Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? Frames, Identities, and Privilege in the U.S. Vegetarian and Vegan Movement

Home , Amy Jackson, Donald Watson, HappyCow, Ital, Jewish vegetarianism, Joe Cross (filmmaker)

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2015 Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? : Frames, Identities, and Privilege in the U.S. Vegetarian and Vegan Movement Sarrah G. (Sarrah Geo) Conn

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COLLEGE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND PUBLIC POLICY

GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER? FRAMES, IDENTITIES, AND PRIVILEGE IN THE

U.S. VEGETARIAN AND VEGAN MOVEMENT

SARRAH G. CONN

A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Sociology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2015 Sarrah G. Conn defended this dissertation on March 30, 2015. The members of the supervisory committee were:

Deana Rohlinger Professor Directing Dissertation

Andy Opel University Representative

Douglas Schrock Committee Member

Koji Ueno Committee Member

The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the dissertation has been approved in accordance with university requirements.

This is dedicated to all my supportive friends, family, and colleagues who helped me through thick and thin and continued to believe in my abilities. I especially dedicate this to my mom, my dad, and to Dan.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables ...... v List of Figures ...... vi Abstract ...... vii 1. INTRODUCTION ...... 1

2. FRAMES, IDENTITIES, AND ALIGNMENT ...... 9

3. CULTURAL CONFLUENCES SHAPING THE U.S. VEGETARIAN / VEGAN MOVEMENT ...... 28

4. DATA, METHODS, AND ANALYTIC STRATEGY ...... 44

5. IDENTITY CUES IN VEGETARIAN / VEGAN FRAMES...... 64

6. SOCIAL IDENTITIES, FRAMING, AND ALIGNMENT ...... 88

7. “THAT’S WHAT WHITE PEOPLE DO:” NEGOTIATING MOVEMENT IDENTITY AND CULTURAL AUTHENTICITY ...... 106

8. CONCLUSION ...... 124

APPENDICES ...... 134 A. PRO VEGETARIAN / VEGAN BOOKS USED IN CONTENT ANALYSIS ...... 134 B. PRO VEGETARIAN / VEGAN PAMPHLETS USED IN CONTENT ANALYSIS 137 C. PRO VEGETARIAN / VEGAN SONGS USED IN CONTENT ANALYSIS ...... 138 D. PRO VEGETARIAN / VEGAN WEBSITES USED IN CONTENT ANALYSIS ...139 E. PRO VEGETARIAN / VEGAN FILMS OR SHOWS USED IN CONTENT ANALYSIS ...... 140 F. RESPONDENT LIST WITH DEMOGRAPHICS AND FRAMES ...... 141 G. INTERVIEW SCHEDULE...... 143 H INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD STUDY APPROVAL ...... 146 I. INFORMED CONSENT FORMS PER INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD ...... 153 REFERENCES ...... 155 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 171

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Collective Action Frame Typologies Identified in Media Content Analysis Data ...... 51

Table 2. Interviewed Activists’ Racial or Ethnic Category...... 57

Table 3. Frames Presented by Racial / Ethnic Cues, by Percentage ...... 66

Table 4. Frames Used in Racial / Ethnic Neutral Media, by Percentage ...... 68

Table 5. Frames Used in Racial / Ethnic Explicit Media, by Percentage ...... 68

Table 6. Frames Presented by Gender Cues, by Percentage ...... 70

Table 7. Frames Presented by Class Cues, by Percentage ...... 71

Table 8. Frames Offered by Activists by Ethnic / Racial Social Identity Category ...... 102

Table 9. Frames Offered by Activists by Gender Identity Category ...... 102

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Personal or Social Identity Mediated Model of Frame Alignment ...... 11

Figure 2. Identity Mediated Frame Alignment Identity Talk Model ...... 125

ABSTRACT

Within movement scholarship, there is insufficient research that examines how social identities influence frame resonance and alignment. How macro frames are used by activists to narratively construct their micro mobilization narratives, especially as this process varies by social identities, remains addressed. Further, the ways that frames cue the categorical social identities of their intended audiences, or diagnostically create boundaries between ‘us’ and

‘them’ that must be negotiated by mobilized activists using identity talk remain obscure. This dissertation contributes to both scholarship arenas. Conceptually, this research adds to the sociological understanding of the relationship between framing and identities and extends the framing perspective by examining the influence of ethno-racial, gender, and class based social identities as they relate to frame resonance and alignment using the vegetarian / vegan movement as a case study. Differences identified in frame alignment along ethno-racial lines are then discussed, where I theorize that individuals with socially privileged ethno-racial identities traverse the moral boundaries employed by some diagnostic frames more easily than individuals occupying marginalized social locations as evidenced by differential identity talk processes. I conclude by discussing the ways in which power and social identities influence frame alignment and noting where applications beyond social movement scholarship exist for such analyses.

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Collective action frames (Goffman 1974; Snow et al 1986; Snow and Benford 1988) are specific types of messages designed to convey crafted interpretations of the social landscape to a targeted audiences. As social constructionist scholarship highlights, frames represent ways of understanding the world that are actively assembled by claims makers to influence audience perceptions rather than automatic appraisals of some objective social reality that is equally discernable to all (Berger and Luckmann 1966; Gamson 1992; West and Zimmerman 1987;

West and Fenstermaker 1995). People interpret how the world operates from their various standpoints (Hill-Collins 1990; hooks 1984; Smith 1990), creating different ‘points of view;’ there is no singular view of reality that is correct or incorrect, only those which are more or less popular. Thus, frames can be understood as messages that are constructed to promote one point of view versus others.

As frames typically serve to problematize a social relationship or phenomena within a larger context (De Weerd and Klandermans 1999), they not only convey intended information about why movement participation matters, they also latently convey information about the viewpoints and identities of current participants (Einwohner 2002; Hart and Nisbet 2012). The cultural touchstones and references that frames draw upon to support their arguments are those that matter to claims makers who are already engaged, and hopefully for them, to the potential audience whose mobilization and engagement is sought. At the same time, frames and the claims makers that proffer them also construct ideas about who they believe their target audiences are

(Blee 2012; Hunt, Benford, and Snow 1994) and what messages they believe will be most effective in drumming up support. That is, frames rhetorically construct problems, solutions, and

1 mobilization rationales for audiences who occupy a variety of social locations. Claims makers may conceive of targeted audiences as generic or neutral by ignoring some or all potential recruit’s individual or social identities, or may construct specific, contextual identities that they believe will prove salient and facilitate frame alignment (Evans 1997). Audience’s social identities may be either explicitly referenced and understood as important by claims makers, or implicitly assumed, neglected, or believed to be irrelevant. These identity references or “cues”

(Hart and Nisbet 2012) are hints or clues embedded in frames that reference identity in some way, whether personal, social, or collective. Because interpretation and evaluation of frames is then necessarily filtered through people’s multifaceted identities, frame evaluation taps into the epistemologically-bound identities and experiences of movement activists (Harding 1991;

Hartsock 1983; Lyotard 1979). Thus, a dialogic dance is performed by frames between the identities of claims makers and audiences. How do these frames, with their overt and covert identity cues, influence frame alignment processes relative to this dynamic?

In addition to identity cues, frames also must construct and diagnose problems as a core framing task to influence audiences’ perceptions of who or what is culpable (Benford and Snow

2000; Čapek 1993). These diagnoses create boundaries which facilitate activists to see differences between themselves and guilty parties or processes. These boundaries may be either moral or amoral in nature depending on how they locate these differences in a value hierarchy

(Gamson 1992; Taylor 1999). As boundaries help create the basis for collective movement identity formation (Taylor and Whittier 1992), do the differential moral or amoral divisions have equal benefits for all audiences as they explain their movement participation? Specifically, how do differing social locations and standpoints create alternative benefits or risks in explaining differences of ‘us’ and ‘them,’ especially when using moral boundaries? How do activists

2 differentially engage in identity talk processes as they explain their movement involvement

(Hunt and Benford 1994) to bring their personal, social, and movement identities into alignment with one another?

This research addresses these questions and contributes to sociological understandings of the relationship between framing and identity. Several scholars note that frame alignment as it relates to identity is still relatively under researched, especially where different types of identities are treated distinctly (Benford and Snow 2000:620; Gamson 1992; Hunt et al 2000; Snow and

McAdam 2000). How individual activists with varying social identities engage in framing processes, where they fashion micro narratives that thematically overlap with the contents of macro collective action frames, to produce frame alignment, or an interpretive schema congruent with a social movement (Ladd 2011; Steinberg 1998) requires further study. Additionally, Snow et al (2007) and others argue there is still much to be learned about why frames exhibit variation across actors. Lastly, how do differing social identities create alternative opportunities or risks in the uses of particular frame diagnoses when talking about one’s identity and explaining movement involvement?

This dissertation speaks to these concerns and extends the framing perspective by examining the influence of social identities as they relate to frame alignment using the modern vegetarian / vegan movement as a case study. By comparing frames identified in content analyses to narrative framings offered by movement activists, issues of frame resonance and alignment are illuminated. Examining pro vegetarian / vegan frames offered in media like books, movement generated pamphlets, popular music, films, and websites, I find that certain frames are statistically associated with particular identity cues. Rather than a variety of frames being offered to a general audience, I find that particular frames and messages are intertwined with specific

3 social identities. Specifically, I find alignment correspondence with activists along lines of implicit / explicit ethno-racial identity cues for two identified frames: animal rights and cultural justice. Thus, by combining content analysis to interviews data, I paint a fuller picture of framing alignments with activists along certain identity lines.

The alignment processes identified in this dissertation are important because they draw attention to the ways in which activists negotiate multiple overlapping intersections between social identity boundaries and movement related boundaries, which each demarcate insiders from outsiders. Ultimately these boundary negotiations place people in different rhetorical positions relative to movement participation on one hand and social identity group on another, resulting in divergent identity talk processes. Theoretical implications suggest that frames carry varying risks and rewards for activists occupying different social locations.

