Veganism Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Flyer for forthcoming book, published September 2021

Öz Veganlık günümüzde yemek kültürü ve toplumsal hareketler açısından önemli bir yer tutmaya başlamıştır. Veganlık yalnızca bir beslenme biçimi değil ayrıca hayvansal hiçbir ürünün kullanılmaması etrafında şekillenen bir yaşam biçimidir.... more

Öz Veganlık günümüzde yemek kültürü ve toplumsal hareketler açısından önemli bir yer tutmaya başlamıştır. Veganlık yalnızca bir beslenme biçimi değil ayrıca hayvansal hiçbir ürünün kullanılmaması etrafında şekillenen bir yaşam biçimidir. Veganlık, yemeğin anlamı, yemeğin toplumsal boyutu ve insan-doğa ilişkisi konusunda farklı bir bakış açısını yansıttığı için yemek sosyolojisi açısından zengin bir olgudur. Bunun yanında veganlık, kişilerin ve grupların aidiyetlerini şekillendiren bir kimlik unsuru olarak da sosyolojinin farklı alt disiplinlerinin ilgisini çekmektedir. Bu çalışma, veganlığın bir kimlik unsuru olarak şekillenmesi sürecini betimlemeyi amaçlamaktadır. Bu betimleme çabası içerisinde, vegan olma kararının alınması ve vegan olmanın sürdürülmesi süreçlerinde kişilerin kurdukları anlatılara ve dikkat çektikleri unsurlara odaklanılmıştır. Ayrıca katılımcıların vegan olmayan diğer kişilerle kurdukları iletişim ve literatürde kimlik kurulumunda önemli olduğu belirtilen 'öteki' kurgusunun nasıl oluşturulduğu da çalışmanın dikkat çektiği unsurlar arasındadır. Saha araştırmasında elde edilen veriler, veganlığın tek ve homojen bir kimlik olmadığına, veganlığın farklı görünümlerinin ve kişiler için farklı tanımlarının olduğuna işaret etmektedir. Bu çeşitliliğe rağmen, vegan olma kararının alınmasında ve veganlık pratiklerinde birkaç ana hat üzerinden benzerliklerin yakalanabildiği görülmüştür. Abstract Veganism has an important place in today's food culture and it is important in terms of a social movement. Veganism is not only a form of nutrition but also a way of life that is shaped around avoiding animal products. Veganism is a phenomenon elaborated by the field of sociology of food as it reflects a perspective about the meaning of food, the social dimension of the dish and the relationship between humanity and nature. Veganism attracts the attention of different sub-disciplines of sociology as an element of identity shaping the belonging of individuals and groups.

Le zoonosi contemporanee ci costringono a porci una domanda che già gli antichi pensatori si erano posti più o meno esplicitamente. Le risposte sono spiazzanti e per molti versi attuali: mangiamo gli animali perché non siamo dèi (e quindi... more

Le zoonosi contemporanee ci costringono a porci una domanda che già gli antichi pensatori si erano posti più o meno esplicitamente. Le risposte sono spiazzanti e per molti versi attuali: mangiamo gli animali perché non siamo dèi (e quindi perché non siamo mai stati – o non siamo più – puri) o perché, semplicemente, siamo onnivori. Per Aristotele, nello specifico, mangiamo gli animali perché le tecniche a nostra disposizione ce lo permettono, anche se in ciò che ci viene permesso – secondo lui – dovrebbe sempre esserci una misura.

Ahmed Khan, the author of the book being reviewed here, is the editor of CellAgri (www.cell.ag), a news and research startup which he founded in 2017 with the goal of making it the go-to place for information on cellular agriculture.... more

Ahmed Khan, the author of the book being reviewed here, is the editor of CellAgri (www.cell.ag), a news and research startup which he founded in 2017 with the goal of making it the go-to place for information on cellular agriculture. Ahmed uses the catch-all term “Cell Ag” (short for cellular agriculture) to encompass this broad field of innovative products. His 59-page, free-on-line book provides a layperson-accessible explanation of Cell Ag, its origin, its scientific background, its problems, and its prospects. A key reason for the book is to provide the public with “radical transparency” about exactly what Cell Ag is, because Ahmed hopes that an educated public will be accepting of cell ag products. In addition to downloading the book and reading the CellAgri newsletter, you can listen to Ahmed talk about Cell Ag at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WlAJmQSn2c

