ‘Now,
being a cockfighter is not just a word, being a cockfighter involves many
things, for example, to be a complete cockfighter you have to know at least
how to cross your animals, to make the breed’.
In addition to this is learning to lose with dignity, and knowing when to
withdraw the animal from the fight and then tend to the cock’s wounds is also
part of being a ‘good cockfighter.’ This is how the cockfighter E. J describes it:
‘These are sporadic cases of people who are not cockfighters, I would say,
because when your cock loses, you have to pick it up and with the same love as
10 J. J. PONCE LEÓN AND I. D. ÁVILA GAITÁN

when it wins you have to take care of it, if it’s at the point of dying, it’s your job
to take care of it so it doesn’t die’.
In the case of the cockfighters, the characteristics that constitute their
subjectivity in terms of the activity and the relationship with their peers are
honesty, which is translated in their language as ‘being true to one’s word’, and
the pride and dignity of having raised a good cock. These qualities are put to
the test in the fight, as E. J continues: ‘The bad cockfighters are those who are
not prepared to lose with dignity, because as serious cockfighters in Ecuador
we always have that principle, first of all, “being true to one’s word”’.
In the case of bullfighters, a good one is the one who kills the bull in the
most ‘clean’, ‘dignified’ and ‘least bloodthirsty’ way possible. This also shows
the bullfighter’s expertise in his relationship with a ‘good bull’, which is
validated or not by the public in the bullring. As the bullfighter A. S says:
‘We try to create art with the bull’s charging and we also try to kill them in the
most dignified way possible, with a lot of risk.’ The bullfighter describes
a recognition of the bloody and cruel dimension of bullfighting, but they try
to qualify this by a performance that depends on the ‘professionalism’, ‘skill’
and ‘expertise’ of the bullfighter. Thus, male dominance over the animal
involves, following Kalof (2014), a ‘highly gendered performance that even­
tually emasculates the bull as the animal is worn to exhaustion’ (442).
Furthermore, the artistic dimension appears as one of the main justifications
for these dimensions that can be morally and emotionally uncomfortable. In
addition, A. S. mentions certain symbolic representations around bullfighting
as a ‘celebration of life’ and the affirmation of ‘intelligence and elegance’ on the
part of the men.
This section described a particular subjective construction around the ‘love
of animals’ and the ‘passion’ of these men, whose role (creator, doctor,
technician, scientist or craftsman) in the relationship consists in the modeling
and control of the life and death of animals. In this way, their subjectivity is
built around manly virtues, which mark a type of creative activity that modifies
nature. The stereotypes assigned to the cock and the bull exalt male dominance
and, in turn, allow apparent moral contradictions to be resolved, in which
affective responses of grief and sadness in the face of the loss of these animals
are more related to a type of ornamental, functional and instrumental
attachment.

Slaughterhouse workers: an “invisibilised and undervalued job”

In the case of slaughterhouse workers, due to a process of modernisation of
slaughterhouses and high rationalisation of slaughter practices, repeated refer­
ence is made to ‘avoiding animal abuse’, insisting on killing animals without
‘excessive cruelty’ and in an efficient, clean manner. Thus, the workers con­
figure a subjectivity that discursively affirms ‘being equal among all.’
 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN PSYCHOLOGY 11