Future research that more directly draws out connections between covert identity-related standpoints hidden in frames and the ways that these standpoints facilitate or hinder frame alignment processes may prove useful for illuminating why movements have the demographic they do aside from material resource-based explanations. Further studies unearthing “colorblind”

(Bonilla-Silva 2004), gender, and class (Sennett and Cobb 1973) perspectives embedded in frames themselves may reveal that activists with concordant identities engage in less identity talk while aligning their movement identities with their personal and social identities, representing a form of symbolic privilege. Additionally, identifying strategies used by mobilized activists with discordant social identities to those cued in frames, or how frame boundaries may carry greater risks for people with certain social identities as situated along lines of social power, may prove useful for researchers and social movement communities alike.

Dissertation Overview

This dissertation will orient the reader with the various theories of social movement mobilization and engagement in Chapter 2. I present both the resource mobilization and the political process theories of social movement activity. I then explain the framing perspective in social movement scholarship, identifying core framing tasks. I highlight how frames carry both embedded diagnostic blame attributions as well identity cues that are filtered through and evaluated by our various identities / standpoints. Citing criticisms of other framing researchers who argue that more scholarship is needed on the nexus of frame resonance, alignment, and identity (Einwohner, Regar, and Myers 2008; Snow and McAdam 2000; Stryker, Owens, and

White 2000), I present the full rationale for this dissertation and reiterate the ways that it extends and connects framing and identity research literatures.

Chapter 3 reviews and contextualizes the cultural confluences shaping ideas surrounding the vegetarian / vegan movement in the United States. First I discuss the historical ideological influences in Abrahamic religious traditions and the European enlightenment. Then I examine the ways that mechanization of food systems and the changing role of the state influenced the movement and its practices. Lastly I trace the influences stemming from the cultural challenges and changes of the 1960s. Finally, I conclude with a discussion of vegetarian / vegan ideas today, noting ethno-racial and class associations which grew out of the social movements of the 1960s and beyond.

In Chapter 4 the data, methodology, and analytic strategy for this dissertation are presented. Content data is discussed first. Data comes from books, pamphlets, music, documentaries, and websites associated with the modern vegetarian and vegan movement. I present a table with all identified frames which explains how each are operationalized. Next, I

5 describe both interview data that was gathered for the study over a period of four years.

Interview data are also broken down along relevant social identity cleavages which are the focus of this study: ethno-racial, gender, and class identities. Analytic strategy is explained, with attention being paid to the differences around which frames are associated with which identity cues and how those frames are then utilized by movement activists. I also explain the limitations of both my content data as well as my interview data.

In Chapter 5 I analyze my content data for implicit or explicit social identity cues. This analysis orients the reader to what frames are offered by claims-makers as they relate to identities. Statistically significant relationships between frame type and cued social identities are documented, showing that claims vary depending on whether or how certain social identities are cued. Five frame-identity cue associations are noted and then examined against activists’ narrative framings in the following chapter.

Chapter 6 incorporates interview data and shows how real movement participants engage in framing processes where they draw on, add to, or reject various frames to make sense of their dietary identity and movement engagement. I identify activists’ most salient frame, as evidenced by the first one which emerged during the interview when discussing how they became vegetarians / vegans. I lastly demographically categorize all research participants and identify two supported connections between frame type and identity which were presented in chapter 5.

Specifically, animal rights frames were inversely related to explicit ethno-racial identity cues in the content analysis and were not commonly used by activists of color in micro mobilizations, while cultural justice frames were only used by activists of color. These are important because they highlight which framings aligned with activists along social identity lines that are being investigated.

In chapter 7 I highlight the identity talk processes that activists of color engaged in while negotiating the frame-identity boundary matrices. I show how activists negotiate the problems inherent in moral frames using the resources available to them (specifically education). When respondents had more education, they were likely to historically re-frame cultural authenticity as vegetarian / vegan. Activists however who did not have the same level of education or the same access to symbolic resources embedded in frames resorted to distancing strategies, with problematic undertones. Specifically, as vegetarian / vegan movement identities were justified as superior to former omnivore identities (hence affirming dietary change) by moral boundaries in some frames but also believed to be culturally atypical, distancing strategies produced an ideological matrix that affirmed racist ideologies. I argue that frames that are successful with activists who have embraced social identities must include additional symbolic resources to assist in identity transformations; those that do not may leave individuals isolated, unconnected, and vulnerable to internalized racism.

In chapter 8 I conclude the dissertation. I overview each pertinent finding. I discuss the theoretical implications of the results and argue that frames appear to reproduce privilege in movement communities when using moral boundaries to demarcate us from them. When frames do not provide symbolic resources for people with marginalized social identities to make sense of identity change and bring their movement and social identities into alignment with one another, marginalized activists may resort to distancing strategies which are more problematic within a hierarchical context. This is important for movements to recognize because it means that frames may be, in some part, creating and reinforcing bias in who is mobilized to movement activity based on their relative obliviousness to the varying positions of different people’s social

7 identities / locations. I conclude chapter 8 with a discussion of the study’s limitations, possibilities for future research, and broader implications for social movements.

CHAPTER 2

FRAMES, IDENTITIES, AND ALIGNMENT

Social movement scholars have long sought to understand what motivates and facilitates some individuals to engage in social movements relative to others. Why do some people sacrifice a great deal of their time or their resources towards a particular social outcome while others do little or nothing? Classical social theory and strain theories posited that individuals who engaged in collective action were often irrational and disorganized, loners and outcasts, and motivated by frustration or other emotions that were brought about by structural dysfunction within society

(Freud 1922; Klapp 1969; Trotter 1919; Wilson and Zurcher 1976). While the focus on individuals and their emotions was not necessarily off-track (Polletta and Jasper 2001), the appraisals of movement actors in these early analyses carried largely negative connotations.

Early theories often presented social movement emergence as symptomatic of a larger social malady, but not as something that could treat or cure the ailment. By the 1960’s however, worldwide social movements emerged that rocked the political and social structures of their respective societies and changed scholars’ appraisals.

In the United States, the Civil Rights Movement and subsequent related progressive movements made scholars re-think old approaches. Rather than negative evaluations of movements and actors as irrational and chaotic, post-1960s analyses began to take a more positive view of movements and imbue them with the potential to fundamentally revision social institutions. Focus was shifted away from the individuals involved in social movements onto structural factors. Specifically, resource mobilization theory (Jenkins 1983; McCarthy and Zald

1977) noted how time, money, prior experience in movements, social networks (Diani 2004), recruitment strategies (Oberschall 1973), shared moral views, and other intangible resources all

9 contributed to the emergence and maintenance of social movements. Cognizant that people are more motivated to act when they have a belief in their chances of success, the political process model (Jenkins and Perrow 1977; Tarrow 1998; Tilly 1978) highlighted the role of political contexts and the ways in which political allies (Gamson 1975), shifting ideologies, public support (Lipsky 1968), movement-countermovement dynamics (Gallo-Cruz 2012; Meyer and

Staggenborg 1996; Rohlinger 2002) and transitions at the level of the state facilitate or repress movement activity (McAdam 1982; Meyer and Minkoff 2004; Meyer 2004). Each approach enhanced the ways that movements and their emergence are understood today, but both downplayed the focus on individuals for favor of macro structures and processes. Further, both approaches neglected the symbolic realm for favor of materialism (McAdam, McCarthy, and

Zald 1996). Mechanisms that connected individuals to social movement activity were not heavily examined in the symbolic realm until the concept of collective action frames was added to social movement scholars’ conceptual repertoire.

Frames

Collective action frames are “interpretive packages” (Polletta and Jasper 2001:291) that are created with the intention of mobilizing individuals to act jointly (Benford 1993; Gamson

1988; Gitlin 1980; Goffman 1974; Snow et al 1986; Snow and Benford 1988). Collective action frames (often simply referred to as “frames”) are conceptualized as one type of resource

(McCarthey and Zald 1977), akin to time, money, or networks, which facilitate movement mobilization. Unlike the previously mentioned resources however, frames capture the power of ideas and constitute symbolic, intangible resources created by social actors to guide everyday people’s interpretations of the social world and ultimately construct perceptions of reality.

FRAMES IDENTITIES ALIGNMENT

VEGETARIAN / IDENTITIES / EMBRACED COLLECTIVE FRAME ALIGNMENT VEGAN FRAMES STANDPOINTS SOCIAL IDENTITY (We) MAY OR MAY NOT IN MEDIA OCCUR; IDENTITY TALK PERFORMED

IDENTITY DIAGNOSTIC NON EMBRACED, NON FRAME ALIGNMENT CUES BOUNDARIES COLLECTIVE PERSONAL MAY OR MAY NOT Overt & Covert Blame Located IDENTITY (I) OCCUR; IDENTITY Identity Cues along Moral or TALK PERFORMED Embedded in Amoral lines Frames

Figure 1: Personal or Social Identity Mediated Model of Frame Alignment

Figure 1 Summary: Frames are persuasive messages that seek to influence perception and mobilize people from passivity to action. Frames diagnose problems, creating boundaries along lines of blame in moral or amoral ways. Frames also contain identity cues, or hints about identities, whether overt or covert. Frames are filtered through audience’s identities, including their social identities / standpoints. How social identities are experienced are argued to break along lines of social power, with less powerful people feeling a greater sense of connection to others (“we”). More powerful people instead experience their identities as individual (“I”), unconnected to others sharing their social locations. This study proposes that collective embracement of social identities influence a frame’s resonance and subsequent alignment. Social identities also influence the identity talk that people perform when aligning their identities with movement identities.

In Figure 1, frames are conceptually placed on the top left hand side of the page, with vegetarian

/ vegan frames in media representing specific movement frames examined in this study.