Depuis son passage de l'utilitarisme des préférences à l'utilitarisme hédoniste, Peter Singer est exposé à l'argument du remplacement, fréquemment cité en éthique animale. Le philosophe l'accepte, il va jusqu'à affirmer qu'en théorie... more

Depuis son passage de l'utilitarisme des préférences à l'utilitarisme hédoniste, Peter Singer est exposé à l'argument du remplacement, fréquemment cité en éthique animale. Le philosophe l'accepte, il va jusqu'à affirmer qu'en théorie l'argument s'applique également aux humains. Un autre argument, qui est davantage traité en éthique des populations et auquel il a toujours dû faire face, est la conclusion répugnante de Derek Parfit. Là encore, l'Australien estime ne pas avoir de solution satisfaisante. Les difficultés que ces deux arguments posent à la position de Singer ont été vues et revues, mais ce n'est pas le cas du résultat de leur combinaison qui a des implications majeures en éthique animale. Si l'industrialisation permet d'augmenter le nombre d'animaux systématiquement remplacés dans l'élevage, elle tend à diminuer leur niveau de bien-être individuel. L'augmentation du nombre d'animaux étant proportionnellement plus importante que la diminution de leur niveau de bien-être individuel, nous retrouvons la logique de la conclusion répugnante. Dès lors, jusqu'à un certain point, l'industrialisation de l'élevage est synonyme d'augmentation de la quantité de bien-être générée dans le monde, d'un point de vue total. Nous pouvons alors énoncer la conclusion du remplacement répugnant : « Il existe un élevage X, industrialisé de sorte à pouvoir rassembler et remplacer un nombre x de vaches et de taureaux dont la qualité de vie est fortement inférieure par rapport à d’autres élevages, mais qui d’un point de vue total génère la plus importante quantité de bien-être possible. ». Contrairement aux populations fictives de la conclusion de Parfit, de tels élevages industriels existent et le remplacement répugnant est une réalité. Selon ce dernier, au-delà des considérations écologiques, économiques ou sanitaires, Singer est forcé de conclure que l'élevage idéal est industriel.

The catalyst was a 2010 editorial in the Chronicle of Higher Education, written by Harold Fromm, in which he accused vegans of “grandstanding” and ridiculous idealism. Fromm’s a big name in ecocritical circles, so I was a bit taken aback... more

The catalyst was a 2010 editorial in the Chronicle of Higher Education, written by Harold Fromm, in which he accused vegans of “grandstanding” and ridiculous idealism. Fromm’s a big name in ecocritical circles, so I was a bit taken aback by the piece. I decided to explore the way that veganism is perceived, specifically in the US, specifically post-9/11, so I wrote The Vegan Studies Project as a way of examining how veganism is depicted in the media, in literature, and in popular culture, and the way that that depiction has evolved over time. The original title of the book was “The Vegan Body Project” – I had a blog of the same name – as I had initially planned to look at the way vegan bodies are depicted and scrutinized. There is a chapter in the book that engages with the way that women’s bodies are pathologized when women are vegan, especially when they have children. But the project became so much bigger, and I decided that I’d treat the book as a kind of primer for what a field of academic study based on various analyses of veganism might look like. And then things just kind of took off in ways that I couldn’t have anticipated, including an invitation to be the keynote speaker at a conference on vegan theory at Oxford soon after the publication of the book

This article aims to understand the stages of adopting veganism in young people. To achieve this objective, we analyze 30 biographical interviews with young vegans in Santiago, Chile. The participant’s stories allow us to identify that... more

This article aims to understand the stages of adopting veganism in young people. To achieve this objective, we analyze 30 biographical interviews with young vegans in Santiago, Chile. The participant’s stories allow us to identify that the transition to this new lifestyle implies acquiring a secondary habitus, that is, a gradual shift in understanding and acting in the world, which entails progressive identity changes until becoming vegan. This transition consists of five steps: personal questioning, vegetarianism attempt, vegetarianism, veganism, and activism. This path constitutes a career process but presents nuances according to the young people’s social class of origin and individual characteristics. The main contribution of this article is to delve into the career stages that lead to the consolidation of a vegan identity, based on two classical sociological concepts (career and habitus).

