Vegan Movement Research Articles

Black vegan rhetoric: race, healing, and conflict in Black women’s blog posts

ABSTRACT Making intersectional interventions within ecofeminism and rhetorical studies, this essay examines Black women’s vegan rhetoric on the website Black Vegans Rock! We argue that Black women’s vegan rhetoric includes two primary themes. First, their vegan rhetoric reveals how Black women find healing and love through veganism. In a world that shows little compassion for their needs, Black women turn to veganism to embrace radical acts of self-love and heal from trauma caused by misogynoir. Second, their vegan rhetoric underscores the challenges of Black women’s self-identification. Black women must navigate the whiteness of vegan spaces and restrictive social norms involving their body and hair, creating hurdles for Black women’s existence in both mainstream (white) vegan movements and Black communities. Through our analysis, we chart Black women’s decolonial ecological practices, which continue to go substantially understudied in ecofeminist and rhetorical studies scholarship.

WHICH FRAME FOR WHAT GROUP? UNDERSTANDING DIFFERENTIAL FRAME RESONANCE THROUGH STANDPOINT: A CASE STUDY OF THE VEGAN MOVEMENT

Innovative methods are enhancing our ability to measure the impact of framing on public perception, yet our understanding of the factors influencing frame resonance remains incomplete. This study investigates the differential effects of frames on diverse groups, proposing that both social positioning and the cultural context, alongside the qualities of the frames themselves, are significant. Drawing upon framing theory and feminist standpoint theories, I examine the vegan movement to understand the immediate impact of frames and social locations on their resonance. I employ an intersectional approach to analyze varying responses across gendered racial demographics, especially in response to radical narratives, using data from a new national survey of 498 United States participants. The findings show that individuals facing multiple forms of marginalization are more inclined to respond to frames that challenge existing power structures than those with multiple privileges. This suggests the critical role of standpoint in evaluating the validity of claims, highlighting the complex ways in which frames resonate across different social locations.

Social movements as agents of change: Fighting intersectional food inequalities, building food as webs of life

What does the diversity of social movements and food initiatives tell us about processes of social change? I argue that they offer a productive analytical lens to observe social change because they identify injustices and dynamics of inequalities in the food system and are actively engaged in transforming these. Alternative local food initiatives react to the environmental impacts of globalized food relations; food sovereignty movements highlight class inequalities and power asymmetries in the food system that affect people’s rights to culturally appropriate foodways; food justice movements denounce institutional racism; feminist movements fight persistent gender inequalities from food production to consumption; vegan movements defend animal rights. These are often mapped onto different world regions, with food justice movements more present in the US; food sovereignty movements louder in the Global South; feminist food movements more active in Latin America; and local food movements commonly in the Global North. This article brings together diverse strands of activism and research on social inequalities related to food under the conceptual umbrella of food inequalities. In addition to concept building, it contributes to a sociology of food studies by mapping the geopolitics of knowledge about social change behind the growing mobilization around food issues.

Can Multiple Attributes of Vegan Restaurants Affect the Behavioral Intentions by Customer Psychological Factors?

Over the past decade, there has been an increased interest in veganism in several nations across the world. In 2021, there were around 79 million vegans. While veganism is growing, it still covers only 1% of the global population. But if the diet keeps its steady growth rate, it's predicted to increase to one in 10 people within the next 10 years. However, in addition to the traditional, though poorly studied, multiple attributes ascribed to vegan restaurants, there may be other factors influencing the approach intentions of vegan restaurant customers. Within this context, this study investigated the psychological resilience associated with customer engagement (identification, enthusiasm, attention, absorption, and interaction) with the vegan movement for Korean vegan customers. The analysis was conducted using SPSS 22.0 and AMOS 22.0. The results revealed that numerous attributes ascribed to vegan restaurants positively affected customer engagement, especially identification, and strongly influenced psychological resilience as well. However, the identification customer engagement factor did not significantly affect the approach intentions of vegan restaurant customers. The study results suggested that when eliciting customer engagement to increase approach intentions toward vegan restaurants, it is necessary to emphasize customer psychological resilience, enthusiasm, attention, absorption, and interaction. This study contributes to food and consumer behavior literature on the approach intentions toward vegan restaurants.