Additionally, as frames represent particular interpretive schemas (Gamson 1992; Johnston 1995;

Sherkat & Ellison 1997), they also bring issues of identity back into focus when explaining movement participation.

Since the concept of collective action frames was initially proposed as related to social movement activities in the 1980s, scholarship which examines the content and functions of frames has risen meteorically (Benford and Snow 2000:612). From these studies, unique frame typologies have been identified including master frames, motivational frames, prognostic frames, and diagnostic frames which each serve specific functions. Master frames (Snow and Benford

1992) are broadly applicable collective action frames that draw upon bedrock ideas within a culture that individuals use to construct meaning in their lives. Ideals of freedom, rights, choice, justice, fairness, and others that are fundamental to the human experience often constitute the substance of master frames (Mooney and Hunt 1996). Master frames are generally broad in scope and support localized frame elaborations; symbolically they often undergird more specialized frames which seek to accomplish specific tasks.

Motivational, prognostic, and diagnostic frames each function to encourage individuals to act, envision ideals and goals, and construct problems and attribute blame respectively.

Motivational frames offer action oriented vocabularies to mobilize individuals to get off their couches and engage collectively (Benford and Snow 2000; Noakes and Johnston 2005). These types of frames address issues of free-riding. Prognostic frames address issues of vision.

Prognostic frames outline a route by which movement aims will be successfully attained

(Benford and Snow 2000) and seek to provide viable solutions to social problems. These frames

12 employ language which speaks to an improved future of ameliorated social problems thanks to the work of activists. How people come to see something as a social problem in the first place however is the work of diagnostic frames.

Diagnostic Frames and Moral Boundaries

Diagnostic frames seek to persuade potential movement adherents towards a particular interpretation that some phenomena in society is a problem (Čapek 1993; Ernst 2009; Gamson

1992; Hunt, Benford, and Snow 1994; Jasper and Poulson 1995; Klandermans et al 1999; Snow,

Vliegenthart, and Corrigal-Brown 2007). Diagnostic frames crucially point fingers of blame at various social actors and / or institutions and articulate why they are responsible for injustices or other dysfunctional arrangements in society. As diagnostic frames define particular social phenomena unfavorably, they encourage potential recruits to adopt a shared assessment of villains and / or culprits, drawing boundaries between the two camps. In Figure 1 (page 11), diagnostic boundaries are placed towards the left-hand side of the page below frames as they represent one critical component. Locating blame with guilty individuals or harmful situations where other possibilities do or could exist incorporates an injustice element into a diagnosis.

Scholars like William Gamson (1992) have asserted that all diagnostic elements of movement frames include an assessment of injustice, although others like Benford and Snow (2000) disagree, citing scholarship on self-help movements (Taylor 1999) and religious movements among others. In these counter examples, blame is attributed not to culpable people, but to impersonal processes or faulty beliefs. Thus, diagnostic frames may vary in their locus of blame, even though most arguably incorporate an injustice component in their construction.

Within the vegetarian / vegan movement, diagnostic framings that attribute blame are of particular interest. This is because vegetarian / vegan movement participation or nonparticipation are theoretically mutually exclusive, making all non-vegetarians / non-vegans (hereafter referred to as omnivores) potential recruits. For a movement that revolves around behavioral choices and changes like vegetarianism / veganism, this means that omnivorous practices must be problematized.

Because the vegetarian / vegan movement is considered a “lifestyle movement1” where changed individual behaviors are the means by which broader social / cultural change is achieved (Haenfler, Johnson, and Jones 2012), virtually all omnivores are positioned as movement outsiders potentially contributing to the problem that the movement targets. That is, those who are not vegetarians / vegans may potentially have blame directed towards them if an injustice frame is utilized because there is no morally neutral ‘middle ground’ for bystanders.

This dynamic is interesting for several reasons as it pertains to identity and frame alignment.

First, as diagnostic frames construct boundaries, they not only differentially position activists and bystanders relative to one another, they lay the groundwork by which movement collective identities may be formed. Taylor and Whittier (1992) argue that this transition involves three steps: first, individuals create boundaries that differentiate themselves from others

(“us and them”); next, individuals consciously link their social-structural position to a clear

1Vegetarianism / veganism (Maurer 2002), locavorism, religious as well as secular voluntary simplicity movements (Kahl 2012), virginity pledging movements, homesteading movements

(Heinz 2006), ‘doomsday prepper’ movements, and many others are situated under the canopy of lifestyle movements, falling between lifestyles and contentious politics approaches.

14 phenomenon (often provided by a frame); lastly, individuals reify group differences (and subsequently help construct dignity and ‘rightness’ for themselves) by politicizing day to day activities, consistent with lifestyle as well as other movements. Yet while frames that attribute blame to people’s bad choices and beliefs may facilitate collective identity formation by morally politicizing choices as better or worse, such attributions are fraught with problems in a society which is already hierarchically stratified along social identity lines and often justified for being so due to the ‘bad choices’ of people with little power.

If blame is diagnostically located with culpable actors or unfair acts, a rigid right / wrong boundary is created which is helpful for creating a collective identity (Gamson 1992; Hunt and

Benford 1994; Taylor and Whittier 1992). If blame is located in impersonal processes with little unfairness however, constructing a movement identity may be hindered by removing the blameworthy target against which movement actors may contentiously react (Morris 1992). How do activists then construct a firm collective movement identity when doing so involves attributing blame to friends and family who are omnivores as there is no behavioral ‘middle ground?’ Are the consequences for this boundary division similar for individuals with different social identities and different social locations?

Identities and Standpoints

Collective action frames explain movement engagement and participation by directing us to examine the symbolic realm as well as the identities involved. Symbolically, frames seek to influence audience member’s points of view such that they align or ‘see eye to eye’ with the social movement. As evaluation and assessment of frames is filtered, at least in part, through the lens of experience, people’s prismatic identities which affect their experiences are foundational

15 in frame alignment processes. Despite this consideration, research that examines framing processes and alignment and clearly distinguishes between our personal, social, or collective identities is scant. This is an important consideration because our varying identities differ in terms of social imposition and relative cultural power, which may influence alignment outcomes.

This research uses two conceptualizations of identity to create analyses. First, I use an attributional model of social identities, or those identity categories that locate people as social objects. I use this approach when demographically sorting and categorizing the responses of individual activists into different race / ethnic, gender, and class categories to be used in comparison to the social identity hints or cues embedded in frames to identify where connections exist. That is, data for vegetarians / vegans who were interviewed for this study were sorted into varying social identity categories based on their demographic responses to questions about their race / ethnicity, their gender, and their class.

Second, when examining the interviews of vegetarian / vegan activists, I use an interactionist perspective of identities and the self, whereby the self is conceptualized as a reflexive interpretive process (Mead 1934) and different types of identities are believed to be the products of this process (Callero 2003:120). Rather than an attribution based model of the identities that people ‘have’(which was used in the first round of analyses), the self and associated identities are situated as interactive processes that people ‘do’ by self-indicating

(Sandstrom, Martin, and Fine 2003), or differentially overlaying meaning onto various contextual phenomena which may be used when constructing the self. These meanings may be overlaid and identities “worked on” (Snow and Anderson 1987) using a variety of strategies.

“Identity work” is “anything that people do, individually or collectively, to give meaning to themselves or others” (Schwalbe and Mason-Schrock 1996:115). When people work on their

16 identities, including aligning their various identities with one another, they may use resources like props, settings, costumes, or talk. “Identity talk” (Holstein and Gubrium 2000; Hunt and

Benford 1994; Loseke and Cavendish 2001; Snow and Anderson 1987; Swidler 1986), or talk used as a resource while working on or clarifying one’s identity (Hadden and Lester 1978), can affiliate or disaffiliate a person with different groups in order to accomplish the desired identity change (McCall 2003). Identity talk is defined here as “a discourse that reflects actors’ perceptions of a social order and is based on interpretations of current situations, themselves, and others” (Hunt and Benford 1994:492).

Hunt and Benford (1994) note six different types of identity talk identified in movements contexts: associational declarations, disillusionment anecdotes, atrocity tales, personal is political reports, guide narratives, and war stories (1994:493-94). Of particular interest here are associational declarations, where activists state their affiliations which serve to define their identities in relation to collective groups, either positively or negatively. These function similarly to Snow and Anderson’s (1987) “associational embracing and distancing,” whereby homeless men would variously describe themselves as similar to or different from the discursively imposed qualities associated with homeless people by the larger society as a mechanism by which to construct personal dignity and worth. Ultimately each of these terms relates the ways that activists rhetorically position themselves relative to a referenced group.

Using this perspective of self and identities, I examine the ways that activists negotiated their personal, social, and collective identities using identity talk as a resource. By personal identities, I refer to the ways that individuals use talk to define who they are individually.

Personal identities in this research are understood to be interactional accomplishments by which people understand and define themselves as individuals. Personal identities, like all identities, are

17 malleable and subject to change depending on contextual and other factors (Callero 2003; Cerulo

1997), but they are fundamentally understood to individuals as subjectively personal.

Social identities are those identity categories that locate individuals as social objects and impute particular meanings as associated with those social locations (Goffman 1963). These identities are created on the basis of categorical membership and are imposed by others, creating in-groups and out-groups. Race, ethnicity, gender, and class identities are each examples of social identity categories that locate individuals as members of specific categories or groups, and include various meanings as associated with categorical membership (Hill-Collins 2005; Wilkins

2012). As these identities are imposed from the outside in and carry associated meanings which are understood to be differentially positive or negative along lines of power, they are subject to differential associational embracement, rejection, or other forms of discursive negotiation

(Khanna and Johnson 2010). When social identities are embraced through associational declarations (“I am this”) through talk, then they lead to collective identity, where an individual is more likely to experience a sense of “shared fate” with others in their group (Polletta and

Jasper 2001). This may alternatively be indicated when an individual disassociates themselves as a person who is not a member of an alternative social identity category (“I am not this”) (McCall

2003). When categorical social identities are ignored when talking about the self however, it suggests that such an identity is not meaningful in a given context, and likely only experienced as personal.