According to slaughterhouse worker L. N.: ‘All the workers are the same, we all
kill well, we all do the job we have’.
It is important to mention that in the case of bullfighters and cockfighters,
their subjectivation process involves assuming ‘virile’, highly competitive and
‘noble’ virtues, such as bravery, courage, pride, honesty and dignity. These
virtues are projected onto the animals, and, in part, this is how it is decided
which lives deserve to be cared for and which discarded, without there ever
being an absolute equation between man and animal, since the former occu­
pies the place of creator, the latter of creature. The former is the artist, the
latter only participates through representations. As Adams (1990) would say,
the animal appears almost exclusively through its anthropomorphic represen­
tations (manly metaphors), and the complexity of animal life is absent. This
metaphorical structure of the absent referent enables bullfighters and cock­
fighters to subjectify themselves as male humans, while justifying violence
against animals and making it possible to alleviate the emotional tension
derived from having to care for and kill.
On the other hand, slaughterhouse workers claim to occupy a place of
equality with their peers. They do not compete with each other or exalt great
‘masculine virtues.’ In addition, they often refer to the extremely harsh con­
ditions of their work. The workers arrive out of necessity and stay for obliga­
tion, although some cannot tolerate these conditions, since the physical and
psychological risks are very high. For example, they mention suffering deep
cuts on their hands and arms from the sharp knives they use: ‘I have them too.
The ones I have (cuts on my arms) uff! The knives that passed sometimes
slipped. I think it’s here that I stuck it in me’ (L. N). They also describe pain in
their joints and limbs due to the cold, and serious accidents, such as when
a cow falls on them and breaks their back. As another worker, M. N, explains:
‘Some people leave because they can’t get used to the cold and to pushing the
meat around. As I explained, even if you push the animals well, they can fall
down. One fell on a colleague’s head, he moved to push it aside and the trolley
fell by itself, breaking his back’. Occupational risks and accidents in this type of
work, which differ from the physical and psychological risks of bullfighting
and cockfighting, have been widely documented (Dillard 2007; Emhan et al.
2009; Fitzgerald 2010; Glasscock et al. 2006; Kristensen 1991; Leibler,
Janulewicz, and Perry 2017; York 2004).
Despite this, the slaughterhouse workers who remain assume their trade as
a necessary job that has allowed them to survive in the face of their poverty. As
the worker M. N says: ‘I feel good with my work and I have managed to get
ahead with this job, it’s all I have.’ Anyway, M. N goes on to comment how
difficult it is to find other workers: ‘No one wants to be that. Nobody wants to
work in the slaughterhouse. People take this job if they really need it.’ The
workers assume their work as something ‘necessary for society’ and as
a profession that is ‘invisibilised and undervalued,’ as H. G says: ‘People are
12 J. J. PONCE LEÓN AND I. D. ÁVILA GAITÁN

not looking at what’s behind us, they are not seeing the slaughter process, what
you suffer every day, being there skinning the animals so that they can go to
a supermarket chain or butcher and the meat is ready.’
In contrast to the cockfighters and bullfighters, the slaughterhouse workers
seem to be just cogs in a machine whose functioning is assumed to be
necessary for society. The equality described in the work they perform
shows this. As Cudworth (2015) mentions, the species violence is inscribed
in a set of social relations that prioritise human interest and we would add,
except for slaughterhouse workers in the industry. Their killing the animal
does not bring them great economic or symbolic benefits, but it does bring
notable dangers. The only dignity derives from doing socially ‘necessary’ work
and to survive in an honest manner, which is nothing extraordinary. This
makes the psychological stress, coupled with the physical risks, more difficult
to cope with.

Mixed feelings and moral stress: eliminating the “bad breeds” and “effeminate”
behaviour of the animals
Speciesism is based on an objectifying relationship with animals. That is,
animals have value to the extent that they have a use. It is a process of
exploitation that is accompanied by the ontologisation of the function
attributed to the animal. In other words, the existence of animals is reduced
to their functionality. Those animals that are non-functional are simply
discarded. Thus, when a cock turns out, for example, to have a ‘bad genetic
line’, which means that it does not fight but flees during the fight, its entire
lineage is killed.
The emergence of a fighting cock that runs contradicts the stereotype
of cocks as inherently aggressive. Now, as the cock represents ‘manly
virtues’, eliminating an ‘effeminate’ breed is essential for the cockfighter
to affirm himself symbolically as a man and creator of good breeds. In
this case, the animals are not only removed from the discourse and
marginalised, as Kalof and Fitzgerald (2003) studied in the hunting
magazines, but their entire genetic line is killed. Elimination of the ‘bad
breed’ is essential for the purification and perfection of both humans and
animals.
The cockfighter A. M, in response to the concern he feels regarding the
injuries and possible death of the cock in the fight, describes the possibility of
using another type of knife, so that the cocks do not die:
For me there are mixed feelings. First, the part of the affection that I feel for the animal.
The fight can be very hard. Yours can be killed or seriously injured, and if it’s not yours,
it’s the rival. (. . .) Apart from that there is money involved. There are people who don’t
care, they have the finances, they don’t care about losing, but I do (. . .). It’s a shame,
a sadness that something you did, that you see, that you enjoy, having to let go of it, but
 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN PSYCHOLOGY 13

you get a bit used to it. And since I breed, then I kind of compensate; new ones come,
I use part of what I sell to buy another reproducer and that way you make up a little the
batch of birds.