This research paper has been inspired by my close female friends who are all vegan, vegetarian or eating a non-conventional diet and who have and continue to use the internet for dietary purposes. This research was aimed to understand... more

This research paper has been inspired by my close female friends who are all vegan, vegetarian or eating a non-conventional diet and who have and continue to use the internet for dietary purposes. This research was aimed to understand "How have young, wealthy women in France reinforced their eating preferences by "successfully managing" the complexity of the health information online?". This research question is opposed to the existing literature that has explained that because the internet is complex, people do not have an active choice in how they interact with it. The objective of this research was to understand how young, wealthy women in France have reinforced their eating styles while researching health information online and the role their education has played in this process. To do so, this research has looked at women's internet consumption of the health information online and the steps as well as the overall process they have followed to manage to complexity of the internet. This research was done qualitatively, and the sampling size was of height. The methods used were in-depth open-ended interviews and mediated interviews. This research will argue that my interviewees have become active participants in their use of the internet by elaborating the successful management method but that they have failed to successfully manage the complexity of the internet because they became overly confident in their abilities to use that method. The successful management method is a method that allows the control and the organization of online researches and is composed of five parts: a desire to know, followed by elaborate and lengthy research, the selection and the comparison of health information, and finally, the critical processing of the information from which they have acted upon. The "overly confident" phenomenon is the belief to have the ability to successfully manage the complexity of the internet but to have failed to do so because of a wrong use of the successful management method or because of an unawareness of the nature of the internet. This paper will conclude that the internet is not a great choice for online health information researches because its complex and critical nature have made the practical use of the method difficult. In addition, it will explain that wealthy women in France are more likely to reinforce their dietary preference based on wrong, incomplete or bias evidences because they can become overly confident with their abilities to successfully manage the complexity of the internet and tragically they might not even realise it. What is important here is that this research has shown us that people are active when they use the internet and that the educated ones even consider themselves as successful participants, which is at the total opposite of the existing literature in the medical field.

A partir da realização de seis entrevistas semi-estruturadas e da etnografia virtual de grupos da rede social Facebook, a presente pesquisa busca analisar os processos de aprendizagem da culinária vegana, perpassando pelas especificidades... more

A partir da realização de seis entrevistas semi-estruturadas e da etnografia virtual de grupos da rede social Facebook, a presente pesquisa busca analisar os processos de aprendizagem da culinária vegana, perpassando pelas especificidades da realidade de indivíduos que adotam o veganismo enquanto ideologia e estilo de vida. Orientada pelas discussões sobre hábitos alimentares das ciências sociais, pela teoria da “expertise” e pelo conceito de carnismo, pode-se analisar a tentativa do grupo social de veganos em subverter uma lógica já estabelecida pela sociedade em que vivemos onde o consumo e uso de animais não humanos é algo natural. Ao apontar o tratamento dos animais humanos pelos não-humanos enquanto gerador de um conflito ético, esse grupo busca, em diversas esferas da vida social, alternativas para construir hábitos e modos de vida em uma lógica não-especista. Para tanto, organizam-se, interagem e transmitem conhecimentos próprios da área, estabelecendo-se enquanto grupo especializado em veganismo, culinária vegana e temas correlatos.
Palavras-chave: veganismo, culinária vegana, expertise, carnismo

In this essay I will look at the symbolism that meat holds within our ‘modern’ ‘Western’ society. I will begin by briefly introducing the study of food in general within the social sciences, setting a framework of reference for the... more

In this essay I will look at the symbolism that meat holds within our ‘modern’ ‘Western’ society. I will begin by briefly introducing the study of food in general within the social sciences, setting a framework of reference for the exploration of meat specifically. In
examining meat I will firstly set the context by turning to the global livestock sector and its relationship with the environment, before probing meat’s physical properties and their
ensuing symbolism, which, as we will see, is the basic foundation for meat’s high culinary and dietetic value in our culture. I will then continue to investigate meat’s symbolism by
asking what place, if any, may meat hold within our wider cultural cosmology, within our systems of social and moral ideas, before drawing some conclusions.