In this dissertation, I must clarify between “collectively embraced social identities” or sometimes for brevity “social identities” versus “collective movement identities” or “movement identities.” While collectively embraced social identities are discussed above and in the rest of this paper as related to one’s social identity categories, “collective identities” as they are

18 generally understood in movement research are the products of successful frame alignment

(Taylor and Whittier 1992), where frames serve to discursively “enlarge a personal identity”

(Snow and McAdam 2000) and create a feeling of “us” or “we” within a social movement

(Friedman and McAdam 1992; Gamson 1992; Melucci 1980, 1985, 1989; Taylor 1989; Taylor and Whittier 1992). That is, individuals coming to view and talk about themselves as an “animal rights activist” (Einwohner 1999; Munro 2005), an “environmentalist” (Čapek 1993; Cable and

Shriver 1995; Taylor 2000), or an “ethical vegetarian / vegan” (Cherry 2006) is argued by movement scholars to be directly related to the successful resonance of collective action frames created by movement claims makers, rather than as general processes of signification in everyday life. The unit of analysis in these studies is a macroscopic, supra-individual identity rather than an individualized social identity. In this dissertation, I refer to “collective movement identities” or “movement identities” to designate this conceptualization of collective identity, which is a product of successful frame alignment and consider vegetarian / vegan identities to be of this variety as it is considered to be a “lifestyle movement” (Haenfler, Johnson, and Jones

2012).

While collective identities in much movement scholarship are conceptually different from embraced categorical social identities for reasons explained above, these two conceptualizations are not mutually exclusive. Categorical social identities may or may not be collective identities, or vice versa. In many examples these two categorizations of identity do overlap (the Civil

Rights Movement seems an apt example where most activists rallied together around their socially imposed ethno-racial identities and felt united in group struggle for equality), but this is not necessary and does not always occur. This distinction is ultimately an important consideration because collectively embraced social identities (like race / ethnic identities) with

19 meanings and associations that may be antithetical to movement goals may potentially act as an impediment to frame alignment and movement mobilization, whereas non-embraced social identities (for example, a White person who does not think about being White on a routine basis), even with the same antithetical movement goals, may be easier to change and therefore facilitative of frame alignment and movement entry. This is because a collectively embraced social identity category is conceptualized as conferring meaning or value for an individual when they use it to signify and define themselves, whereas a non-embraced social identity may not confer the same value for individual signification (Howard 2000; Sandstrom, Martin, and Fine

2003). Thus, a person with a collectively embraced social identity may find it threatened by a new movement identity that is not behaviorally or otherwise in-line. If however an individual does not have a collectively embraced social identity that is seen as valuable, then such a person would symbolically have less to lose in the ways they confer meaning to themselves, because their movement identification are not seen as challenging their ‘we-ness.’

An additional consideration gleaned through standpoint theory also enters here in the discussion of identities which brings structure and power back to the forefront of this overview but which is slightly theoretically disjointed from traditional identity treatments by interactionists. Standpoints are considered unique positions (social locations) from which individuals interpret and construct reality (Harding 1991; Hill-Collins 1990; hooks 1984; Smith

1990). Standpoint theorists have long argued that social identity categorical embracement or rejection, even while being evaluated differently in terms of the categorical affiliation’s desirability, tends to break along structural lines of power, where people occupying less privileged social locations are more likely to experience a connection with others who share their subjugated social identity than people occupying more privileged locations (hooks 1984;

Johnson 2006; Hill-Collins 1990). As this relates to identities, this means that people with marginalized social locations are more likely to have extant collectively embraced social identities versus those in dominant categories, who are more likely to experience themselves as individuals. This differs from more traditional interactionist approaches which suggest that individuals with the same social identities may not experience any subjective connection to others who share their identity categories.

Referring to Figure 1, I position identities to the right of frames, as they are the filter through which messages are seen. In this research I focus specifically on the mediating role of identities and their associated standpoints in frame alignment processes. Using arrows to direct, I break this type of identity category into one of two types depending on its respective embracement along theoretical lines of social power, as consistent with standpoint theory and explained above. People in less powerful social identity categories are more likely to have a shared sense of connection along such lines, fostering a sense of “we.” People in more powerful social identity categories however are more likely to see themselves as individuals, unconnected to others in their group, and experience the self as “I.” As these respective differences may then influence how frames are evaluated, more work that examines frame resonance and alignments among people with different social identity categories is needed (Ladd 2011; Noakes and

Johnston 2005). Further, as collectively embraced or non-embraced social identities may affect how individuals differentially negotiate the boundaries demarcating movement insiders from outsiders or bring these different forms of identity into alignment with one another, further research examining identity work and identity talk within movement contexts is needed. Lastly, more studies are needed that examine which identity considerations present within frames

21 themselves matter to audiences, or whether these considerations are affected by different standpoints.

Identity Cues

Aside from the locus of blame attributions (Snow et al 1986) which are embedded in diagnostic frames, other information is embedded in frames that may affect how they are understood by people with different identities. Frame construction draws upon the beliefs and experiences of claims makers, whose perspectives may be embedded in frames either overtly or covertly. These points of view however may differ from those of the audience, potentially influencing whether or how frames resonate and align. Even with the best intentions and beliefs for success, blind spots in consciousness created by socially privileged standpoints (Harding

1991; Hartsock 1983; Hill-Collins 1990; hooks 1984) may still potentially lead some messages to backfire.

Hunt, Benford, and Snow (1994) discuss the ways that targeted audience’s “identity fields” may be seen as antagonistic, sympathetic, or neutral. The authors state that “a common characteristic of all imputed audience’s identities is that they are capable of receiving and evaluating [sympathetic] protagonist messages in a favorable light” (1994:200). The authors do not however distinguish between personal, social, or collective identities in this chapter.

Other research that examines the connections between claims makers and audiences often use a performance studies lens. For example, Blee and McDowell (2012) study how social movements iteratively construct audiences over time, finding that movement actors strategically change their actions depending on how the constructed audience is perceived (from neutral to hostile). Their approach highlights the way in which a claims maker’s views of the audience

22 evolves over time. Other performance studies approaches do the same, where they examine the ideas of claims makers regarding who the audience is believed to be (Hall 2000; Vinitzky-

Seroussi 2002). While these approaches are beneficial for examining the process of frame evolution over time, they do not examine the biases that may become embedded within frames themselves, or how these changing postulations of the audience potentially affect subsequent alignment processes among potential activists.

Because identities affect standpoints that shape experiences as well as evaluations of frames, their examination through explicit reference or implicit assumption is important.

Borrowing the concept of “identity cues” (Converse 1964; Hart and Nisbet 2012; Nelson and

Kindler 1996) from the field of communications proves a useful conceptual tool in this regard.

Identity cues are hints or clues embedded in messages that reference social identity categories in some way. By noting whether a particular identity is referenced and explicitly cued within a frame or not, comparisons and contrasts can be made among frames along identity lines. Further, identity cues need not distinguish whether the referenced identity is that of the claims maker or the targeted audience, which is an important theoretical consideration made to avoid building a priori bias into data collection. Identity cues are located on the left hand side of the page under frames in Figure 1 (page 11), as they are entrenched in frame construction.

By examining cross sections of static movement frames along with their identity cues, the ways that identities and points of view are woven in to the tapestry of the offered messages can be examined. Comparing these to the narrative framing processes performed by activists shines brighter additional light onto the ways that frames resonate and align for activists. Do identity cues embedded in frames produce differential framing alignments among activists with different understandings of their identities? Additionally, if some messages are found to be linked to

23 particular identity cues that are discordant from activists’ social identities, are recruits then positioned vulnerably to attacks of inauthenticity?

Frame Resonance and Alignment

To recap, the purpose of collective action frames as they are articulated by social movements is to connect individuals to movement activity by influencing their understanding and subsequent beliefs regarding particular societal phenomena. Leading people to see particular events or relationships as problematic, collective action frames seek to mobilize individuals who might otherwise not participate in movement activities by offering messages that they believe will “resonate” or “ring true” (Snow and Benford 1988). This ‘ringing true’ is assessed by targeted audiences, who decide whether frames exhibit “narrative fidelity” (Fisher 1984) or

“cultural resonance” (Berbrier 1998; Kubal 1998), reflecting perceived injustices or other relationships between phenomena accurately. Thus, resonance rests on subjective audience evaluations, who compare the messages of frames to their personal experiences (Babb 1996).

People’s identities elementally shape their subjectivities, perceptions, and experiences, which in turn affect their appraisals of cultural resonance. When frames do resonate successfully they produce “alignment,” or “the linkage of individual and SMO interpretative orientations, such that some set of individual interests, values, and beliefs and SMO activities, goals, and ideology are congruent and complimentary” (Snow et al 1986:464). Thus, while claims makers create and offer frames as symbolic products which they hope will resonate, audiences may engage in framing, whereby they interpretively utilize frames to construct reality and understand their social worlds. When explaining their own movement involvement, framing processes narratively transform the packaged frames offered by claims makers into dynamic interactional

24 accomplishments. Further, the “thematic content” of frames (including motivating rationales or blame-worthy targets) should share a high degree of overlap with themes found in the narratives of mobilized audiences if resonating successfully and producing alignment (Ladd 2011:349).