This quote is important because, while the cockfighter shows a kind of concern
for the life of the cock, his words seem to concentrate this concern on the
financial loss that this entails. For this reason, he later refers to the ‘compensa­
tion’ that he himself can make as a breeder. Here the ‘sadness and sorrow’ at
the loss of these cocks appears more like the loss of an object. In this case the
cocks can be represented as disposable and replaceable ‘toys’.
In this way, we see how the affection established with these animals is
entirely conditioned by the instrumental quality of the relationship. Thus,
J. P expresses the sadness he feels from killing the cocks that he himself raised,
but quickly resolves this emotional response declaring that the value of the
animal lies in its productivity and that, therefore, the answer to these problems
has to be pragmatic:

It is my own creation, seeing him from when he is little, seeing how he develops and then
with your own hand seeing how he is sacrificed, I can’t, it makes me very sad. But
unfortunately in this sport you have to be practical and unfortunately if it didn’t work, it
didn’t work. Because you can’t continue keeping an animal that is not productive. It’s
a matter of production. He has to be well and be good for him to have a normal life.

Contrary to popular belief, cockfights, and especially bullfights, are modern

activities. Bullfighting is far from medieval horse spearing, the Roman cult of
Mithras or the taurocatapsia practiced by the ancient Greeks and Minoans.
These are commercial spectacles that respond to productivity and instrumen­
tal criteria and are articulated with an equally modern conception of evolu­
tionary biology, according to which nature is changeable and capable of being
rationally improved in order to increase its power, its productivity. However,
in this industry the bullfighters and cockfighters are not placed in the position
of ordinary workers, but rather as owners of the means of production and
reproduction of life. This explains how its subjectivation appeals to artisanal,
artistic, pastoral and paternal elements, but mixed with references to veter­
inary medicine, biology and technology.
For their part, the slaughterhouse workers also demonstrate empathic
responses to the death of animals, but these are experienced in a very different
way. For example, the worker V. G describes how difficult it is for him to kill
animals when they show emotions such as sadness through tears:

I remember that when the animals died I felt a little nervous and trembled, because the
death depended on each animal. I don’t know if you have heard of animals or seen that
all breeds have doll-like faces. Before those animals reach where they are going to die,
they enter crying, with tears. And when they are already at the place to kill them, tears
come out and they cry. (. . .) I went outside and waited for someone else to kill it.
14 J. J. PONCE LEÓN AND I. D. ÁVILA GAITÁN

In the case of some slaughterhouse workers, their stories seem to suggest that,
as they do not relate to the animal in an excessively metaphorised and
anthropomorphic way associated with ‘manly virtues’, they are exposed to
the resulting psychological and physical complexity that is expressed in the
pain and anguish of the animal before dying. The relationship acquires an
intersubjective tone, where the animal is recognised not only as a projection of
masculine values, but as a being with its own life that it tries to preserve and
that expresses its pain.
The above makes it possible to recognise two distinctive characteristics of
this type of killing: on the one hand, the routinised and systematic nature
of this work, and on the other hand, the physical proximity of the killing,
which makes the process more personal (Baran, Rogelberg, and Clausen
2016), and demands a specific type of emotional management. This leads to
the workers having to undertake a process of habituation and desensitisa­
tion, along with the act of learning to manage their own fear or empathic
pain. Thus, continues V. G, who has been working as a butcher for more
than twenty years: ‘Even now it makes me sad (. . .). I go outside, I go
somewhere else. The sadness never ends, sadness hardens the person. Of
course, one has to lose the fear.’ The workers, then, must adapt their psyche
to the mechanical and repetitive work, which is consistent with their
position as ordinary workers. This has the potential, in any case, to allow
intersubjective relationships with the animals and not just from subject to
object, an issue that would explain why the work is psychologically so
difficult to bear.
In contrast, bullfighters describe a type of moral consideration mediated by
admiration of the animal, but only as long as it proves to be a ‘good bull
worthy of pardon.’ This can be interpreted as an extension of heterosexual
relations towards animals (Kalof, Fitzgerald, and Baralt 2004), which in this
case would include an anthropomorphised response of recognition to male
self-efficacy projected onto the ‘good bull’. This generates paradoxical
responses, such as that of M. C:

There are many mixed feelings (. . .) I would love for more bulls to be pardoned than
those that are pardoned. It happens that there are bulls that you see are very good,
especially when you are bullfighting and there is such a beautiful rapport with the animal
when you are bullfighting.

