[ Gold Award ]
JOVELYN M. CANTINA
Article ID: sjahss-1-11-3-15-23
Read more»
Veg(an) Tales: Vegan Identity Making in the United States
Keywords:
veganism, identity construction, Vegan Society, Vegans in United StatesAbstract
Approaching veganism through the lens of race and class provides an interesting perspective and alternate understanding of the meaning of the diet and accessibility for marginalized groups in the U.S. and the way U.S. capitalism affects its mainstream construction and value. The anti-hegemonic foundational principles of veganism are the antithesis to the hegemonic foundational principles of United States culture, causing great tensions in the perception of veganism. Attributes of Christianity reproduce and naturalize dominant ideologies that support speciesism and anthropocentrism, which work to normalize the manipulation and exploitation of non-human animal bodies and livelihoods. These tensions manifest in stereotyping as a method of delegitimizing the movements’ deeper purposes, making identity-making complicated. Positing veganism in the current capitalist framework adds another layer of nuance because of the methods in which products are available and marketed; understanding aspects of consumption and the breadth of the economic incentives involved aid in grasping the mainstreaming of veganism and the predominant media representations that center the white experience, resulting in the erasure of other cultural and racial experiences.
Downloads
Download data is not yet available.
References
Abbate, C. (2021). The Epistemology of Meat-Eating. Social Epistemology, 35(1), 67 84. https://doi.org/10.1080/02691728.2020.1771794 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/02691728.2020.1771794
Adams, C. J. (1990). The sexual politics of meat: A feminist-vegetarian critical theory (20th century ed.). New York, NY: The Continuum Publishing Company.
Adelman, M., & Ruggi, L. (2016). The sociology of the body. Current Sociology, 64(6), 907 930. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392115596561 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392115596561
Aiswarya, G.S. (2019) Veganism, An Elitist Diet?: A critique. Addendum, (3), 1, 27-31.
Arvin, M. ,Tuck, E. and Morrill, A. (2013) Decolonizing Feminism: Challenging Connections between Settler Colonialism and Heteropatriarchy. Feminist Formations, 25(1), 8-34 https://doi.org/10.1353/ff.2013.0006 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/ff.2013.0006
Carter, B., & Charles, N. (2018). "The animal challenge to sociology." European Journal of Social Theory, 21(1), 79-97. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368431016681305 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1368431016681305
Catton and Dunlap. (1978). Environmental Sociology: A New Paradigm. American Sociological Association, 3 (1), 41-49.
Cherry, E. (2006). Veganism as a Cultural Movement: A Relational Approach. Social Movement Studies, 5(2), 155-170. https://doi.org/10.1080/14742830600807543 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14742830600807543
Cherry, E. (2014). I was a Teenage Vegan: Motivation and Maintenance of Lifestyle Movements. Sociological Inquiry, 85(1), 55-74. https://doi.org/10.1111/soin.12061 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/soin.12061
Chuck, C., Fernandes, S. Hyers, L. (2016). Awakening to the politics of food: Politicized diet as social identity. Appetite, 107, 425-436. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2016.08.106 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2016.08.106
Clark, Dylan. 2004. "The Raw and the Rotten: Punk Cuisine," Ethnology, 43(1), 19-31. https://doi.org/10.2307/3773853 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/3773853
Cooksey-Stowers, K., Schwartz, M. B., & Brownell, K. D. (2017). Food Swamps Predict Obesity Rates Better Than Food Deserts in the United States. International journal of environmental research and public health, 14(11), 1366. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14111366 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14111366
Devinney, Timothy & Auger, Pat & Eckhardt, Giana. (2009). The Appeal and Reality of Ethical Consumerism.
Featherstone, M. (1991) Consumer Culture and Postmodernism. London: Sage Publications.
Fiddes, Nick. (1991). Meat. A Natural Symbol. London: Routledge.