Militant, annoying and sexy: a corpus-based study of representations of vegans in the British press

ABSTRACT This article examines discourse representations of vegans in UK newspapers, comparing broadsheets with tabloids published between 2016 and 2020. Taking a corpus-based approach to CDA, we identify a series of discourses, some of which overlap between the broadsheets and tabloids while others are particular to one format or the other. Vegans tend to be evaluated negatively in this context, portrayed as violent, hypocritical, pushy and irresponsible when it comes to their (and their children’s) health. Such representations are characteristic of the tabloids in particular, whereas broadsheets provide more balanced coverage, with a greater propensity to present counter-discourses and to provide page space to airing the first-hand perspectives of vegans themselves. In the paper, we make recommendations as to how coverage can achieve better balance, to the benefit of the vegan movement and – by extension – the wellbeing of humans, other animals, and the environment.

Moralistic stereotyping of vegans: The role of dietary motivation and advocacy status

Ambivalent attitudes exist toward vegans: While people may admire vegans' moral aims and commitment, they may also derogate vegans for seeming arrogant and overcommitted. These latter negative perceptions may undermine the effectiveness of efforts to reduce meat consumption for health, animal-welfare, and sustainability benefits. In the present research, we investigated the role of a vegan's motivation (animal ethics vs. health) in moralized attitudes toward vegans among omnivorous participants through two preregistered studies. In Study 1 (N = 390), we found that a vegan advocate motivated by animal ethics (vs. health) was seen as more moral but not as more arrogantly overcommitted. In Study 2 (N = 1177), we found that animal ethics (vs. health) vegans were seen as both more arrogantly committed and more morally committed, but that relative moral commitment perceptions were attenuated when vegans were described as actively advocating. Both advocating (vs. non-advocating) vegans and animal ethics (vs. health) vegans were generally seen as less socially attractive by omnivores due to stronger attributions of arrogant overcommitment, and a lower social attractiveness was associated with a lower willingness to eat less animal products. Our findings inform ongoing debates within the vegan movement about the effectiveness of signaling moral commitment in promoting plant-based diets.

A Recipe for Heganism? Masculinity, Meat-Avoidance and the Cookbook

Veganism and plant-based diets have grown exponentially in popularity in the UK in recent years. Despite this overall growth in popularity, however, there remains a gender disparity amongst vegans, with men remaining under-represented amongst those identifying as vegan. The increased popularity of veganism and plant-based diets has both resulted in, and been boosted by, a recent surge in the number of vegan and plant-based cookbooks being published to the UK market. This article offers a qualitative textual analysis of three vegan and/or plant-based cookbooks by male authors published to the UK market in 2018. This analysis suggests new ways of thinking about the roles of food and diet in constructing and inscribing masculine identities, and the power that the vegan movement, in its broadest sense, has to either reify or challenge prescribed and restrictive masculinities as it seeks to promote veganism and plant-based diets.

Veganism 2.0: Gastromania, nutrition, and digital communication

The vegan population has risen significantly over the past decade, and is expected to continue increasing. Social media are believed to have played a major role in such a rise. According to a Google study (2018), veganism started to spread markedly in 2012, the same year that Instagram became popular, and has then grown in correlation with the expansion of the social network (with over 88 million #vegan posts out of a billion monthly active users and more than 500 million people using the platform daily today). Since 2016 conversations around veganism have increased also on Twitter, reaching nearly 20 million Tweets in 2018 and registering a further growth of 70% in 2019. Moreover, the number of Google searches for veganism has spiked from a popularity rating of just 17 out of 100 in 2008 to 88 in 2018. Functioning both as platforms for sharing and commenting on information and as effective channels for proselytizing, these and other social media have evidently extended the boundaries of the vegan movement, making it become one of the biggest contemporary food trends. This paper aims at identifying and describing the main cultural transformations and forms of life promoted by “veganism 2.0”, based on a semiotic approach particularly attentive to the analysis of the narrative level and the patemic dimension. To this purpose, the intersections between the so-called “gastromania” and other trends characterising contemporary foodspheres, such as “gastro-anomy” and the “ideology of nutritionism” are taken into account, paying particular attention to the gastronomic discourse in present-day digital mediascapes and the complex dynamics characterising them.