This transcript also highlights the protocol rationalisation of killing as a means

that permits guilt to be suspended. In this case, the regulation of bullfighting
resolves the moral stress and then the bullfighter is even given recognition and
validation by the bullring. This describes a weak empathic response to the
killing of these animals, because it is quickly resolved with the help of
rationalisation mechanisms that justify the activity. To relieve the psycholo­
gical stress, bullfighters have rationalisation mechanisms associated with the
 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN PSYCHOLOGY 15

modern mechanisation of the activity, in addition to the metaphorical projec­

tion of ‘manly virtues’ associated with their place in the commercial spectacle.
Both aspects allow them to discard certain lives without compromising their
mental integrity.
In contrast, slaughterhouse workers experience feelings of guilt that are
not resolved as quickly through the mechanisation of the activity. Their
process is much slower. In fact, the psychological consequences of the
intentional killing of animals in this type of ‘dirty work’ are deepened due
to the low social prestige of this type of activity (Baran, Rogelberg, and
Clausen 2016). These narratives even seem to suggest a greater type of
moral stress, associated with guilt and sadness on the part of the slaughter­
house workers compared to bullfighters and cockfighters. According to the
worker H. G.:

As you will understand, it is the fright of the animals or sometimes seeing how the
animals suffered, or seeing how the cows cried when the aim was bad. With the cows, it
made you cry too at the beginning, because it gave you a guilty conscience, you could say,
for having killed an animal (. . .) Of course, at the beginning it was also hard for you
because it’s an animal and, as you know, it’s like a dog that you have at home, you come
to appreciate it, you come to love it. And making an animal suffer also makes you feel
bad. At first no, you don’t like to come in and kill 100 or 200 cows that were clearly
suffering. There were times when they escaped from the stall and ran away, bleeding to
death and continuing to die wherever they bled.

Here there is a quite marked empathic disposition through the recognition of

the animals’ suffering, probably associated with the position of social subor­
dination both of the animals and of the workers themselves. It is interesting
that in this story this worker compares the cow with a dog, in relation to the
relatively egalitarian daily relationship that allows him to establish a bond of
affection and care.
However, slaughterhouse workers also develop rituals that allow them to
process the nerves and sadness that their work demands. This is particularly
important because, as was already said, they experience the act of killing
animals as something inevitable, which must be done given its ‘social utility.’
Thus, V. G describes the act of drinking the blood of the dying animal as
a means of managing the emotional challenges of this type of work.:

I love animals very much. I have had many. At first I felt very sad, knowing that I have to
make a living from this was a bit difficult. Sometimes I closed my eyes. (. . .) There is an
effective remedy (. . .) when I arrived I saw that some people were running when they saw
a really brave animal (. . .). They were used to running for the blood to drink it, that was
for the nerves. So because of that, I have also taken a little to see what happens (. . .). Then
I took the blood, the first time I almost vomited because I was disgusted by it. (. . .) So,
because of that I kept losing my fear, taking blood, when you want a little blood you take
a little bit for that little while.
16 J. J. PONCE LEÓN AND I. D. ÁVILA GAITÁN

This ritual describes a type of symbolic incorporation of the animal that

enables confirmation of the need for its sacrifice. In other words, the death
of the animal and its disposition for consumption is a source of properties
associated with human enhancement or perfection. The incorporation of
blood shows that the sacrifice is not in vain, that it is really necessary. The
worker incorporates a part of the ‘product of his work’, of the dead animal, and
confirms its usefulness first-hand. With this, the ‘magical’ properties of the
animal converted into a mere product or thing make it possible to avoid
a more egalitarian intersubjective relationship and, instead, to establish
a subject-object relationship, this time not metaphorised through ‘manly
virtues’, but rather a commercial fetishism mixed with elements from
Ecuadorian popular culture.
Bullfighters, occupying a different social position, even recognise the cruelty
behind slaughterhouses. As A. S comments: ‘It really is something strong,
I was once in a chicken processing plant and it seemed like the cruelest thing in
the world, I am sensitive to this type of things too. It’s not that we gloat in
blood and drink blood, those things that people will believe, I don’t know, they
are very far from the truth.’ For them, in fact, drinking blood is a sign of
irrationality or barbarism. Some bullfighters express a sensitive response to the
killing of animals by the meat industry and stress an important difference with
bullfighting. In this activity, the virile symbolic ritual, associated with
a privileged social position, makes possible a spectacular and artistic type of
killing that does not generate enough moral stress to abandon it.
In fact, in response to the opinion of outgroups perceived by the bullfighters
themselves, regarding their activity as something bloody, A. S needs to affirm
and defend his own sensitivity and status:

(. . .) As I tell you, after I go to the slaughterhouse, I don’t feel hungry for a day or two, it
doesn’t make me want to eat because the smell permeates me. In fact, when I returned
from the slaughterhouse I had to leave the clothes I had gone in outside because they
smelled very strongly of blood, of death and it was shocking.