Flinn, M., Geary, D., Ward, C. (2005). Ecological dominance, social competition, and coalitionary arms races: Why humans evolved extraordinary intelligence. Evolution and Human Behavior, 26(1), 10-46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2004.08.005 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2004.08.005
Fominaya, C. (2010). Creating Cohesion From Diversity: The Challenge of Collective Identity Formation in the Global Justice Movement. Sociological Inquiry, 80(3),377-404. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-682X.2010.00339.x
Gabriel, Y. & Lang, T. (2006). The unmanageable consumer. Los Angeles: Sage Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446213049 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446213049
Gheihman, N. (2021). Veganism as a lifestyle movement. Sociology Compass, 15, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12877 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12877
Goh, R. B. H. (2006). Religion and Non-hierarchy. Theory, Culture & Society, 23(2-3), 448-450. https://doi.org/10.1177/026327640602300282 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/026327640602300282
Greenebaum, J. (2018). Vegans of color: managing visible and invisible stigmas. Food, Culture & Society, 21(5), 680-697. https://doi.org/10.1080/15528014.2018.1512285 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/15528014.2018.1512285
Guthman, Julie. (2003). Fast food/organic food: reflexive tastes and the making of 'yuppie chow'. Social & Cultural Geography, 4(1), 45-58. https://doi.org/10.1080/1464936032000049306 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1464936032000049306
Harper, A. B. (2009). Sistah vegan: Black female vegans speak on food, identity, health, and society. Lantern Books.
He, J. , Evans, N. , Liu, H. and Shao, S. (2020) A review of research on plant- based meat alternatives: Driving forces, history, manufacturing, and consumer attitudes. Comprehensive Review of Food Science and Food Safety. (19) 2639- 2656. https://doi.org/10.1111/1541-4337.12610 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1541-4337.12610
Jallinoja , P , Vinnari , M., & Niva , M. (2020). Veganism and Plant-Based Eating: Analysis of Interplay Between Discursive Strategies and Lifestyle Political Consumerism, in M Boström, M Micheletti & P Oosterveer (eds) , Oxford Handbook of Political Consumerism . Oxford Handbooks , Oxford University Press , New York , pp. 157-179.
Johnson, J. A. (2011). Hegans: An examination of the emerging male vegan). Mankato: Minnesota State University.
Johnston, J., & Baumann, S. (2015). Foodies. Democracy and distinction in the gourmet foodscape. New York: Routledge.
Ko, A. and Ko, S. (2017). Aphro-ism: Essays on Pop Culture, Feminism, and Black Veganism from Two Sisters. Lantern Books.
Lewin, P., Williams, J. (2009). The Ideology and Practice of Authenticity in Punk Subculture. Pp. 65-83 in Authenticity in Self, Culture and Society, edited by Phillip Vannini, J. Patrick Williams. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.
Mycek, M. (2018). Meatless meals and masculinity: How veg* men explain their plant-based diets, Food and Foodways, 26(3), 223-245. https://doi.org/10.1080/07409710.2017.1420355 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/07409710.2017.1420355
Oliver, C. (2021): Vegan world-making in meat-centric society: the embodied geographies of veganism, Social & Cultural Geography, https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2021.1975164 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2021.1975164
Parker, Evan. (2018). Perceived Benefits and Barriers to the Adoption of Veganism (Master's Thesis). Lenoir-Rhyne University, North Carolina.
Pistor, K. (2021). The Myth of Green Capitalism. Society of Popular Democracy: AMASS, 26(1), 16-18.
Sage, C. (2014). Making and un-making meat: cultural boundaries, environmental thresholds and dietary transgressions. In Michael Goodman and Colin Sage (Eds.), Food transgressions: making sense of contemporary food politics (pp. 181-203). London:Routledge https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315582702-9 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315582702-9
Scales, I. (2017). Green Capitalism. ResearchGate, The International Encyclopedia of Geography: People, the Earth, Environment, and Technology Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118786352.wbieg0488 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118786352.wbieg0488
Schnaiberg, A., & Gould, K. A. (1994). Environment and society: The enduring conflict. New York: St. Martin's.
Schor, Juliet B. 1999. "What's Wrong with Consumer Society?" in Consuming Desires: Consumption, Culture, and the Pursuit of Happiness (Roger Rosenblatt, editor). Island Press, Washington, DC.
Sexton, A., Garnett, T., and Lorimer, J. (2022). Vegan food geographies and the rise of Big Veganism, Progress in Human Geography, 46(2), 605-628. https://doi.org/10.1177/03091325211051021 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/03091325211051021
Shilling, C. (2003). The body and social theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446215470 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446215470
Shewmake, S. (2020). Being the vegan in the room: Perspectives on carnism, navigating stigma, and social deviance (Order No. 27834558). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global; Publicly Available Content Database. (2456497766).
