Vive la révolution animal! Using storytelling to explore prefigurative practices in consumer activism

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper discusses how a consumer social movement employs prefigurative practices to resist a dominant market logic and drive market changes in the here and now. We based our research on one year of ethnographic fieldwork with vegetarian and animal welfare activists embedded in a cultural milieu that predominantly supports the consumption of animal products. We used the storytelling method for the description and data analysis. Our findings reveal that activists challenge the market logic of animal abuse in three ways. First, they work to revolutionise the so-called meat culture. Second, they pro-actively demand laws that protect animal rights. Third, they establish singular modes of community-based exchange that detach themselves from the doxa of the consumption of animal products. By opposing the mainstream culture, the mainstream policy and the mainstream marketplace, these activists develop influential arenas of consumption that resemble their ideal world and impact the market as a whole.