For their part, slaughterhouse workers say they reject bullfights and cockfights.
As the slaughterhouse worker H. G remarks:

As I say, it is not nice to see that in a bullring they stick their rapiers in the animal and
leave it bleeding. We have had to skin fighting bulls, and when you skin them you are
stripping the animal, and you find the bullfighter’s dagger inside, broken inside the
animal. I have been raised with these animals since I was little and I don’t like to see them
suffer.

This worker emphasises the unnecessary suffering of animals in this type of

spectacle and also expresses an empathic cognitive response, through which he
can imagine the experience of the swords in the animal’s body. In a similar
way, he talks about cockfights: ‘It’s practically the same because they put spurs
 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN PSYCHOLOGY 17

on the roosters, they put those spikes on them, (. . .) They are making the
animals suffer’.
This section presents the paradox of caring-killing, in relation to a process
of virile affirmation of the masculinity of the cockfighters, which demands the
elimination of ‘effeminate’ strains of roosters. Both the cockfighters and the
bullfighters establish affection with these animals, but completely conditioned
by the instrumental quality of the relationship and by the stereotypes assigned
to these animals. The criteria of productivity and good performance determine
these relationships. The slaughterhouse workers face a type of moral stress that
requires a process of habituation and desensitisation, which in some cases is
not sufficient due to the intersubjective relationships they establish with the
animals.

Discussion and conclusions

Modern speciesism is expressed in spectacles such as bullfights, cockfights and
in the operation of slaughterhouses integrated into the so-called meat indus­
try. The three activities are part of the modern animal exploitation industry
and therefore are strongly rationalised, regulated or mechanised. This article
explored the processes of subjectivation and the psychic stress between the
killing-caring of bullfighters, cockfighters and slaughterhouse workers in these
social spaces.
Beyond the differences previously described in the literature, which distin­
guish between ‘blood sports’, divided into human males against non-human
animals and male animals against male animals (Kalof 2014), these types of
animal slaughter (bullfighting and cockfighting) have a component associated
with the culture, while the work of the slaughterers is related to a dirty,
stigmatised and low prestige job (Baran, Rogelberg, and Clausen 2016), but
in the opinion of the employees it is necessary, although not very well
recognised. On the other hand, the proximity and physical closeness to the
animals in the type of routinised and systematic killing of the slaughterers
conditions a different response to moral stress, compared to that of bullfigh­
ters and cockfighters. For all these features, we found that the three groups
manage this stress differently. Although they have in common that, to a certain
extent, they manage to alleviate the sadness and justify the pain and animal
death through the regulation, mechanisation or rationalisation of activities,
bullfighters and cockfighters, due to their social position, implement
a symbolic mechanism that works on the metaphorical projection of ‘manly
virtues’ in animals. This makes it possible for them to manage guilt when
eliminating ‘bad breeds’ (‘effeminate’ behavior, flight or lack of willingness to
fight), since their sacrifice purifies the animal race itself and allows the
reinforcement of values considered superior in the process of male human
subjectivation. In this way, this research contributes to the study of the
18 J. J. PONCE LEÓN AND I. D. ÁVILA GAITÁN

