Blurring the Line Between Property and Personhood

On Barbara King's blog, fellow anthropologist Dafna Shir-Vertesh writes about witnessing the ritual of kapparot, in which Orthodox Jews sometimes swing chickens around their heads to, some say, symbolically transfer their sins to the animals, which are then slaughtered:

The custom of kapparot reveals from the very location of the ritual that the animal is treated as property, as meat, as an object. The chickens used for the ritual are no different from those consumed for their meat, and their worth is determined by their weight. The entire setting not only resembles, but is, a slaughterhouse, including the same machinery and accessories.
At the same time, the chicken is used as a substitute for a human person, even if only metaphorically and temporarily, as clearly stated in the ceremonial text. In this role as substitute, the animal itself is endowed with a certain sense of personhood. This is most evident in the choice of the chicken according to its sex; the animal is now more than an objectified piece of meat—it is a gendered creature, and its identity as male or female parallels the gendered identity of the human. The "personhood" of the chicken is also implied in the covering of the blood—a form of burial.
Animals in Judaism, as is shown in this brief illustration, do not fit into the subject/object divide. The practice of expiation helps to articulate a vague notion of personhood that allows a certain, limited, incorporation of animals.