Currently, we are producing enough food to feed ten billion people. However, under the current circumstances, over 795 million people are chronically undernourished (in 2016) , 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted annually and global... more

Currently, we are producing enough food to feed ten billion people. However, under the current circumstances, over 795 million people are chronically undernourished (in 2016) , 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted annually and global population levels are set to peak (in 2050) at 9.7 billion people. Thus, to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2: Zero Hunger, several changes must be made. Given the upwards population growth, it is easy to assume that tomorrow’s farmers must produce more food to meet the demand. However, this essay agrees with the claim “tomorrow’s farmers need to produce more food with fewer resources” to the extent that, yes, farmers will have to use fewer resources, but not necessarily to produce more food. This paper shall proceed through two substantive sections. The first section will focus on disagreeing with the claim, proving why we do not need to produce more food. This will be done by addressing how both arable and livestock farmers have been working under the concept of Food Security, reviewing their role in the current food systems and organising the problems created in the framework of the Planetary Boundaries (PB). This will lead to a critique of the productionist approach and instead, advocate that the focus should be on diet change, waste reduction and even distribution of food. The second section will recognise two other key players in the future food systems, the “peasant farmers” and new startup companies, such as Beyond Meat and Aquabyte. Firstly, it is important to note how the “peasant farmers” will constitute the majority of tomorrow’s farmers and how their alternative framework called Food Sovereignty, will help achieve several SDGs and offer a more reliable system for tomorrow's farmers to operate in, as it isolates itself from global external shocks as seen with the Global Food Crisis (GFC) of 2007. This essay will then propose the that there is an emergence of new farmers which constitute of innovative startup companies. Their aim is to tackle current environmental issues from the pollution of meat industry, to the depletion of fish stocks and the demand for land from arable farmers to meet production needs by offering potential solutions to ensure Food Security and/or Sovereignty. The importance of doing this is to demonstrate how all of tomorrow’s farmers are key actors to achieve several SDGs and the 2℃ limit for global warming levels, set during the 2015 Paris Agreement. This can only be accomplished if they switch their current focus of producing more food to recognising alternative priorities which this essay will explore.

The animal rights movement is fundamentally based on love for other animals and a radical recognition of human-nonhuman relationships as valid and important. In a world that has normalized wholescale violence against other animals,... more

The animal rights movement is fundamentally based on love for other animals and a radical recognition of human-nonhuman relationships as valid and important. In a world that has normalized wholescale violence against other animals, recognizing nonhuman animal personhood and expressing compassion for all kinds is a vital act of social justice. This talk examines social movement theories of liberation for other animals with specific reference to the gay rights movement as an adjacent project from which we might draw inspiration and wisdom.

Araştırmada, vegan/vejetaryen müşterilerin gözünden, restoran çalışanlarının bilgi ve bilinç düzeyinin bireylerin bir sonraki restoran tercihlerini ne ölçüde etkilediğini belirlemek amaçlanmıştır. Araştırma alanı olarak Çanakkale... more

Araştırmada, vegan/vejetaryen müşterilerin gözünden, restoran çalışanlarının bilgi ve bilinç düzeyinin bireylerin bir sonraki restoran tercihlerini ne ölçüde etkilediğini belirlemek amaçlanmıştır. Araştırma alanı olarak Çanakkale belirlenmiştir. Araştırmada nitel araştırma yöntemlerinden görüşme tekniği kullanılmıştır. Görüşme yapılan 16 katılımcı araştırmanın örneklemini oluşturmuştur. Görüşmelerden elde edilen verilerin analizinde içerik analizi tekniği kullanılmıştır. Araştırma sonucunda vegan/vejetaryen bireyler, restoran çalışanlarının vegan/vejetaryen beslenme konusunda bilgi ve bilinç düzeyinin düşük olduğunu ifade etmişlerdir. Ek olarak bu bilgi ve bilinç düzeyinin düşük olması, menülerde yeterince vegan/vejetaryen seçeneğin olmaması ve ürünlerin üretim aşamasında dikkatsiz hazırlanması gibi pek çok sorun ile sonuçlanmaktadır. Tüm sorunların bu bireylerin restoranları tekrar tercih etmesi üzerinde olumsuz etki yarattığı tespit edilmiştir. Son olarak, karşılaşılan sorunlarla ilgili öneriler getirilerek, çalışmanın alana ve uygulamada işletmelere katkı sağlayacağı düşünülmektedir.
Anahtar kelimeler: vegan, vejetaryen, çalışanların bilgi düzeyi, Çanakkale