One way in which individuals and activists engage in framing is to offer narratives. By

“narratives,” I am referring to stories that place self and events into a coherent temporal sequence, and constitute a resource that people use to make sense of the world and of themselves

(Hunt and Benford 1994; Snow and Anderson 1993; Wilkins 2012). These stories connect the respondent’s past to their present and may often focus on continuities or transitions in meaning systems for respondents (Reissman 1993), and so provide an excellent methodological tool by which to analyze activists’ framings or talk signifying how and why they joined movements and revealing where their perspectives align with those promoted by frames. “Stories—both about ourselves and about others—align people with groups, create boundaries between groups, and give meaning to group membership” (Wilkins 2012:176). Further, as narratives are forms of talk, they also may be sites where activists can talk about their identities and rhetorically position themselves as similar to or different from signified groups or collectives.

By aligning their perspectives with those promoted by frames, individuals gain access to a “furnished vocabulary” when framing their activism (Hunt and Benford 1994). They also engage in “identity talk,” which helps them link and align their personal identity with the larger collectivity. Hunt and Benford (1994) note that much research examining identities in movements treat personal and collective identity alignment as unproblematic, but argue that such processes are neither simple nor straightforward. In Figure 1, frame alignment as well as identity talk represent dependent variables and are placed on the right hand side of the figure. These may exhibit variation depending the different identities of activists.

It is from these insights that the current research project emerges. There is currently insufficient research that examines the ways that individual activists with varying identities engage in framing processes, where they fashion micro narratives that thematically overlap with the contents of macro collective action frames, to produce frame alignment, or an interpretive schema congruent with a social movement (Ladd 2011; Steinberg 1998). Additionally, there is little available framing research that clearly differentiates between individual, social, and collective identities (Stryker, Owens, and White 2000) as they may differentially matter for frame alignment and movement identity collectivization using identity talk (Noakes and

Johnston 2005). This research addresses both areas, examining the ways that social identities influence framing processes leading to alignment as well as identity talk.

Conclusion

Frames seek to influence everyday people’s perceptions and interpretations of events in order to change their evaluations and behaviors. Diagnostic frames point fingers of blame at culpable villains or processes for creating particular problems and create boundaries between activists and the sources of problems along moral or amoral lines. Moral boundaries help facilitate collective movement identity formation by allowing activists to see themselves as

‘right’ and others as ‘wrong,’ whereas amoral boundaries are less facilitative. What happens however when moral boundaries paint friends and family members as villains? Further, in a society where certain social categories and associated identities have less power, how might moral diagnoses potentially read like victim blaming? Frames also contain identity cues which are either overt or covert. How might these identity cues be read differently by audiences depending on their different identities and mediate frame resonance and alignment? As social

26 identities vary in power and are experienced differently as such, how might social identities ultimately influence frame resonance and alignment?

As there are few studies that examine the ways that activists with different social identities engage in frame alignment processes whereby they interpretively fashion static frames into their own narratives and engage in identity talk to signify their place within movements, this study makes a needed contribution.

I address currently understudied identity considerations in frame alignment processes in three distinct but related ways. First, I examine the textual presentation of frames as offered by claims makers for their movement messages as well as their embedded identity cues as related to race, ethnicity, gender, and class and then compare these findings to the narrative framing processes engaged in by activists with different identities to paint a fuller picture of frame resonance and alignment. Second, I examine which framings are offered by mobilized activists of varying social identities to reveal whether the identity cues may be driving the resonance and subsequent alignment. Lastly, I dig deeper into the ways that activists’ social identities which vary in cultural power and privilege intercede in the creation of movement identities. I do this by comparing and contrasting the “identity talk” (Hunt and Benford 1994) performed by activists to highlight the varying ways that aligned activists negotiate movement boundaries that demarcate insiders from outsiders.

As the vegetarian / vegan movement provides a case study in this dissertation, it is helpful to have a working knowledge of the cultural confluences that shaped this movement over time in the United States. The next chapter traces these confluences, noting the changing perspectives and technologies that influenced the emergence of modern vegetarian / vegan frames.

CHAPTER 3

CULTURAL CONFLUENCES SHAPING THE U.S. VEGETARIAN / VEGAN

MOVEMENT

The U.S. vegetarian / vegan movement today is often associated with particular messages and identity stereotypes, but these have hardly been constants. Historically vegetarianism / veganism in the U.S. has been understood in a variety of ways and included many different types of people. Changing cultural social contexts and new technological innovations enabling food production and consumption have changed the rationales of the movement over time.

This chapter is intended to impart greater contextualization of the antecedents producing diverse ideas. To better appreciate where modern frames offered by claims makers come from and how they are offered as well as used, I trace the cultural and historical confluences that shaped the U.S. vegetarian / vegan movement. After first offering a brief note about terminology used in this chapter, I outline distinct arenas that affected the movement. I first discuss traditional ideological influences like the Abrahamic religious and secular Enlightenment ideas. I then highlight how technological industrialization of the food system and the role of the state changed the way that Americans eat and think about their food. I lastly note how the cultural struggles of the 1960s changed the culture respective to notions of justice.

Terminology

Though most of the Western historical record, the diet that today is referred to as vegetarianism or “plant-based” was referred to as the “Pythagorean diet,” named after the ancient

Greek mathematician Pythagoras who supported eliminating meats from one’s diet (Kamin

2013). In the mid-1800s, the term Pythagoreanism was replaced by the term “vegetarian” in the

United States and England. The term is credited to the British Vegetarian Society, a group influenced by the Bible Christians, who advocated divine mystic revelations and promoted ideas considered heretical during their time (Spencer 1995). The terminology was meant to draw divisions between the diets of vegetarian adherents and middle-class British omnivores. The word “vegan” was later coined in 1944 by Donald Watson, founder of the Vegan Society, to create a further designation for those who refuse all animal products (Kamin 2013).

As practices and identities, vegetarianism and veganism are different. The dominant understanding of vegetarianism today refers to a practice where the flesh of terrestrial or aquatic animals is not ingested. The dominant understanding of veganism however refers to a practice where no animal products whatsoever are ingested or commercially consumed, including eggs, diary, honey, and leather. Arguably, these different positions grow from divergent ideological bases that pivot around the relationship of animals and humans, with vegetarians reducing their use of animals and vegans eliminating it. Even while recognizing this, there is still enough confusion regarding terminology within popular culture that hyper-restricting the analysis to only vegetarian or only vegan respondents would be problematic. Thus, the two perspectives which are united in their non-consumption of animal flesh are combined in this research.

Further, while vegetarian / vegan meals have always been historically commonplace, I restrict the idea of vegetarianism / veganism as a movement to a chosen or adopted lifestyle rather than a necessity. If a family is too poor to afford meat for example, while they may consume vegetarian meals, they are not considered part of the vegetarian movement. Being a behavioral-choice based movement definition, those without the ability or means to choose are by definition excluded.

Lastly, although it may be more historically contextually accurate to refer to the dietary movement as “Pythagorean” during the colonial era until the mid-1800s, or to distinguish between vegetarianism or veganism in each subsection, I choose to use the consistent terminology “vegetarian / vegan” to avoid potential confusion.

Traditional Ideological Influences

The U.S. vegetarian / vegan movement has emerged within a cultural context strongly shaped by Abrahamic religious influences and secular, rationalist values imported from the

European enlightenment by aristocratic colonists and founding fathers. Abrahamic religions influenced the cultural context by setting dietary laws, regulating animal suffering, and advocating health maintenance for adherents as respect and honor for their ‘body-temples.’

Secular, enlightenment influences include mind-body dualism, and contributing the concept of universal rights. Further, the extension of rights has proven historically contentious and continues in this trajectory as arguments extending rights to animals have emerged. In the section below, I further elaborate the ways these multidimensional belief systems shaped cultural contexts towards the movement.

Abrahamic Religious Influences

Many Eastern religions discuss vegetarianism / veganism as they relate to meaning and suffering, with multiple doctrines advocating principles of non-violence (“ahimsa”), especially among the cultural elite (Walters and Portmess 2001). Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism all expressly condone vegetarianism / veganism among devout adherents (Fraser 2003). Jains especially are expected to take no life and engage in no violence if devout, including plant-life.

All root vegetables are considered off limits for strict Jains, as removal of the root kills the plant.

Instead, fruits, vegetables, and grains that plants freely yield are permissible.

In the Western tradition, vegetarianism / veganism is uncommon as a religious mandate, although Abrahamic values continue to play a powerful role within American culture. Two of the three mainstream Western religions—Judaism and Islam—contain dietary commandments for the observant. The Torah (referred to as the Old Testament by Christians) and Talmud contain and explain Jewish kosher laws against the consumption of pork, shellfish, insects, and the mixing of dairy and beef in the same meal. The Qur’an, or religious text of Islam, contains halal rules which function similarly and restrict the consumption of pork, but are less restrictive regarding the consumption of shellfish or insects. While neither mainstream religious interpretation (kosher, halal) commands the devout to practice vegetarianism / veganism, they both express a clear mandate that believers interact with food in ways that show respect for and personal submission to God, the provider.

Christianity, the third major Western religion of the Abrahamic tradition, lacks the same sorts of dietary prohibitions that exist in Judaism and Islam. This is because most interpretations of Christianity consider kosher dietary restrictions inapplicable (with some exceptions like

Orthodox Ethiopians, who retain kosher prohibitions against pork) as the New Testament is interpreted as a fresh covenant between humans and God. Yet even though Christianity lacks the same laws regarding dietary obedience to God scripturally, the attainment of spiritual purity is still often been connected to diet and self-denial in some denominations (fasting, consuming ceremonial foods, and refraining from alcohol are other examples), where self-denial and subsequent cleanliness are positioned ‘next to Godliness.’

Abrahamic religions not only define dietary laws for adherents, they also shape views regarding the roles of animals. Both Jewish and Islamic faiths incorporate textual interpretations from religious clerics in shaping religious practice. Some Jewish Rabbis and Islamic Mullahs have argued that the heart of why kosher and halal (respectively) rules exist is to foster particular relationships between humankind and animals that reduces unnecessary suffering (Kocturk 2002;

Schwartz 2001), and some have extended their analyses (especially within the Jewish faith) and argued that abstaining completely from flesh effectively ends suffering and therefore acts as a religious dietary practice.

