The focus on vegan products and dietary practices has created a depoliticized image of veganism. Critical discussions of non-human animal rights and speciesism were noticeably absent in the sample, while the capitalist encroachment on veganism was omnipresent.
Continue readingVegan Halloween: Remembering the Dead
Samhain, for vegans, should be a time to honour ancestors, but also recognize that “harvest time” has been a period of intense violence across the ages. Just as the mass killing of witches has been cause for sombre remembrance, so should that of Nonhuman Animals who have been harassed, killed, and “sacrificed” for entertainment, sustenance, religious bargaining for a deity’s favour, scientific advancement, and so on. For those who practice it, Halloween might be a time for vegan baking and sharing plant-based sweets, but it might also be a time to hold space for other animals. This could mean lighting a candle, sharing food with other animals, or taking a tip from the feminist witches and hexing the anthroparchy.
Continue readingA Sociology of Childless Cat Ladies
Banning Live Export in Australia
Veganism and In Vitro Meat
Sexism in Animal Advocacy: The Case of Foie Gras
Foie gras victims are usually male, and both women and men are involved in victimizing them as producers and as consumers, but, because patriarchal, woman-hating culture is most accustomed to viewing women as frivilous consumers and sexy victims of violence, the Nonhuman Animal rights movement regularly employs female activists to take on these convoluted roles in protest.
Continue readingMainstreaming Veganism: Full Interview with Imagine5
Vegan culture is likely to move more and more into environmental claimsmaking, as that has proved most successful in achieving institutional changes that support a transition to plant-based foodways. I would like to see, however, more social justice claimsmaking made for nonhuman animals themselves. Sadly, in all the discourse over healthy food, capitalism, and climate change, the animals themselves remain hidden from the conversation. This is a real travesty, as they have the most to gain from a vegan world.
Continue readingHuman/Nonhuman Urban Ecology in Modernizing Ireland
Advancing Veganism in a “Post-Vegan Society”: A Review of Veganism: Politics, Practice, and Theory
Animalizing Appalachia: A Critical Animal Studies Analysis of Early Sociological Surveys of Southern Appalachia
Critical animal studies acknowledges the role that science has played in constructing and legitimizing categories of difference, particularly that related to species distinctions, evolutionarily ideas about group inferiority and superiority, and the goal of social development. As such, my research explores how sociological research has traditionally animalized its Appalachian subjects and used this animalization as an explanation or rationale for inequality.
Continue reading