In the age of the Anthropocene, questions of ecological sustainability, animal ethics, and human health are intimately entangled. From a gender perspective, compared to women, men's diets tend to be less healthy and sustainable. This is... more

In the age of the Anthropocene, questions of ecological sustainability, animal ethics, and human health are intimately entangled. From a gender perspective, compared to women, men's diets tend to be less healthy and sustainable. This is linked to worse health outcomes for men. Therefore, alternative, more ethical ways of eating that have the potential to improve men's health and well-being and simultaneously contribute to better public health and sustainability outcomes should be encouraged. Veganism addresses issues of food, health, climate change, and animal justice simultaneously. This article explores vegan men's food practices in relation to health and well-being, drawing on qualitative interviews with 61 vegan men. The interview material was analyzed using the method of thematic analysis. Our findings suggest that becoming vegan encourages positive changes in men's health behavior. This includes paying more attention to nutrition and taking better care of one's health. Vegan men report experiencing better physical and mental well-being upon going vegan. Based on these findings, we argue that vegan men's food and health practices contribute to the emergence of healthier masculinities, as vegan men help to challenge links between risky health behavior and masculinity.

In the nonhuman animal (NHA) advocacy movement the most effective way to achieve its goal of total NHA liberation is the change of an NHA abuse based lifestyle to a vegan lifestyle. While conversion to a vegan lifestyle is considered the... more

In the nonhuman animal (NHA) advocacy movement the most effective way to achieve its goal of total NHA liberation is the change of an NHA abuse based lifestyle to a vegan lifestyle. While conversion to a vegan lifestyle is considered the most effective measure, it is also the most difficult to achieve. More than half of the people who pledge to go vegan return to their former lifestyle (Faunalytics, 2016)⁠. In India, the dominant Hindu ideology is against the killing and the consumption of other sentient beings, therefore, most of the population is believed to be lacto-vegetarian. Recently, only two NHA rights organizations in India have started promoting a vegan lifestyle – by asking their audience to go dairy-free. In my essay, I will be analyzing the effectiveness of these campaign videos through collective action frame analysis. My analysis will show that the campaign videos promote NHA welfare, therefore, reinforcing the dominant NHA abusing lifestyle instead of promoting a vegan lifestyle.

This paper looks at the provocative nature of meat analogues, commonly referred to as "mock" or "faux" meats. It offers a consideration of the politics of naming and the textural aspirations to "meatiness," both of which position mock... more

This paper looks at the provocative nature of meat analogues, commonly referred to as "mock" or "faux" meats. It offers a consideration of the politics of naming and the textural aspirations to "meatiness," both of which position mock meats as vexatious foodstuffs.

in: Anima 2015/3, S. 11-12

In a qualitative content analysis of The Vegan Society’s quarterly publication, The Vegan, spanning 73 years and nearly 300 issues, the trajectory of one of the world’s most radical and compassionate counter cuisine collectives is... more

In a qualitative content analysis of The Vegan Society’s quarterly publication, The Vegan, spanning 73 years and nearly 300 issues, the trajectory of one of the world’s most radical and compassionate counter cuisine collectives is presented and critically assessed. The Vegan Society’s history provides a case study on the ways in which social movements negotiate difference and conflict. Specifically, this article highlights the challenges of identity, professionalization, and factionalism across the 20th and 21st centuries. This research also puts into perspective the cultural impact that veganism has had on Western society, namely the dramatic increase in vegan consumers, vegan products, and the normalcy of vegan nutrition.

In the recent years there is increasing number of people interested in veganism. This is also a visible trend in the Czech Republic (and other EU countries) where veganism is lifestyle associated mainly with "generation Z". Especially... more

In the recent years there is increasing number of people interested in veganism. This is also a visible trend in the Czech Republic (and other EU countries) where veganism is lifestyle associated mainly with "generation Z". Especially young people who were born after the fall of Communism and enjoyed free access to information tend to be more perceptive to the failures capitalism and globalisation including pollution, environmental degradation, production unsustainability, animal exploitation and suffering used and treated as an agricultural commodity. This critical approach is reflected in the lifestyle of increasing number of young Czechs with many implications including family relations, ecological and animal-focusing behaviour or political preferences. This article's main aim is to provide sociological and political characterisation of vegans in the Czech Republic and to answer primary research question: who are Czech vegans? This article serves as certain corrective to the image of vegans and provides unique information about the segment. Research is based on an online survey conducted among 1,167 Czech vegans and 1,128 Czech vegetarians.

