本文論證實驗室中動物的「痛苦」不只是高度主觀的感覺,更是不同科技、價值與生理組裝而成的不確定結果。以Putra Malaysia大學清真研究所為主角,我探討科學家如何與為何在特定時刻將「痛」與「苦」脫鉤,並與主流肉類科學所隱蔽的價值預設協商。在一連串人—非人動物互動中,動物與人類一樣,成為特定的「生物文化共養物種」:牠們的特性呈現在由科學與宗教中介的實驗反應之上;牠們的身體一方面是長時期橫跨數洲的人類育種結果,另一方面則由不同的技術與價值組裝而有了Mol所謂的「多重身體」。接著,動物的實驗反應將決定科學家提供宗教法學者何種科學建議,後者將因此暫停或重啟與紐澳之間的肉品貿易,甚至改變紐澳業者屠宰作業流程的實質內容。如此,「痛苦」的研究提醒我們,多重本體論與社會建構論未必互斥;我們甚至可能追隨不同物種在持續變遷的科學知識與文化脈絡下與人互動的長期共變,並將市場、農場與實驗室,都視為是動物的「生物文化棲息地」(biocultural habitat)。
This paper explores the ways in which pain is not merely "subjective" but also constitutes uncertain things resulting from different assemblages of technology, values, and physicality. Featuring the Halal Product Research Institute at University of Putra Malaysia, its scientists, and the animals they study, I explore how and why, at a particular time, halal-conscious Malaysian scientists began shifting the focus of their experiments from insensibility (to pain) to an objectification of pain and stress. I argue that this shift has exposed the hidden values behind mainstream meat science. In the series of human-animal interactions to which they are subjected, farm animals can be understood to be biocultural species as much as we are. Their newly-revealed traits emerge in their responses to the scientifically and religiously arranged experiments of the Institute; their bodies are the living materialization of long-term breeding and standardization across continents, and each animal has multiple bodies due to different combinations of technologies and values. Animals' responses to experiments influence the scientific advisers of religious scholars who issue fatwas, which determines the status of Australia and New Zealand's meat trade with Malaysia as well as the slaughtering methods used. In this vein, the mutable boundaries of laboratories bring humans, farms, slaughterhouses and dinner tables all into an interrelated biocultural habitat.