Veganism’s Anti-Anthropocentric Capacity. A Critical Analysis of the Advocacy Discourse of Three Prominent Vegan Organisations
Abstract
Anthropocentrism has been identified as a root cause of nonhuman animal and intrahuman oppressions and the environmental crisis. Veganism has been celebrated as a philosophy and practice capable of undermining anthropocentrism, yet the anti-anthropocentric capacity of vegan advocacy is understudied. The current research provides a critical analysis of the online advocacy discourse of three prominent vegan organisations – The Vegan Society, PETA, and Viva! – elucidating areas of anthropocentric reinforcement and subversion in correspondence to the conceptual characteristics of anthropocentrism: human-centred narcissism and exceptionalism, the perceived human/animal dichotomy, and a corresponding moral hierarchy that exalts particular understandings of the “human” to the detriment of all considered other-than (Calarco 2014). Given the interconnectedness of nonhuman and human oppressions and importance of decentring the anthropocentric conception of the “human”, the intersectional strengths and shortcomings of the organisations’ vegan advocacy is additionally considered, with many areas of needed improvement being highlighted. The article contributes to research on vegan/nonhuman animal rights advocacy and social movement communication, and facilitates the future production of anti-anthropocentric, intersectional, vegan advocacy campaigns.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Adams, Carol J. 2015. The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory. New York: Bloomsbury Academic.
https://doi.org/10.5040/9781501312861
Aydın-Düzgit, Senem, and Bahar Rumelili. 2019. "Discourse Analysis: Strengths and Shortcomings". All Azimuth 8 (2): 285-392.
https://doi.org/10.20991/allazimuth.477300
Bolton, Benjamin. 2014. "Posthumanism and Animal Rights: Rethinking 'The Human', Rethinking the 'Self'". Animal Studies Journal 3 (2): 48-56.
Braun, Virginia, and Victoria Clarke. 2022. Thematic Analysis: A Practical Guide. London: SAGE.
https://doi.org/10.53841/bpsqmip.2022.1.33.46
Brueck, Julia Feliz. 2017. Veganism in an Oppressive World: A Vegans of Color Community Project. Wroclaw: Sanctuary Publishers.
Calarco, Matthew. 2008. Zoographies: The Question of the Animal From Heidegger to Derrida. New York: Columbia University Press.
Calarco, Matthew. 2014. "Being toward Meat: Anthropocentrism, Indistinction, and Veganism". Dialectical Anthropology 38 (4): 415-429.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10624-014-9349-y
Carrera, Michelle. 2017. "A Veganism for Us". In Veganism in an Oppressive World: A Vegans of Color Community Project, edited by Julia Feliz Brueck, 47-50. Wroclaw: Sanctuary Publishers.
Cavalieri, Paola. 2001. The Animal Question: Why Nonhuman Animals Deserve Human Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
https://doi.org/10.1093/0195143809.001.0001
Christopher, Allison, John P. Bartkowski, and Timothy Haverda. 2021. "Portraits of Veganism: A Comparative Discourse Analysis of a Second-Order Subculture". Societies 8 (3): 55-76.
https://doi.org/10.3390/soc8030055
Cole, Matthew, and Karen Morgan. 2011. "Vegaphobia: Derogatory Discourses of Veganism and the Reproduction of Speciesism in UK National NewsPapers". The British Journal of Sociology 62 (1): 134-153.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-4446.2010.01348.x
Cole, Matthew, and Kate Stewart. 2021. "(Mis)representing Veganism in Film and Television". In The Routledge Handbook of Vegan Studies, edited by Laura Wright, 319-332. Abingdon - Oxon: Routledge.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003020875-33
Constantine, Moe. 2020. "Oppressive Dichotomies: Fighting for Animals with Queer Liberation". In Queer and Trans Voices: Achieving Liberation through Consistent Anti-Oppression, edited by Julia Feliz Brueck and Zane McNeill, 63-70. [S.l.]: Sanctuary Publishers.
Crist, Eileen, and Helen Kopnina. 2014. "Unsettling Anthropocentrism". Dialectical Anthropology 38 (4): 387-396.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10624-014-9362-1
Dickstein, Jonathan, Jan Dutkiewicz, Jishnu Guha-Majumdar, and Drew Robert Winter. 2022. "Veganism as Left Praxis". Capitalism Nature Socialism 33 (3): 56-75.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10455752.2020.1837895
Fairclough, Norman. 2000. New Labour, New Language? London: Routledge.