Many people enjoy eating meat but few enjoy harming or killing other sentient creatures. These inconsistent beliefs create a "meat paradox", people simultaneously dislike hurting animals and like eating meat. One solution to this conflict... more

Many people enjoy eating meat but few enjoy harming or killing other sentient creatures. These inconsistent beliefs create a "meat paradox", people simultaneously dislike hurting animals and like eating meat. One solution to this conflict is to stop eating meat. Another solution is to fail to recognize that animals are killed to produce meat. (Loughnan, Haslam e Bastian, 2010)
Most people loves animals and love eating meat. (Loughnan, Haslam, Bastian e Radke, 2011).
Loughnan, Haslam, Bastian e altri, in quattro articoli scritti tra il 2009 e il 2012, descrivono il meat paradox, come il fatto che la maggior parte della gente, pur disapprovando la sofferenza e la violenza sugli animali e investendo molto denaro e attenzione nelle loro cure, pur definendosi quindi amanti degli animali, continuano tuttavia a mangiarli. Connesso a questa considerazione è anche il problema di come sia possibile amare certi animali e mangiarne altri. Questa tensione, cioè l'amore per gli animali e il fatto di mangiarli, è l'essenza del meat paradox (Loughnan, Bratanova e Puvia, 2012): infatti oggi uccidiamo sempre più animali per mangiarli e nel contempo aumentano, dicono gli autori, le nostre cure per l'animale. Gli autori (Loughnan, Haslam e Bastian, 2010), riprendendo le teorie di Leon Festinger (1957), riconoscono nel meat paradox un caso specifico di dissonanza cognitiva: come ricordano Harmon-Jones e Mills (1999), la dissonanza cognitiva nasce quando una persona fa o pensa qualcosa che si op-pone o è totalmente contraria alle sue più profonde convinzioni e attitudini: pratica e convinzione entrano in conflitto creando uno stato emozionale spiacevole, che l'individuo deve e ha tutto l'inte-resse a risolvere. Gray e Wegner (2007) sottolineano la gravità di questo stato d'ambivalenza emotiva e psicologica tanto da riconoscerne una certa priorità d'interesse per la futura ricerca psicologica. Anche Paul Rozin, nel 2007, dirà "meat should be of special, because it is a quintessential exemple of the interesting and important state of ambivalence". Per risolvere la dissonanza cognitiva, dice Festinger, bisogna rimuovere i fattori e gli elementi contrastanti e questo può essere fatto in diverse maniere (...)

Even under the most optimistic scenarios for technological improvements in livestock efficiency, nine billion humans cannot continue to eat animals at the current and projected rates and avoid catastrophic environmental harms. In the end,... more

Even under the most optimistic scenarios for technological improvements in livestock efficiency, nine billion humans cannot continue to eat animals at the current and projected rates and avoid catastrophic environmental harms. In the end, the more animal products one consumes, the more destructive one’s diet is to the environment. Though important and morally relevant qualitative differences exist between industrial and non-industrial methods, given the present and projected size of the human population, the morality and sustainability of one’s diet are inversely related to the proportion of animals and animal products in one’s diet. Thus, if we are to ensure adequate food and water for all humans without exceeding the Earth’s capacity to support life, we must find the courage to address directly the morality of eating meat on an increasingly small planet.
(N.B. This essay was originally published as “Standing in Livestock’s ‘Long Shadow’: The Ethics of Eating Meat on a Small Planet.” It appears here with updated statistics with the permission of the publisher.)

Souvent rabattue sur des stéréotypes réducteurs, la protection animale constitue une cause militante des plus anciennes et complexes. Du début du XIX e siècle jusqu'à nos jours, de multiples entrepreneurs de morale s'indignent du... more