Jain Veganism: Ancient Wisdom, New Opportunities

This article seeks to elevate contemporary Jain voices calling for the adoption of a vegan lifestyle as a sign of solidarity with the transnational vegan movement and its animal rights, environmental protection, and health aspirations. Just as important, however, this article also seeks to present some of the unique features of contemporary Jain veganism, including, most specifically, Jain veganism as an ascetic practice aimed at the embodiment of non-violence (ahiṃsā), the eradication (nirjarā) of karma, and the liberation (mokṣa) of the Self (jīva). These are distinctive features of Jain veganism often overlooked and yet worthy of our attention. We begin the article with a brief discussion of transnational veganism and Jain veganism’s place within this global movement. This is followed by an overview of Jain karma theory as it appears in the Tattvārtha Sūtra, an authoritative diasporic Jain text. Next, we present two case studies of contemporary Jain expressions of veganism: (1) The UK-based organization known as “Jain Vegans” and (2) The US-based organization known as “Vegan Jains”. Both organizations have found new opportunities in transnational veganism to practice and embody the virtue of ahiṃsā as well as Jain karma theory. As we will show, though both organizations share the animal, human, and environmental protection aspirations found in transnational veganism, Jain Vegans and Vegan Jains simultaneously promote ahiṃsā to varying degrees in service of the Jain path to liberation. We conclude the article with a brief reconsideration of Marcus Banks’s diasporic “three tendencies” model to demonstrate how contemporary manifestations of Jain veganism compel us to revisit our understanding of diasporic expressions of Jain religious belief and praxis.

Social movements as agents of change: Fighting intersectional food inequalities, building food as webs of life

What does the diversity of social movements and food initiatives tell us about processes of social change? I argue that they offer a productive analytical lens to observe social change because they identify injustices and dynamics of inequalities in the food system and are actively engaged in transforming these. Alternative local food initiatives react to the environmental impacts of globalized food relations; food sovereignty movements highlight class inequalities and power asymmetries in the food system that affect people’s rights to culturally appropriate foodways; food justice movements denounce institutional racism; feminist movements fight persistent gender inequalities from food production to consumption; vegan movements defend animal rights. These are often mapped onto different world regions, with food justice movements more present in the US; food sovereignty movements louder in the Global South; feminist food movements more active in Latin America; and local food movements commonly in the Global North. This article brings together diverse strands of activism and research on social inequalities related to food under the conceptual umbrella of food inequalities. In addition to concept building, it contributes to a sociology of food studies by mapping the geopolitics of knowledge about social change behind the growing mobilization around food issues.

Take politics off the table: A study of Italian youth’s self-managed dairy restriction and healthy consumerism

The last 20 years have been characterized by very different dynamics: massive reduction of milk and, to a lesser extent, dairy consumption; fewer positive attitudes towards milk; no reclaims for affordable, public dairy production; the development of a large conversation about the presumed risks associated with the intake of lactose; and semantic battles on non-dairy ‘milk’ alternatives. These new attitudes haven’t been systematically studied. We explore here the links between milk/dairy consumption, health concerns, and trust in medical expertise. Through an online survey of highly educated youth in Italy (N=378) we have investigated: milk and dairy consumption; attitudes towards items carried out by vegan movements; attitudes towards medical expertise and trust in counseling by general practitioners. Results show that anti-speciesist and vegan movements are very little known among consumers. Data display very limited impact of the ideas and concepts of anti-milk movements within our sample. The results highlight that milk consumption shrinking is due to health concern and an unfavorable perception of dangerous consequences in lactose intake, and additionally to a general distrust towards medical expertise and evidence-based arguments. Indeed, we observe a tendency to self-diagnose intolerance/allergies, questioning the role of physicians and medical knowledge in advising for dietary choices among highly educated youth. The analysis of the patterns of consumption and motives clearly shows that health considerations, not politics, are behind the Italian youth’s dairy restrictions. Healthy consumerism emerges as a concept fitting better than political consumerism for interpreting our results.