Fairclough, Norman. 2001. Language and Power, 2nd edn. Harlow (Essex): Pearson Education Limited.
Francione, Gary L. 2020. Why Veganism Matters: The Moral Value of Animals. New York: Columbia University Press.
https://doi.org/10.7312/fran19960
Freeman, Carrie P. 2014. Framing Farming: Communication Strategies for Animal Rights. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
https://doi.org/10.1163/9789401211741
Freeman, Carrie P. 2020. The Human Animal Earthling Identity: Shared Values Unifying Human Rights, Animal Rights, and Environmental Movements. Athens (GE): University of Georgia Press.
https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvxhrmr1
Giraud, Eva Haifa. 2019. What Comes after Entanglement? Activism, Anthropocentrism, and an Ethics of Exclusion. London: Duke University Press.
https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478007159
Giraud, Eva Haifa. 2021. "The 'Posthumanists': Cary Wolfe and Donna Haraway". In The Routledge Handbook of Vegan Studies, edited by Laura Wright, 50-61. Abingdon - Oxon: Routledge.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003020875-6
Greenebaum, Jessica, and Brandon Dexter. 2021. "Vegan Men and Hybrid Masculinity". Journal of Gender Studies 27 (6): 637-648.
https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2017.1287064
Harper, A. Breeze. 2010. Sistah Vegan: Black Female Vegans Speak on Food, Identity, Health, and Society. New York: Lantern Books.
Heller, Kevin Jon. 1996. "Power, Subjectification and Resistance in Foucault". SubStance 25 (79): 78-110.
https://doi.org/10.2307/3685230
Jones, Robert C. 2016. "Veganisms". In Critical Perspectives on Veganism, edited by Jodey Castricano and Rasmus R. Simonsen, 15-38. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33419-6_2
Joy, Melanie. 2011. Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism. San Francisco: Conari Press.
Kirts, Leah. 2020. "Toward an Anti-Carceral Queer Veganism". In Queer and Trans Voices: Achieving Liberation through Consistent Anti-Oppression, edited by Julia Feliz Brueck and Zoie Zane McNeil, 215-223. [S.l.]: Sanctuary Publishers.
Loughnan, Steve, Brock Bastian, and Nick Haslam. 2014. "The Psychology of Eating Animals". Current Directions in Psychological Science 23 (2): 104-108.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721414525781
Lupinacci, John, and Alison Happel-Parkins. 2016. "(Un)Learning Anthropocentrism: An EcoJustice Framework for Teaching to Resist Human-Supremacy in Schools". In The Educational Significance of Human and Non-Human Animal Interactions: Blurring the Species Line, edited by Suzanne Rice and Anthony Gordon Rud, 13-30. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137505255_2
MacCormack, Patricia. 2020. The Ahuman Manifesto. London: Bloomsbury.
https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350090507.ch-006
Navarro, Marilisa C. 2021. "Radical Recipe: Veganism as Anti-Racism". In The Routledge Handbook of Vegan Studies, edited by Laura Wright, 282-294. Abingdon - Oxon: Routledge.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003020875-29
Nguyen, Hanh. 2019. Tongue Tied: Breaking the Language Barrier to Animal Liberation. New York: Lantern Books.
Nibert, David. 2012. "The Fire Next Time: The Coming Cost of Capitalism, Animal Oppression and Environmental Ruin". Journal of Human Rights and the Environment 3 (1): 141-158.
https://doi.org/10.4337/jhre.2012.01.06
PETA. 2023. About PETA. [13/03/2023].
https://www.peta.org/about-peta/
Plumwood, Val. 1993. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. London: Routledge.
Polish, Jennifer. 2016. "Decolonizing Veganism: On Resisting Vegan Whiteness and Racism". In Critical Perspectives on Veganism, edited by Jodey Castricano and Rasmus R. Simonsen, 373-391. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33419-6_17
Quinn, Emelia. 2021. "Vegan Studies and Queer Theory". In The Routledge Handbook of Vegan Studies, edited by Laura Wright, 261-271. Abingdon - Oxon: Routledge.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003020875-27
Rowley, Jeanette. 2016. "Human Rights Are Animal Rights: The Implications of Ethical Veganism for Human Rights". In Critical Perspectives on Veganism, edited by Jodey Castricano and Rasmus R. Simonsen, 67-92. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33419-6_4
Spiegel, Marjorie. 1988. The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery. London: Heretic Books.
