Author Description

"What exactly do vegans believe? Why has veganism become such a critical and criticised social movement, and how does it correspond to wider debates about the environment and sustainability, animal studies, and the media? Eva Haifa Giraud offers an accessible route into the debates that surround vegan politics, which feed into broader issues surrounding food activism and ethical consumption. Giraud presents an overview of both arguments in favor of veganism and the criticisms levelled at vegan politics. She outlines the essential debates and topics that are central to conversations around veganism, including identity, intersectional politics, and activism, with research drawn from literary animal studies, animal geographies, ecofeminism, posthumanism, and new materialism. While publicly vegan chefs and proponents have been accused of elitism and class warfare, Giraud examines the portrayal of these tensions in relation to class, race, and disability, using public media campaigns as her case studies, for example in the appropriation of activist slogans by high profile vegan campaigns such as #alllivesmatter movement. Giraud also makes an original theoretical intervention into these often fraught debates, and argues that veganism holds radical political potential to act as 'more than a diet' by disrupting norms and assumptions about how humans relate to animals. Drawing on a range of examples from popular culture, from recipe books with punk aesthetics to social media campaigns, Giraud shows how veganism's radical potential is being undermined by its commercialization, and elucidates new conceptual frameworks for reclaiming veganism as a radical social movement."--