Identity as a barrier: claiming universality as a strategy in the Israeli vegan movement

ABSTRACT Broad social identities like ethnicity and class are not only resources mobilized by social movements. Relational analysis reveals they can also be barriers constraining movement growth, as symbolic affinities with particular social identities may construct movement membership and support as incompatible with other identities. This mechanism may reproduce the particular demographics of social movements regardless of their universal messages and aspirations. Strategic deidentification may be crucial in struggles for social change. A study of the Israeli vegan animal advocacy movement during a time of diversification and growth is used to explore strategies movements use to dissociate themselves from particular social identities, both at the movement strategy level and the individual identity work level. Several ‘deidentification strategies’ are identified, including celebrating untypical identities, redefining the boundaries of the political, revising tactics and collective action frames, and becoming a field to mirror social space.

Political Veganism: An Empirical Analysis of Vegans’ Motives, Aims, and Political Engagement

Scholars increasingly argue that the vegan lifestyle reflects a broader pattern of how political behavior is becoming more individualized and private. Veganism is particularly viewed as an unconventional form of political participation, as it is conducted to address ethical concerns and to change market practices. However, this argumentation lacks detailed empirical data. By means of an original standardized survey of a purposive sample of 648 vegans in Switzerland, this study shows that (1) a vast majority of vegans is politically motivated and aims to induce change in society at large; (2) they are highly engaged in a broad variety of political activities; and (3) politically motivated vegans live vegan more strictly and are more politically active than vegans motivated by personal concerns. This study contributes to the understanding of political participation in current times, and the insights gained may prove useful to vegan movement groups or the food industry.

Older, greener, and wiser: charting the experiences of older women in the American vegan movement

ABSTRACT Vegan feminist theory argues that women and other marginalized groups frequently experience discrimination in the vegan movement given its failure to apply intersectional praxis. We interviewed a small sample of older vegan women in America, hypothesizing that they would report feeling particularly vulnerable to discrimination given the vegan movement’s patriarchal leanings and its heavy focus on health and vitality. Our results, however, are mixed. Some viewed older age as an asset that strengthened their ability to commit to veganism, while others reported stressed social interactions, underrepresentation in the movement, and lack of support by doctors.

Vegans of color: managing visible and invisible stigmas

ABSTRACTAssociating veganism with whiteness and privilege is not only wrong, it marks and marginalizes vegans of color in the vegan movement and makes veganism unappealing to people of color. This qualitative study employs Goffman’s (1953) theories to explain how vegans of color experience both visible and invisible stigma from mainstream vegan movements and from their ethnic communities. I emphasize three reasons why my participants believe people of color are resistant to veganism: it is linked with whiteness, affiliated with privilege, and deemed incompatible with ethnicity. My participants engage in a process of differentiation and normalization from white veganism to destigmatize veganism to communities of color.

Why Milk Consumption is the Bigger Problem: Ethical Implications and Deaths per Calorie Created of Milk Compared to Meat Production

Pictures of sides of beef, hanging from overhead rails in refrigerated warehouses and meat-processing plants, often leave a feeling of unease. These pictures provoke the notion that human beings have no right to inflict suffering and death on other sentient beings for the sole purpose of providing food. However, the ethical analysis conducted in this study shows that meat production, if animal welfare and deaths per calorie created are considered, is less of a pressing problem compared to the production of milk. While meat can be provided with minimal suffering to animals, the consumption of milk is always associated with considerable suffering during the dairy cow’s life-span and the lives of their offspring. Moreover, more bovine deaths per unit of calorific value created are associated with milk production compared to meat production. The vegan movement, which is currently growing, wishes to minimise farm animal suffering as much as possible. However, if a vegan diet is not possible, consumers should make an informed decision about the products they consume. Replacement of the calories obtained from meat with those from milk and dairy products is not rational if animal welfare is considered.

From Rice Eaters to Soy Boys: Race, Gender, and Tropes of ‘Plant Food Masculinity’

