190 N Taylor and H Fraser animals, is often difficult Coupled with the fact that human–animal studies is still a relatively recent development, this might explain why there are so few empirical studies of slaughterhouses that attempt to centralise the experience of the animals Developing Knowledge from Ethnographies of the Slaughterhouse Ethnography can also be used to expose slaughterhouse abuse perpetrated against animals, including acts that abide by slaughterhouse processing protocols In other words, it is not simply a question of ensuring slaughterhouse workers not enact unusually cruel behaviours but of questioning the legitimacy of the very nature of their work Ethnographies can help bring to the surface some of the finer details of abuse With other forms of publicly exposing otherwise hidden and normalised issues, including a variety methods of video-based activism, these documents can help integrate reasons with emotions for a more holistic witnessing to violence This is important because humans can hide behind technologies, from factory farming and mass human genocide In Working undercover in a Slaughterhouse, (Soloman 2012) Timothy Pachirat explains what he hoped to learn by becoming a meat processer in a North American slaughterhouse, Pachirat: I wanted to understand how massive processes of violence become normalized in modern society, and I wanted to so from the perspective of those who work in the slaughterhouse My hunch was that close attention to how the work of industrialized killing is performed might illuminate not only how the realities of industrialized animal slaughter are made tolerable, but also the way distance and concealment operate in analogous social processes: war executed by volunteer armies; the subcontracting of organized terror to mercenaries; and the violence underlying the manufacturing of thousands of items and components we make contact with in our everyday lives Rather than ethics of use, an emphasis may also be placed on training people in the efficient use of the chosen machine, such as how to best use a gas chamber, or in the case of ‘meat processing’, a bolt gun, a hock cutter or a hide puller