Siebertz, M., Schroter, F. A., Portele, C., & Jansen, P. (2022). Affective explicit and implicit attitudes towards vegetarian and vegan food consumption: The role of mindfulness. Appetite, 169, 105831. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2021.105831 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2021.105831
Simons, J., Vierboom, C., Klink-Lehmann, J., Härlen, I., & Hartmann, M. (2021). Vegetarianism/Veganism: A Way to Feel Good. Sustainability (Basel, Switzerland), 13(7), 3618. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13073618 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/su13073618
Singer, P. (2009). Speciesism and Moral Status. Metaphilosophy, 40(3-4), 567- 581. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9973.2009.01608.x DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9973.2009.01608.x
Siuen, A., Li-Jun, J., Marks, M., Zhang, Z. (2017). Two Sides of Emotion: Exploring Positivity and Negativity in Six Basic Emotions across Cultures. Frontiers in Psychology, 8 (610), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00610 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00610
Skinazi, S. (2019). Animal people: Freaks, elitists, fanatics, and haters in U.S. discourses about veganism (1995-2019) (Order No. 13899692). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (2282037136)
Smelser and Baltes (2001). Analytic Induction, in International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Available at http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/katz/pubs/Analytic_Induction.pdf
Smolski, A. R. (2019). Stemming the Exploitation of Immigrant Farm Labor. Contexts, 18(2), 70-71. https://doi.org/10.1177/1536504219854727 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1536504219854727
Steffensen, Sune Vork & Fill, Alwin. (2014). Ecolinguistics: The state of the art and future horizons. Language Sciences, 41, 6-25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2013.08.003 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2013.08.003
Stein, G.L., Cavanaugh, A., Castro-Schilo, L., Mejia, Y.M. & Plunkett, S. (2019). Making my family proud: The unique contribution of familism pride to the psychological adjustment of Latinx emerging adults. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology 25(2), 188-198. https://doi.org/10.1037/cdp0000223 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/cdp0000223
Stepaniak, J. & Messina,V. (1998). The Vegan Sourcebook. New York City: McGraw Hill.
Stewart, I., & Lacassagne, M.-F. (2005). Social representations as a diagnostic tool for identifying cultural and other group differences. Psychology and Marketing, 22(9), 721-738. https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.20081 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.20081
Stibbe, Arran (2014) An Ecolinguistic Approach to Critical Discourse Studies. Critical Discourse Studies, 11(1), 117-128. https://doi.org/10.1080/17405904.2013.845789 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17405904.2013.845789
Storz, M. (2021). What makes a plant-based diet? A review of current concepts and proposal for a standardized plant-based dietary intervention checklist. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41430-021-01023-z DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41430-021-01023-z
"The New Food Fights: U.S. Public Divides Over Food Science." The Pew Research Center. Retrieved at https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2016/12/01/the-new-food-fights/
The Vegan Society. (2017). Definition of Veganism. The Vegan Society. Available from: http://www.vegansociety.com/defintionof veganism/why.aspx (accessed January 2021).
Vivero-Pol, J. (2017). Food as Commons or Commodity? Exploring the Links between Normative Valuations and Agency in Food Transition. Sustainability 9(442), 1-23. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9030442 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/su9030442
"Who are America"s Vegans and Vegetarians" Statista. Retrieved from 80 https://www.statista.com/chart/14989/who-are-americas-vegans-and-vegetarians/
Williams, P. (2006). Authentic Identities: Straightedge Subculture, Music, and the Internet. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 35(2), 173-200. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891241605285100 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0891241605285100
Published on: 03-06-2022
Also Available On
Note: Third-party indexing sometime takes time. Please wait one week or two for indexing. Validate this article's Schema Markup on Schema.org
How to Cite
Samantha McIntyre. (2022). Veg(an) Tales: Vegan Identity Making in the United States. Sprin Journal of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, 1(06), 282–293. https://doi.org/10.55559/sjahss.v1i06.30
Issue
Section
Research Article
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Samantha McIntyre
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors contributing to this journal retain the copyright of their articles but agree to publish their articles under the terms of the Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) allowing third parties to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, and to remix, transform, and build upon the material, for any purpose, even commercially, under the condition that appropriate credit is given, that a link to the license is provided, and that they indicate if changes were made. They may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses them or their use.