Tropes of ‘effeminized’ masculinity have long been bound up with a plant-based diet, dating back to the ‘effeminate rice eater’ stereotype used to justify 19th-century colonialism in Asia to the altright’s use of the term ‘soy boy’ on Twitter and other social media today to call out men they perceive to be weak, effeminate, and politically correct (Gambert and Linne). This article explores tropes of ‘plant food masculinity’ throughout history, focusing on how while they have embodied different social, cultural, and political identities, they all serve as a tool to construct an archetypal masculine ideal. The analysis draws on a wide range of material from the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as a qualitative media analysis of #SoyBoy tweets posted between October 2010 and August 2018. It argues that, given that we live in a world steeped in ‘coloniality’ (Grosfoguel), it is no wonder that sexist and racist colonial-era tropes are alive and well today, packaged in a 21st-century digital culture form. In the digital politics of the alt-right, dairy milk has become a symbol for racial purity, connecting pseudo-scientific claims about milk, lactose tolerance, race, and masculinity. The term ‘soy boy’ provides a discursive counterpoint, relying heavily on colonial-era stereotypes of so-called ‘effeminate’ plant eating, often linked to Asian and other non-white cultures. The article concludes by arguing that for those working to reframe centuries-old norms and tropes related to race, sex, and humankind’s relationship to other animals, part of that work may take place online using the tools of social media and reappropriation of derogatory language. However, ultimately the power of social media to change norms and minds depends on the power of the social movements driving those changes; success is likely to only come through a robust anti-racist, color-conscious, and gender-conscious vegan movement (Harper).

Introducing Vegan Studies

According to a Memorandum of Association of the Vegan Society, to be vegan is to ascribe to a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals. A 2006 estimate placed the number of vegans in the United States somewhere around 1.7 million, and with “vegan movement organizations counting their membership in the tens of thousands, there are arguably more practicing vegans in the USA than there are members of vegan organizations” (Cherry 156). Furthermore, since 2006, the number of vegans in the UK rose by 360 percent (Quinn). As an identity category and a lifestyle, veganism constitutes a subject position that allows for environmentally responsible consumer choices that are viewed, particularly in the west, as oppositional to and disruptive of a capitalist system that is largely dependent upon big agriculture. Furthermore, veganism has become increasingly visible via celebrity endorsements and universally acknowledged health benefits, and veganism and vegan characters (as well as tacit vegan politics1) are increasingly present in works of art and literature in ways that insist upon their recognition as worthy of ecocritical inquiry. To that end, this special cluster on Vegan Studies offers four essays that theorize vegans and veganism within the context of environmental literature and film.

Trump Veganism: A Political Survey of American Vegans in the Era of Identity Politics

Often stereotyped as being apathetic to the human suffering, the American vegan movement has historically failed to build alliances with other social justice movements. As intersectional feminism gains a foothold in the movement and external political crises challenge the movement’s frame of reference, the role that identity plays in movement progress has become a serious concern. Using the 2016 election as a flashpoint, this article considers if the identity backlash characterized by the Trump campaign finds parallels in the American vegan movement. A survey of 287 American vegans finds limited evidence of Trump veganism, defined here as a single-issue focus on speciesism that rejects the relevance of human-experienced systems of oppression. However, respondents do find that movement diversity efforts are insufficient, especially when controlling for race and gender. Most respondents were ethically-motivated vegans, liberal voters, and intersectionally-oriented activists who reported multiple engagements with various leftist movements. Only four percent of respondents voted Trump, while 14% agreed with or were neutral about Trump’s campaign promise to put “America first”. Those who were vegan for reasons of self-interest and had been vegan for less than a year were significantly more likely to support Trump’s conservative agenda and were slightly less likely to participate in other social movements.

(Extra)ordinary activism: veganism and the shaping of hemeratopias

Purpose Literature on social movements increasingly identifies everyday life as significant to understand political practices and activism. However, scholars have retained a major bias towards movement mobilisation and collective action, often relegating the everyday at the margins of social movements. While there have been notable exceptions, with studies of prefigurative activism and everyday practices of social change, they have usually focussed on alternative community spaces such as autonomous social centres and protest camps, and paid less attention to “ordinary” practices and spaces of activism. The purpose of this paper is to address these problems by suggesting that everyday life may be central to the production of activist spaces and the action of social movements. Design/methodology/approach Drawing upon ethnography methods, interviews with vegan activists, an on-line survey of supporters of vegan movements and an examination of on-line vegan forums, it seeks to analyse the practices of the vegan movement in France. Findings This paper attempts to demonstrate that prefigurative activism and seemingly banal practices may be central to strategies for social change. Drawing on an anarchist perspective on activism, it further suggests that activism and everyday life should not be studied in isolation from each other but as mutually constitutive in the creation of everyday alternative spaces – hemeratopias. Originality/value This paper adds to the literature on activism and social movements by offering a more complex picture of the spatial politics at work in social movements and a better understanding of individual action and mobilisation.