rationalisation processes that justify the objectification of animals (Hyers

2006; Joy 2002; Piazza et al. 2015), explaining how this male subjectivity is
configured in a situated way in a specific context. It also contributes to studies
on anthropomorphism (Epley et al. 2008) as a device for affirming dominant
masculinity.
In the case of slaughterhouse workers, animal sacrifice is perceived as
socially necessary, in a much more instrumental sense. Their activity is con­
ceived as useful, but not particularly noble, which is why it is not associated
with values such as pride, bravery or courage. Their subaltern social position
distances them from the ‘manly virtues’ of cockfighters and bullfighters and
makes them more inclined to experience a certain intersubjective relationship
with animals. For this reason, it is no coincidence that they acknowledge
crying or recognise that animals are beings that know that they have a life
and try to preserve it. The workers even come to perceive the activities of
bullfighters and cockfighters as cruel and unnecessary, while the latter are
sensitive about killing in slaughterhouses, and are even horrified by certain
behaviours of slaughterhouse workers, who, for example, have developed the
ritual of drinking the blood of the bull to acquire enough strength to be able to
endure the death and pain of the animal.
The ritual of drinking blood accelerates the necessary desensitisation
process by allowing the transition from an intersubjective relationship
with the animal to an instrumental subject-object relationship. The animal
goes from being a complex living being to a commodity that can be
consumed and that, as a fetish, has ‘magical properties’ such as providing
strength or vigour to continue with work. Thus, the worker becomes a cog
in the death machine, but at the same time subjectively distances himself
from the animal and makes it an object or commodity with fetishistic
properties, closely associated with popular culture developed within the
framework of a typically Latin American market economy. However, due
to their social position, the slaughterhouse workers’ exposure to physical
danger and psychological pain is much greater than that of bullfighters and
cockfighters. This means that the symbolic and rationalisation mechanisms
to confront the killing-caring paradox are often not sufficient, and aban­
doning the activity is common. Additionally, as they lack control over their
productive activity, the workers do not so easily construct their subjectivity
in relation to the idea of a properly creative activity.
In contrast, bullfighters and cockfighters associate their ‘noble’ values with
a self-creating activity through the racial manipulation of animal species. This
allows figures such as the creative father, the shepherd who cares, the veter­
inarian who heals, and the scientist, technician, artist or craftsman capable of
modeling life to appear in his symbolic universe. The class position of the
workers and the difference around social dominance and emotional paradoxes
with respect to bullfighters and cockfighters, allows an empirically more
 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN PSYCHOLOGY 19

complex qualitative perspective of the quantitative research on dehumanisa­

tion and relationships between social groups and interspecies (Costello and
Hodson 2010; Haslam and Loughnan 2014). In any case, slaughterhouse
workers, bullfighters and cockfighters need to ontologise the functions of
animals, reduce their complex and singular lives, to make their exploitation
and sacrifice psychically acceptable. This is how they manage to overcome the
caring-killing paradox.
This research aimed to investigate the psychosocial dimensions of three
social groups that kill animals; however, by selecting only male informants,
gender differences and the distribution of labour based on sex were not
addressed. Nor did we study paradigmatic cases mentioned by informants
that have been lightly studied, such as female bullfighters and transgender
cockfighters. Future research could also study the differences between those
who only raise ‘fighting bulls’ and ‘bullfighters’, or between cockfighters who
raise their roosters and those who only gamble on fights. As for slaughterhouse
workers, the difference between conventional slaughterers and kosher slaugh­
terers, who ritualise killing, was not addressed, thus omitting the religious
component from the analysis. Finally, the main limitation of this research may
lie in the fact that the three types of animal slaughter were analysed, which
limited the possibility of studying each group separately and in greater depth.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors
Juan José Ponce León is a clinical psychologist from the Universidad San Francisco de Quito.
He holds a master`s degree in political sociology from the Facultad Latinoamericana de
Ciencias Sociales. Currently, he is PhD student in Psychology at the Universidad Autónoma
de Madrid. He is a member of Instituto Latinoamericano de Estudios Críticos Animales
(ILECA), and part of the editorial staff of Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Críticos
Animales (RLECA). His main research interests are about Latin-American Critical Animal
Studies; Masculinities; Emotions, Body, Protest and Politics; Political Subjectivation and
Psychosocial dimensions of violence in human-animal relationships.
Iván Darío Ávila Gaitán holds a doctorate in philosophy from the University of the Andes, as
well as a master’s degree in philosophy and cultural studies from the same university. He
completed postdoctoral studies in philosophy at the University of San Buenaventura, focusing
on critical animal studies. Additionally, he holds a degree in Political Science from the National
University of Colombia. Currently, he is a member of the bioethics committee at the District
Institute for Animal Protection and Welfare, and he teaches at the Department of Political
Science at the National University of Colombia. He is also a faculty member of the master’s
program in rural development at UNAD in Bogotá, Colombia.
20 J. J. PONCE LEÓN AND I. D. ÁVILA GAITÁN

ORCID
Juan José Ponce León http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9588-7390
Ivan Darío Ávila Gaitán http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7318-4379

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