While lacking the same rules explaining the proper procedures for the humane slaughter of farm animals, Christianity has consistently focused on compassion and stewardship as dogmatic features of the religion. A strong undercurrent of respect for the suffering of animals as other divine creations exists, leading some within the Christian faith to view vegetarianism / veganism as preferable for their compassionate honoring of life, which is the seen as the “Breath of God” (Young 1999).

Finally, as life itself (breath) is often understood as a ‘gift’ from God by the three major

Abrahamic religions, ideas regarding health maintenance are also sometimes present as a form of respect and thanks. While many sects and denominations espouse health promoting behaviors along these lines, one group in particular best exemplifies this idea while promoting vegetarianism / veganism: Seventh Day Adventists.

In 1863, the Seventh Day Adventists were founded in Battle Creek, Michigan. This religious group included vegetarianism / veganism as a component of religious doctrine, coupled with other behaviors like the avoidance of alcohol and tobacco and daily teeth brushing (a novel idea in the 1860s) (Bull and Lockhart 2007). Seventh Day Adventism views the body somewhat

32 similarly to other Christian factions as a divine housing or “temple” where the soul is believed to reside; it differs however from many factions in the view that the soul and body are fused together, even upon death, until the Second Coming of Jesus (known as the Advent). Until then, the dead remain in an endless, unconscious state.

Seventh Day Adventism’s influence in American culture generally and the U.S. vegetarian / vegan movement in particular has consistently grown since the church’s formation in the 1860s. While initial believers were localized in the American Midwest during the sect’s founding, the organization today is one of the fifteen largest internationally due to the emphasis on testifying, converting new members, and performing missionary work. Thus, while the

Adventists began as a small, local religious sect relegated to cult status by more mainstream

Protestant denominations through most of the 19th and 20th centuries, today it is a highly visible and diverse organization.

Rationalist Enlightenment Influences

Vegetarianism / veganism was also influenced by rationalist Enlightenment values and subsequent ethical systems. Some of America’s aristocratic Euro-American founding fathers practiced vegetarianism / veganism, influenced by enlightenment beliefs about the powers of reason, Newtonian models of a clockwork universe, and Cartesian metaphysical views of organic bodies that operated in a mechanistic fashion (Spencer 1995). While most colonial aristocrats during this time period could afford to consume meat and a rich diet in general, some noted intellectuals like Ben Franklin (2011) had public forays (and sometimes recusals) with the diet.

As vegetarianism / veganism was sometimes practiced by aristocratic colonists during the 1600s and 1700s, it was presented as an ideal best achieved through personal reform, temperance, and

33 reasoned discipline—a triumph of mind over body, sensibility over sensate. While devoid of the spiritual enmeshment found in overtly religious dietary commandments, this skeptical vein of thought advocated bodily submission not to a God, but to reason. Thus, the refusal to consume flesh had little to do with the status of animals and more to do with self-mastery.

Concepts of universal human rights have remained a lasting legacy of enlightened social thought. This postulate of a priori equality by virtue of existence logically concludes that if all members of a category are similar in some facet, then they must be treated similarly. Thus, meanings of difference along social cleavages (racial, ethnic, gender, and other groups) have each been ideologically contested in the public sphere, with marginalized groups experiencing oppressive denials to claims of similarity (which would logically confer similar rights and freedoms). Through protracted struggle and eventual reform, the boundaries differentiating human group from group have been successfully challenged, with the trajectory continuing to point towards greater inclusion (Skrentny 2002; see Uggen and Manza 2002 for a criticism on this point).

As the category of humans deserving of rights has grown larger, some have called for the further extension of rights to animals by suggesting that key differences between humans and animals are equally arbitrary to those divisions once believed significant between Europeans and

Africans or women and men. Specifically, relying on utilitarian ethical philosophies which rank behaviors within an ethical hierarchy of better or worse (maximizing beneficial outcomes while / and reducing suffering to the greatest degree possible), proponents posit that because humans and animals are both capable of experiencing suffering then no meaningful division exists between them (Adams 1994; Donovan 1996; Singer 1979). This line of argument is still prevalent today and obviously undergirds the related animal rights movement (Freeman 2010).

Technological Influences and the Role of the State

Changes in food production technology have always affected the evolution of the society that they feed (Diamond 1997; Fite 1984). Changes in food production by way of mechanization technologies were part of a larger project of industrialization generally. As the U.S. economy industrialized, the role of the state also attained greater prominence through farm policies, subsidies, and safety regulations as well as becoming an institutionalized source for nutritional knowledge.

Mechanization and Industrialization of Food Production

For the past hundred and seventy years or so, agriculture has been industrializing.

Beginning with the inventions of new farming machineries like the mechanical plow, invented in

1837 by John Deere, the American way of eating and the American way of life have continually been reshaped (Danhof 1969).

The industrialization of the food system began to change the economics of farming and the human labor to yield ratio (Kohlmeyer and Herum 1961). Increased farm productivity from mechanical plows, threshers, harvesters, and gins coupled with increased transport methods allowed food production to become more centralized and less localized. The greater centralization of farming birthed the modern agribusiness structure; most foods produced today fall under the umbrella of a handful of corporations as a result of processes that began around

170 years ago. Refrigeration and other food preservation technologies improved during this time as well, contributing to the beginnings of delocalization away from small farms. Additionally, with widespread use of railroads to transport foods across long distances, improved refrigeration

35 methods, and product marketing for refined, finished food products made remotely in factories rather than by individuals in the home, advertising for processed foods also grew.

Wars and Lean Times

While the technological advancements of the previous generations were beginning to transform U.S. society, the change was incremental. The majority of the U.S. population still lived rurally and food production was still fairly localized. Two world wars and a destabilized, depressed economy however contributed to pervasive hunger as food and commodity prices experienced volatile fluctuation. During these ‘lean times,’ many Americans subsisted on vegetarian diets, although these diets were not chosen of free will, but of economic necessity

(Terkel 1986). Meat prices were considerably higher than starches like potatoes, wheat, and corn; common families stretched their budgets to the limit and often skipped meat as a survival strategy.

As part of the war effort during both WWI and WWII, the U.S. government encouraged families to plant “victory gardens” through use of nationalistic propaganda. These gardens were created in private yards and on public property, and were intended to provide greater food security. They were also believed to boost morale at home as citizens could see the literal fruits of their labor as connected to national defense. By localizing food production, more fossil fuels were freed from domestic agricultural production and transport to send munitions and rations to soldiers overseas. A common slogan created by the government during both conflicts was “food will win the war.”

Increasing domestic production during the wars, especially during WWII, was a critical success strategy with food being one of the featured components. Once economic conditions

36 improved and WWII ended however, families who had been living primarily off of vegetarian diets often reverted to meat consumption. The necessity of vegetarianism for many during the lean years highlights that ideologically driven (rather than materially driven) vegetarianism is only available as an identity construct when meat is plentiful and a meaningful choice can be made between alternatives. Thus, while vegetarianism in practice was common for many families during these years, most people did not consider themselves vegetarians and would have eaten meat, had it been affordable and available. Thus, while direct U.S. government backed propaganda may be seen as promoting plant-based diets for reasons of security and affordability during the wars, they were not pro vegetarian frames because they do not suggest that individuals forgo meat expressly.

After the end of WWII, the United States entered a period of great economic prosperity.

The baby-boom started at the end of the war in 1945 and suburbs became popular as former city dwellers with enough means were decanted into the local surrounding countryside thanks to increased private automobile usage and low interest V.A. loans. American’s level of meat consumption rose again as supplies became available and affordable in the midst of affluence.

By the end of the 1950s however, ideas about vegetarianism were shifting, along with the rest of

American society.

Consolidation of Nutritional and Safety Information by the State

Vegetarian diets were believed to be nutritionally unsound until the middle of the 20th century in institutionalized government bureaus like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

(Whorton 1994) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which were each created by stakeholders during the turn of the 20th century. The FDA gained steam as a consumer protection

37 agency in the progressive era as muckraking journalism exposed the use of unhealthy, sometimes toxic additives in food, pharmaceuticals, and beauty products. It continued to grow in scope and authority every generation since its inception and today holds strict regulatory powers over food and drug safety standards.

The USDA became more salient in the lives of everyday Americans during the lean years between both world wars as they looked for nutrition and farming advice. Mothers especially turned to the USDA for nutrition guidance for their children while preparing for oncoming war rations, and the agency responded with the creation of Recommended Dietary Allowances

(RDA’s) in May of 1941 (Nestle 2007). The USDA has created eight different food guides, updating them every generation or so to incorporate newer nutrition science and ensure continued relevancy (USDA 2011). These early guides highly influenced Americans’ association of “protein” with “meat,” popularizing information about newly discovered nutrients in the early part of the 20th century. By the late 1970s however, informed by cardiologic studies generated throughout the 1960s, the USDA started promoting the reduction of animal fats and cholesterols for heart health, which some analysts argue corresponded to reduced consumption of meat, dairy, and eggs for the first time since the end of the Second World War. Americans were now beginning to hear from official sources that animal fats and proteins might not be as healthy as once believed. Additionally, in 1973, Frances Moore-Lappe’s book Diet for a Small Planet sparked other dietary controversy arguing that combining protein sources resulted in “complete proteins” and could therefore adequately meet human nutritional requirements while addressing issues of global hunger. While modern nutrition scientists argue that “protein combining” is actually unnecessary because it conflates the concepts of “efficiency” with the value of “quality”

(Campbell and Campbell 2006:30), the notion that vegetarian / vegan diets could not only meet

38 all human dietary needs but in fact be superior to omnivorousness for their health benefits brought discussions about health, diet, and vegetarianism to a more mainstream American audience.

