Seminars

"Eating meat or not? The keys to understanding your own and others' reasoning"

In this seminar filled with interactive choice and thought experiments, attention will be paid to the consumer-citizen issue, to animal welfare, environmental impact and health, helping you to understand why some people turn vegetarian and others remain meat-eaters - no matter what your own choice in the matter is. The second half of the interactive seminar is designed to make you aware of the different forces present within all of us that urge us to do one thing in one situation and another thing in a different situation, and helps shed light on cognitive dissonance and the various strategic ways people have of dealing with the icky feeling associated with it. In short, if you feel lost in the plurality of arguments regarding animal husbandry and its consequences and want to get a clear overview of the logic of different ways of reasoning and behaviour, this workshop is for you.

Reviews of the seminar:

Noelle Aarts, Professor Socio-Ecological Interactions, Institute for Science in Society, Radboud University, Nijmegen:

"Hanneke Nijland organizes workshops to discuss why some people turn vegetarian and others prefer to remain meat-eaters. Through interactive choice and thought experiments attention is paid to perceptions of animal welfare, environmental impact and health in different socio-cultural contexts. Hanneke’s workshops provide with a safe environment in which participants are invited to reflect their own consumption behaviour. The workshops are of great relevance to consider relevant aspects of our consumption behaviour, and, also important, they are great fun!"

Maite van Gerwen, Centre for Sustainable Animal Stewardship (CenSAS):

"Ik volgde de workshop ‘understanding animal farming and related consumption behaviour’ van Hanneke op een wetenschappelijk congres over dierenwelzijn in de veehouderij. Middels een gedachtenexperiment, uitgevoerd in een leuk interactief rollenspel, maakten we als deelnemers kennis met de verschillende interne drijvers die invloed hebben op het gedrag van mensen. In het bijzonder wanneer het gaat over het wel of niet consumeren van vlees.

Hanneke is een prettig en open persoon waarbij ik me als deelnemer van de workshop snel op mijn gemak voelde. Haar aanpak is vernieuwend en zorgt ervoor dat je als deelnemer nieuwe inzichten krijgt. Door te ervaren welke verschillende interne drijvers bijdragen aan het gedrag en keuzes van mensen, ga je beter begrijpen waarom verschillende mensen zo verschillende denken over het wel of niet eten van vlees. Deze verkregen inzichten helpen om het gesprek over dierlijke productie op een constructievere manier te voeren. Voor professionals die zich bezighouden met vraagstukken en maatschappelijke discussies over dierlijke productie en het doden van dieren voor consumptie is deze workshop zeker de moeite waard om te volgen."

Content:

The content of the seminar depends on how much time is available.

- A concise version involves learning to understand and work with our own and others’ ways of reasoning about the (non) acceptance of keeping and killing animals for consumption purposes, and the different behavioural consequences associated with it (veg/bio/local/regular/etc.). This is done through an interactive choice experiment and discussion thereof, followed by introducing a framework for understanding the logic and consistency of the various arguments.

- A broader version also takes into account the goals and considerations that are at play in the inner decision-making process leading up to these lines of argument and behaviours, giving insight into, for example, the consumer-citizen issue. Through an interactive theatre experiment, the various inner goals that interact are brought into awareness. In addition, this expansion of the workshop not only provides deepened insight into how cognitive dissonance arises, but also provides insight-through-experience in how people communicate strategically to deal with this dissonance.

Interested? Contact me for more details.