Claiming veganism and vegan geographies

Journal article

A decade ago, veganism was a fringe radical movement. It was also largely absent from the geographical discipline, despite a rich history of vegan scholarship being present in disciplines such as Sociology and Psychology. However, veganism has recently seen a surge in popularity, with more people than ever before becoming vegan for a mixture of animal welfare, environmental, and health-based reasons. With this mainstreaming, veganism has become contentious and fiercely defended. As veganism has become a growing social and political force, geographers have started to take notice of this previously fringe movement, which is gaining economic, ecological, and cultural power as investment flows into ‘plant-based’ products and new markets are emerging. In this commentary, we look at how veganism has recently been taken up in Geography via several distinct trends that all stake a claim in defining an emerging geographical sub-discipline, vegan geographies. We note the importance of scholarly pluralism and attention to establishing geographical sub-disciplines more broadly.

Authors: Oliver, C; Turnbull, J; Richardson, M

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Reviewed (other)
• Publisher: Wiley
• Journal: Geographical Journal
• Volume: 109
• Issue: 1
• Article number: e12546
• Publication date: 2023-09-28
• Acceptance date: 2023-09-12
• DOI: 10.1111/geoj.12546
• EISSN: 1475-4959
• ISSN: 0016-7398
• Language: English
• Keywords: research agendas; veganism; disciplinary knowledge