Cultural Influences from the 1960s

While the 1950s are often understood in collective memory to be a time associated with conformity as well as inequality, the “long sixties” (Isserman and Kazin 2011) ushered in a desire and a need to retool old social institutions. Civil rights, anti-war, youth and student movements, counter-culture movements, the second wave women’s movement, gay liberation movements, and many others each began to rock the established social order in progressive ways. As America (and the world more broadly) grappled with the changing tides and the expansion of rights (Skrentny 2002), the dynamics of human and nonhuman animal relationships viewed through a lens of inequality and rights became an unavoidable logical extension. While some rationales for vegetarianism from previous time periods remained, new frameworks for understanding human and animal relationships emerged within a societal context of turbulent political flux. Vegetarianism / veganism were increasingly seen through lenses of improved health, environmental protection, and ethnic and racial justice.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the foundations of the modern environmental movement were just beginning to gain cultural prominence (Buttell 1987; Čapek 1993).

Recognizing that environmental degradation could create life altering problems for future generations, especially during the nuclear age, many citizens began turning their attention to connections of food, energy usage, and ecological intensity. Frances Moore Lappe’s book (1973)

Diet for a Small Planet (previously mentioned), was one of the first to gain notoriety for its

39 advocacy of vegetarianism as a solution to world hunger and a means to preserve the natural environment. This and other works of environmental consciousness of this time period were used alongside environmental activism to iterate the message that reducing meat consumption was a sustainable decision.

Vegetarianism / veganism also became intertwined with issues of racial and ethnic justice during the “long sixties” (Isserman and Kazin 2011). While not prominent in the early, mainstream Civil Rights Movement (CRM) associated with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), dietary messages did play an important role in the later Black Nationalist, Black Power, and Pan-African movements that gained cultural momentum in the late 1960s and 1970s. Long standing patterns of oppression were openly being challenged by these movements, raising consciousness regarding cultural practices. More radicalized groups like the Black Panthers and Brown Berets and prominent, powerful leaders like Malcolm X, Angela Davis, and Cesar Chavez asked Black and Brown people to rethink long-held traditions. Black Nationalist rhetoric of this time period began to influence perceptions of diet, just as it influenced perceptions of traditional religion, styles of dress, and children’s names, and challenged historians to revision Eurocentric narratives. Many different groups affiliated with Black Nationalist or Black Power ideologies promoted alternative kosher, halal, vegetarian or vegan dietary identities.

Malcolm X’s Nation of Islam, like most sects of modern Islam, prohibits the consumption of pork. The Hebrew Israelites, sometimes known as the Black Hebrew Israelites or

African Hebrew Israelites, also gained greater prominence in the 1970s through their associations with Black Nationalism in the U.S (Singer 1992). This group too has varying dietary proscriptions, including bans against pork for some to total veganism for others.

Popular critic and comedian Dick Gregory was also a prominent vegetarian. He not only practiced vegetarianism, he advocated it for Black Americans as a way to enhance health and cast off yet another yoke of oppression—that of sickness. Proposing vegetarianism / veganism to be consistent with psychological liberation, Gregory (1973) argued that taking care of oneself physically was also an act of resistance against injustice from White or other aggressors.

In addition to Black Power and Black Nationalist critical dietary thought, prominent

Latino leader Cesar Chavez, who co-founded the United Farm Workers movement with Dolores

Huerta in 1962 (UFW 2014), reportedly practiced veganism out of compassion for animals, his health, and to extend his own approach of non-violence, even though the UFW’s never officially advocated veganism. Drawing greater attention to farmworker treatment and the ethics of food production processes however remains and enduring legacy that finds connection with the modern U.S. vegetarian / vegan movement. Ultimately each of the named individuals and affiliations challenged the racial, ethnic, and monetary status quos when it came to Americans negotiating their relationships with food. Each, respectively, outlined important connections between racial and ethnic injustice and the foods that Americans traditionally consumed.

Lastly, changing immigration policies in the mid-1960s also facilitated a greater demographic influx of immigrants from Caribbean and African countries who brought Pan-

African and Afrocentric perspectives with them. Prior to the 1960s, gaining legal immigration status from a non-European country was difficult due to a pro-European bias in the points system. After immigration laws were changed however, many more immigrants from non-

European countries were permitted entry, bringing multicultural beliefs and practices with them.

Many immigrants from Africa, especially Ethiopia, identify religiously as Orthodox Christian and share kosher prohibitions against pork if observant. Rastafarianism, or those who believe in

41 the divinity of Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia, are often advised to consume a vegetarian diet, referred to as “ital” or “ytal” if devout. Rastafarianism also gained recognition in the U.S. during the 1970s thanks to the famed musician Bob Marley.

Ultimately each of these ideas between race, rights, and food was made more salient during the 1960s and 70s. Politicization of food through a lens of oppression combined with greater immigration from non-European countries to create more connections between vegetarianism / veganism, privilege, and inequality. These connections continue to exist and inform positions about vegetarianism / veganism today.

Conclusion

The purpose of this chapter has been to contextualize the various ideational confluences which have shaped ideas about vegetarianism / veganism in the U.S. traditionally. These ideas are still prescient today and arguably more salient than ever. Our modern focus on improved health (especially weight maintenance) through ‘proper’ diet has only continued to grow, as startling rates of adult and childhood obesity and related health care costs are frequently deemed newsworthy stories. The economics and ethics of industrialized food production are gaining greater recognition within the culture, thanks to a variety of books, documentaries, social media campaigns, celebrity chefs, and other educational and outreach campaigns (Pollan 2006;

Schlosser 2001; White House 2014). Environmental hazards, fear of chemicals and illnesses caused by additives in food, and increased consciousness of alternatives are also popular topics on social media platforms, forcing individuals to think more about what they eat and what the consequences of their consumption are. Critics contend that assertions of what constitutes the right diet for health are heavily influenced by money, industry, marketing, and political allies.

The American public has been left to discern scientific consensus from a jumble of confusing or contradictory messages, resulting in ‘scientistic’ showdowns in popular forums (Brownell and

Horgen 2004; Critser 2003; Simon 2006). Further, the science itself may be biased due to funding and profit motives, making many Americans critical of even, what seems like on face value to be, reputable advice.

Set within a capitalist backdrop where many believe that their consumptive choices can fundamentally reshape social structures (Johnston 2008), many people’s everyday knowledge of food and diet has transformed from personal to political. Thus, Americans today are experiencing a perfect storm of ideational and material confluences that each bring greater attention to food and diet (Johnston and Baumann 2014), making the vegetarian / vegan movement fecund for examination.

Although the percentage of individuals who practice a purely vegetarian lifestyle is still relatively small compared to the overall population, over the past fifteen years there has been a noted upward and diverse trend (Fulbright 2004; Howell 2003; Hughes 2003; Lane 2008; Riley

2008; Stahler 2012; Vaughn 2008). Identifying which frames continue to hold sway among U.S. vegetarians / vegans and refining how these frames intersect with issues of social identity are some of the current study’s research objectives. Further, highlighting how frame resonance and alignment among movement participants may be influenced by social identities and standpoints contributes to knowledge on how frames may carry and reproduce bias and privilege among movement actors and within the movement today.

CHAPTER 4

DATA, METHODS, AND ANALYTIC STRATEGY

This dissertation adds to movement scholarship on two under-theorized dimensions of the framing literature: frame alignment and movement identity formation as mediated by social identities. To extend knowledge on frame alignment as mediated by social identities, I examine the ways that pro vegetarian / vegan frames with their associated identity cues are offered in media and then examine the narrative framings offered by activists. Specifically, I address three related questions. First, are claims regarding identity stereotypes of vegetarians / vegans supported empirically by associational identity cues embedded in collective action frames?

Second, do framing rationales for movement engagement offered by activists from different backgrounds differ from one another? And third, could any identified differences in these rationales be partially explained by the identity cues in the frames themselves?

To extend scholarship on movement collective identity formation as mediated by social identities, I investigate how mobilized activists negotiate boundaries using identity talk to try to align their social and movement identities (Hunt and Benford 1994). Frames locate and attribute blame differently, placing movement insiders and outsiders in varying moral positions relative to each other. I scrutinize how activists negotiate these boundaries and ask a fourth and final research question: do activists’ social identities influence their boundary negotiations as evidenced by differing framing and identity talk?

To address questions of frame alignment, I focus on whether ethno racial, gender, and class identity cues are statistically associated with particular frames and then thematically examine the narrative framings of activists to identify whether identity correspondence exists. To explicate connections between framing processes, social identities, and movement identities, I

44 use an identity talk perspective (Hadden and Lester 1978; Hunt and Benford 1994; Snow and

Anderson 1987) to analyze how frames with problematic blame attributions are interpreted, contested, and negotiated by activists.

In this chapter, I first present the sampling strategy for gathering content data. I then state how frames were operationalized, discuss the inter coder reliability procedure which was used, and overview the six vegetarian / vegan collective action frames which were identified in the content data. I next operationalize identity cues gathered in content analysis data and present examples to clarify for the reader how these were sorted into explicit versus implicit categorizations. Switching from content data to interview data, I note how respondent activists were located and present demographic information. I then describe the analytic strategies employed to address questions regarding frame alignment and identity formation as mediated by social identities. I conclude by acknowledging limitations of the data.

Content Data Sampling Strategy

A systematic content analysis was designed and analyses performed on media sources that expressly advocated vegetarianism or veganism. Content analysis data ranged from pamphlets distributed by formalized SMO’s, to films produced by large media corporations, to books created by academics, movie stars, and nutritionists, to songs created by various musicians, to short videos that were self-produced and published on YouTube. Media types are deliberately broad in scope to cast a wide net and identify differences in the ways that vegetarianism / veganism is framed.

