School of Social and Political Science

Description

Veganism has undergone dramatic changes in cultural imaginaries over the past decade. From an ethical practice that was framed as marginal or radical, veganism’s upsurge in popularity has seen it become a marketing niche: as illustrated by the array of vegan products in fast food outlets ranging from McDonald’s to Subway.  Against the backdrop of veganism’s transformation, this talk examines the role of digital media in veganism’s popularization and (potentially) depoliticization. Combining interviews with long-term vegans, participatory action research with vegan food activists, and a walkthrough of the most popular vegan food app (HappyCow), I analyze how digital media both give veganism the appearance of accessibility – through giving vegans themselves a platform to normalize plant-based consumption – and help to materialize vegan ethics, as apps and food platforms make it easier to identify, select, and consume vegan options. However, through this process of accommodating vegan options into existing food infrastructures, more radical politico-ethical routes into questioning, or indeed contesting, these infrastructures run the risk of being foreclosed. These arguments underline the value of centralizing ethics not just in the context of digital veganism, but analyses of activist media-use more broadly. By tracing the multi-layered ways that ethics are embedded into and diffracted through the media practices of lifestyle movements, I ask whether it becomes possible to grasp how certain forms of ethics are materialized while others are excluded, and begin to question, or find ways of pushing back, against some of these exclusions. 

Bio:

Eva Haifa Giraud is a senior lecturer in Digital Media & Society at Sheffield University, whose research focuses on the (sometimes fraught) relationship between theoretical work focused on relationality and entanglement, and activist practice. Her publications include What Comes After Entanglement? Activism, anthropocentrism and an ethics of exclusion (Duke University Press), Veganism: Politics, Practice, and Theory (Bloomsbury Academic) and articles in journals such as Theory, Culture & Society, New Media & Society and Social Studies of Science.