Governmentality, consumption and speciesist violence: a discursive study of Sadia and Sadia Bio products

Abstract

This study proposes an analysis of the discursive practices involved in the production and commercialization of Sadia and Sadia Bio products. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s theory and Critical Animal Studies (CAS), the research discusses how discourses of ethics, animal welfare, and sustainability are mobilized to legitimize the consumption of non-human animals, while simultaneously shifting structural critique toward the sphere of individual choice. Based on an analysis of linguistic and visual elements present on product packaging and on the Sadia company website, the article advances the hypothesis that Sadia Bio chicken operates as a dispositif of governmentality that allows consumers to maintain speciesist practices under the appearance of moral responsibility. In this sense, the study seeks to contribute to debates on the regimes of truth that sustain contemporary speciesism and the increasing sophistication of mechanisms of animal desubjectification. The methodology is based on the analysis of discursive and visual elements drawn from physical packaging and the brand’s website, with particular attention to the omission of death and the aestheticization of animal life. The analysis reveals two coexisting regimes of truth: that of “conventional” meat, marked by desubjectification and the erasure of the animal, and that of “ethical” meat, associated with transparency and care. Both operate within a neoliberal market logic, producing distinct subjectivities and modulating guilt and responsibility in consumption practices. Through an interdisciplinary articulation between Foucauldian discursive studies and Critical Animal Studies, the analysis demonstrates how the food industry adapts to contemporary ethical demands without breaking with structural speciesism, offering moral alternatives that ensure the continuation of animal exploitation under new discursive forms.