Absent Referent - Ethics

Ethics

The vegan feminist author Carol J. Adams was the first to politicize the concept of the absent referent. In her 1990 book The Sexual Politics of Meat, she explains a psycho-social detachment that occurs between the consumer and the "Other" when people eat meat. She writes :

Behind every meal of meat is an absence: the death of the animal whose place the meat takes. The "absent referent" is that which separates the meat eater from the animal and the animal from the end product. The function of the absent referent is to keep our "meat" separated from any idea that she or he was once an animal, to keep the "moo" or "cluck" or "baa" away from the meat, to keep something from being seen as having been someone.

Adams also identified how women are made absent referents in a patriarchal culture.

In a variety of political contexts, the "absent referent" is a phrase used to call attention to some group or constituency that the author feels is being unjustly ignored. This usage of the phrase appears to arise out of Frankfurt School or deconstructionist terminology, and is usually associated with the political Left. For example, in a 2001 paper entitled The Sexual Politics of Sneakers: "Common Ground" and Absent-Referent Stories in the Nike Debate, David M. Boje -- who was directly influenced by Adams's articulation of a politicized absent referent -- argues that there is an absent referent in the debate between Nike and its critics, "namely, the workers themselves."