Souvent rabattue sur des stéréotypes réducteurs, la protection animale constitue une cause militante des plus anciennes et complexes. Du début du XIX e siècle jusqu'à nos jours, de multiples entrepreneurs de morale s'indignent du traitement que les hommes réservent aux bêtes et se mobilisent afin de corriger la brutalité de leurs contemporains. D'abord préoccupée par la cruauté à l'égard du bétail, ce n'est qu'à l'issue de longues péripéties que la protection animale s'étend aux animaux de compagnie et, bien plus tardivement encore, aux espèces sauvages et à leurs milieux naturels. En s'appuyant sur une comparaison franco-britannique, cet ouvrage retrace les inflexions successives à l'origine des multiples facettes qui caractérisent, aujourd'hui encore, la protection animale. Indissociables des évolutions de la philanthropie, bien antérieures à l'apparition des mots d'ordre de l'écologie, les mobilisations collectives en faveur du sort des animaux éclairent plusieurs processus cruciaux de notre histoire sociopolitique : évolution des sensibilités et des émotions socialement valorisées ; définition de la violence légitime ; constitution des normes visant à réformer les moeurs ; rivalité des élites se réclamant de diverses formes d'autorité ; influence des religions sur les engagements militants ; effets des discriminations de genre.

Food has an identity value. Food preferences are inextricably linked to the social structure, geography and history of a culture, and studying food habits involves an exploration of the entanglements of the biological and the cultural,... more

Food has an identity value. Food preferences are inextricably linked to the social structure, geography and history of a culture, and studying food habits involves an exploration of the entanglements of the biological and the cultural, the individual and the social, the material and the symbolic, and cultures local and global. The food choices people make are also performative expressions of identity and belongings, and when a comprehensive new diet appears, it brings with it the possibility of reshaping identities in novel ways. How the diet of veganism has been introduced in Kuwait, the new values for identity that have been created through it for young people, and how vegan identities are reconciled with prevalent social, cultural, and religious norms in everyday life, is the focus of this chapter.

- How meat consumption in the West is ruining the planet more than any other human behavior, through inefficient resource consumption, pollution, and deforestation. - Why global capitalist development and the export of Western lifestyles... more

- How meat consumption in the West is ruining the planet more than any other human behavior, through inefficient resource consumption, pollution, and deforestation. - Why global capitalist development and the export of Western lifestyles is exacerbating the already dire situation. - Why a societal adoption of a plant-based diet is our only hope for fighting climate change. Those of us who can physically and financially go vegan are responsible for doing it.

It is commonly said that you are what you eat. In today's society, that is a far more complicated concept than ever before. The purpose of this project is to write about disordered eating from a sociological perspective. In modern... more

It is commonly said that you are what you eat. In today's society, that is a far more complicated concept than ever before. The purpose of this project is to write about disordered eating from a sociological perspective. In modern society, especially in western society, food has become less of a necessity and more of an obsession, leading to disordered eating patterns. Many of these patterns are widely accepted. Diets, eating disorders, food restrictions and obesity have become common place. It is uncommon to be able to share a meal with a group of people without being confronted by any number of dietary restrictions. Food has become complicated, with lists of unpronounceable ingredients and myriad assortment of labels. Traditional thoughts regarding food norms have changed and become more complex and convoluted. Threats of scarcity of resources have led to the development of new ideologies and considerations in regard to food. This project will examine the patterns to see if disordered eating has been relevant throughout history and examine the reasons behind it from the sociological perspective. It will examine what role industrialization has played in disordered eating and determine if nonindustrialized nations have the prevalence of disordered eating. The project will also examine the roles that mass media and social media have played in regard to disordered eating.

This report includes findings from online surveys tracking the dietary habits, goals, perceived barriers, and motivators for participants in seven reduction and vegan campaigns in the UK over a six-month period. This includes the largest... more

This report includes findings from online surveys tracking the dietary habits, goals, perceived barriers, and motivators for participants in seven reduction and vegan campaigns in the UK over a six-month period. This includes the largest sample of meat reducers, pescatarians, vegetarians, and vegans (veg*ns) in any research project to date (n=1,587) and also includes findings from participant focus groups (n=33) and interviews with campaign staff members (n=13).

This essay refers to 'attributes' of the Absolute and shows how they are reflected in specific facets of contemplative asceticism and renunciation and that this is the way to embody the Absolute in this world. It attempts to establish... more

This essay refers to 'attributes' of the Absolute and shows how they are reflected in specific facets of contemplative asceticism and renunciation and that this is the way to embody the Absolute in this world. It attempts to establish contemplative asceticism and renunciation 'a priori', in a way, directly on the basis of metaphysical and spiritual facts and the nature of the One, without recourse to external authorities or traditions.