Melbourne, the food capital of Australia: human and animal encounters in the contact zone of tourism

Food and tourism inevitably go together on city holidays and in places where historical artefacts in the “new” cities of Australia are not the drawcard. There is an emphasis on Aboriginal culture (the oldest living culture in the world) in the Northern territories; walking and outdoor activity in Tasmania; Sydney has the iconic Opera House and Bondi beach; in Melbourne the tourist emphasis is on eating. Food may be the main reason for a “foodie” trip (Wilkinson, 2016) or just a sideline - in either case, it is of interest in terms of production, marketing, destination profiling, and sustainability. In this chapter we highlight the ethical issues involved in not only making a certain species a tourist attraction but also on making them “killable” (Haraway, 2008, p. 80). In the context of the Melbourne food and tourism industry we discuss some aspects of interspecies encounters that are often unspoken and invisible. These encounters take place in what Haraway (2008, p. 214) calls “contact zones.” These are sites where human and animal meet, are entangled, and have competing interests. In this chapter we refer to wild contact zones where animals are in their usual habitat and are not tamed or domesticated like pets or farm animals. The latter contact zone is where the subjugation of the animal in relation to the human is accepted and normalized.