Springmann, Marco, Michael A. Clark, Mike Rayner, Peter Scarborough, and Patrick Webb. 2021. "The Global and Regional Costs of Healthy and Sustainable Dietary Patterns: A Modelling Study". The Lancet Planetary Health 5 (11): 797-807.
https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(21)00251-5
The Vegan Society. 2022a. Definition of Veganism. [27/02/2023].
https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/definition-veganism
The Vegan Society. 2022b. History. [13/03/2023].
https://www.vegansociety.com/about-us/history
Torres, Bob. 2007. Making a Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights. Edinburgh: AK Press.
Trenkova, Lilia. 2020. "Conversations with Activists: Why Should LGBTQIA+ and Vegan Communities Work together to Fight Intersecting Oppressions?". In Queer and Trans Voices: Achieving Liberation Through Consistent Anti-Oppression, edited by Julia Feliz Brueck and Zane McNeill, 313-317. [S.l.]: Sanctuary Publishers.
Trigg, Robyn. 2021. "Intersectionality: An Alternative to Redrawing the Line in the Pursuit of Animal Rights". Ethics & the Environment 26 (2): 73-121.
https://doi.org/10.2979/ethicsenviro.26.2.04
Turner, Ryan. 2019. "Veganism: Ethics in Everyday Life". American Journal of Cultural Sociology 7 (1): 54-78.
https://doi.org/10.1057/s41290-017-0052-8
Twine, Richard. 2017. "A Practice Theory Framework for Understanding Vegan Transition". Animal Studies Journal 6 (2): 192-224.
Van Dijk, Teun A. 1993. "Analyzing Racism through Discourse Analysis: Some Methodological Reflections". In Race and Ethnicity in Research Methods, edited by John H. Stanfield and Rutledge M. Dennis, 92-134. London: SAGE.
Viva! 2023. WHO WE ARE. [13/03/2023].
https://viva.org.uk/about-us/who-we-are/
Weik von Mossner, Alexa. 2021. "Screening Veganism: The Production, Rhetoric, and Reception of Vegan Advocacy Films". In The Routledge Handbook of Vegan Studies, edited by Laura Wright, 309-321. Abingdon - Oxon: Routledge.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003020875-32
Westmarland, Nicole. 2001. "The Quantitative/Qualitative Debate and Feminist Research: A Subjective View of Objectivity". Forum: Qualitative Social Research 2 (1).
Winters, Ed. 2022. This Is Vegan Propaganda (and Other Lies the Meat Industry Tells You). London: Penguin Random House.
Wrenn, Corey Lee. 2016. A Rational Approach to Animal Rights: Extensions in Abolitionist Theory. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Wrenn, Corey Lee, and Rob Johnson. 2013. "A Critique of Single-Issue Campaigning and the Importance of Comprehensive Abolitionist Vegan Advocacy". Food, Culture & Society 16 (4): 651-668.
https://doi.org/10.2752/175174413X13758634982092
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7358/rela-2023-01-goul
Copyright (©) 2023 Louis Arthur Gough – Editorial format and Graphical layout: copyright (©) LED Edizioni Universitarie

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism
Registered by Tribunale di Milano (04/05/2012 n. 211)
Online ISSN 2280-9643 - Print ISSN 2283-3196
Executive Editor: Francesco Allegri
Associate Editor: Matteo Andreozzi
Review Editors: Sofia Bonicalzi - Eleonora Adorni
Editorial Board: Ralph R. Acampora - Carol J. Adams - Vilma Baricalla - Luisella Battaglia - Rod Bennison - Matthew R. Calarco - Piergiorgio Donatelli - William Grove-Fanning - Serenella Iovino - Luigi Lombardi Vallauri - Christoph Lumer - Joel MacClellan - Dario Martinelli - Roberto Marchesini - Alma Massaro - Serpil Oppermann - Simone Pollo - Paola Sobbrio - Kim Stallwood - Sabrina Tonutti - Jessica Ullrich - Federico Zuolo
Referee List
© 2001 LED Edizioni Universitarie di Lettere Economia Diritto