Content data was bound by five theoretical considerations that carry relevant implications for addressing research questions (Krippendorff 1980; Macnamara 2005). First, data needed to

45 be temporally relevant. Because modern American society has been fundamentally reshaped by the defining decade of the 1960s, any sources that were created prior to this time period were excluded.

Second, data was limited to media types that offered finite participant engagement and were self-contained. This reduced the data set to individual books, pamphlets, songs, films, and movement websites. These types of media are widely understood by movement scholars to be influential for recruitment efforts (Eyerman and Jamison 1998; Futrell, Simi, and Gottschalk

2006; Meyer and Rohlinger 2012; Roscigno, Danahar, and Summers-Effler 2002; Stein 2011,

2009), but are difficult to rank in popularity except among already mobilized activists.

Third, data needed to offer vegetarian / vegan collective action frames. Media that simply discussed vegetarianism / veganism but that failed to offer collective action frames to guide interpretation and persuade movement engagement were excluded. Motivational frames were especially important in this regard, because they are the heart of behavioral change on which lifestyle movement participation centrally pivots. While many people might agree with diagnostic or prognostic frames regarding the reasons to become a vegetarian / vegan, there are behavioral consistency issues that individuals must successfully change in order to justify an authentic vegetarian / vegan identity.2

2 There is a disjunction between approximately eight to nine percent of the American population who identify as “vegetarian” or “vegan” but who still report consuming flesh foods, highlighting that behavior and identity are not always synonymous (Dietz et al 1995; Stahler 2012; Willetts

1997). This distinction could provide fertile ground for future studies that examine connections between behavior and identity, especially as such cultivated identities are more prone to spoilage than imposed identities like race or gender.

Fourth, data needed to exhibit variation in identity cues. While seeking a diverse array of collective action frames in media to ensure a wide net was cast, I also deliberately gathered content that contained overt text-based identity cues3. That is, while some content made no mention of ethnicity, race, class, or gender as important to movement participation, other content explicitly mentioned these identities as integral for people considering vegetarianism / veganism.

This was an important theoretical consideration, as ignoring content where identities were only implicitly or neutrally cued could have potentially built identity bias problems into the dataset, which this research begins to explore. Specifically, because standpoint theory suggests that people in privileged social identity categories are more likely to see themselves as individuals, they are less likely to see a connection with others sharing their identity category. If this is the case, then the shared yet dominant identity remains generally unmentioned.

It became quickly evident upon beginning data collection that these neutral or implicit identity cues are widespread, popular, and numerically dominant among vegetarian / vegan frames. If the dataset then was constructed to only draw on those books, films, or other materials which are the most popular, it would in all likelihood exclude materials with explicit identity cues. Those materials that do explicitly cue identities are theoretically more likely to present messages which speak to the standpoints and concerns of marginalized individuals, making their deliberate inclusion necessary. Often, pro vegetarian / vegan messages with explicit identity cues were located in materials that were home produced, self-published (YouTube episodes and websites), or promoted by small, independent book publishers. Thus, the materials that speak most directly to more marginalized people’s points of view and concerns would not have been

3 Visual images were not coded in this research, although they provide another avenue by which to explore identity connections to collective action frames in future studies.

47 represented in content data if bounded by reach or popularity; instead, this data had to be deliberately sought out in much the same way that a curious movement recruit might. The greater difficulty in locating these materials tangentially suggests two things: one, that messages crafted to appeal to people with less powerful social identities are being drowned out by the messages which hold greater appeal for people in more powerful social categories, and two, that if implicit or neutral identity cues are being ‘read’ as reflective of privilege by activists or potential recruits with marginalized standpoints, then movements may be seen as exclusively catering to the interests of the powerful.

Fifth and last, data needed to be relevant to movement activists today. While this study does not incorporate experimental design whereby activists are uniformly exposed to frames in a controlled setting and then interviewed about those frames on a one to one basis, it does permit an examination of the thematic framings used by activists in their real lives. This is beneficial because it shows which framings are common among activists today, allowing suggestive correlations to emerge from the interview data regarding which frames are effectively connecting. Further, the content data selections were repeatedly cross-referenced by each other as important touchstones for the modern vegetarian / vegan movement and were often mentioned by activists as influential in their dietary conversions.

When activists discussed media directly that had influenced them, if it was not already included in content data then it was added in all but one case4. Fourteen activists directly

4 The single case of media material which activists discussed but which was not added to the content data set was a graphic film documenting animal abuse entitled “Meet Your Meat” as offered by PETA on its website. I found it personally difficult to watch the film after starting it

48 discussed media sources that influenced their perspectives while four others implied media consumption but did not name a specific work (for example, “I started reading about factory farms”). Thus, the majority of activists (17) drew connections between their narrative framings of movement participation and messages found in media that swayed their perspectives.

Ultimately, while media content is used as a proxy for those messages present in the broader culture in this research, the many activists who discussed media in their narrative framings lends empirical credibility to the way in which frame alignment is expected to work as articulated by

Snow et al (1986).

These five theoretical parameters produced a sample which encompassed an array of vegetarian / vegan frames and embedded ethnic, racial, class, and gender cues. Materials were then inductively coded until theoretical saturation (Charmaz 2006; Glaser and Strauss 1967;

Kuhn 1970; Strauss and Corbin 1990) for offered movement frames was reached. In all, forty- nine data sources were used in the content analysis. Eleven books related to vegetarianism / veganism were identified to cast a wide net and gather diverse frames. Additionally, fourteen pamphlets created by vegetarian / vegan social movement organizations are coded5, along with and abandon the analysis. Instead, I coded other materials distributed by PETA as well as the organization’s website to capture their various presentations of animal rights.

5 The vegetarian / vegan movement has very few formalized SMO’s. Often, formalized SMO’s associated with the movement are actually focused on animal rights or environmental protection and justice. Although the vegetarian / vegan movement overlaps these causes ideologically, it is broader in vision than either one. Thus, basing a content analysis solely on SMO’s literature would bias the results in favor of these reasons and their associated frames. Further, this would be inconsistent with the features of a lifestyle movement, which tend to be organizationally

49 five pro-vegetarian / vegan songs. Eleven films that promote vegetarian / vegan messages are included, along with one video series. Lastly, I included seven popular pro vegetarian / vegan websites.

Operationalized Frames in Content Analysis

Frames were identified in print media and song lyrics by reading the text line by line and coding for presence. Studio films and the YouTube productions were coded while listening, pausing, coding the frame presented, and then continuing on because transcripts were not always available. Codes were either present or absent, but were not analyzed for frequency within source. This is because comparing frequencies between such different types of content would give theoretically irrelevant weight to lengthy books and documentaries while drowning out the messages presented in small pamphlets, songs, or on website pages, which may be just as important in swaying individuals towards dietary change. Thus, the decision to code and analyze each frame used as either present or absent was made to allow divergent forms of media content more directly comparable. More information on each data source is given in Appendices A-E.

To safeguard reliability, two colleagues were consulted to verify codes generated from a subsample of 10 books and pamphlets; in each case, the colleagues agreed with the principle investigator as to what messages and frames were being advanced. One example would be an animal rights message, drawing on a “rights” master frame, in the text Animal Liberation by

Peter Singer. This text was coded as advancing a “rights” frame (among others), and both

diffuse. Thus, the data was deliberately permitted to range beyond SMO offerings to avoid biasing results.

Table 1. Collective Action Frame Typologies Identified in Media Content Analysis Data

Frame Percent of Frame Description Total Frames Health 31.1% The health frame instructs individuals to become vegetarian or vegan as a way to improve their health, reduce weight, or stave off chronic conditions. Animal Rights 21.2% Animal rights and welfare frames urge individuals to consider and Welfare their responsibilities and relationships to farm animals in the realm of rights, compassion, and reduced suffering. Political 15.2% Political economy frames make the case that large Economy agribusinesses, regulatory agencies like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and institutionalized medical providers like those licensed through the American Medical Association (AMA) do not have consumer interests or protection at heart. They encourage individuals to become vegetarians or vegans as a method for escaping the destructive reach of these institutions. Environmental 13.6% Environmental justice frames highlight the ecological Justice destruction and unsustainable nature of meat production for mass society. Practicing vegetarianism or veganism is seen as one means by which individuals can live more sustainably. Cultural Justice 9.8% Cultural justice frames propose that meat consumption in the U.S. by minorities is evidence of oppressive historical White / colonial power relations. Vegetarianism and / or veganism are then promoted as methods of personal, racial, or cultural liberation. Spiritual 9.1% Spiritual development frames posit traditional visions of Development vegetarianism and / or veganism as pathways to greater personal communion with divine or mystic knowledge and growth. These frames can include appeals from an organized religions (7th Day Adventists) or non-organized, free-form spiritual perspectives. colleagues agreed. There were no instances of disagreement regarding collective action frames being advanced in the media subsample among the colleagues.

Six collective action frames were identified in the content analysis that target potential movement members. An overview of the frames identified in the content analysis is given in

Table 1. This table highlights that health frames are the most popular type offered in content media. Nearly one in three data sources highlighted the health benefits of vegetarianism as a persuasive component. The second most popular frame features animal rights, appearing in just over one out of every five sampled sources. Political economy and environmental justice frames each came in at third and fourth place in the sample (15.2 and 13.6 percent respectively). Lastly, cultural injustice and spiritual development frames round out fifth and sixth places, being offered in roughly a tenth of offered frames.

Operationalized Identity Cues in Content Analysis

Alongside identified frames in media, explicit or implicit identity cues were also recorded. An explicit identity cue for race / ethnicity, gender, and / or class was coded as present

(1), while a neutral or implicit identity cue was coded as absent (0). An explicit identity cue could be presented in either the title or the text-body of a source.

I operationalized social identities like race or gender using cues that were represented in media content as static objects rather than fluid constructs, even while recognizing that real people engage in ongoing identity work (Schwalbe and Mason-Schrock 1996) including identity talk (Hadden and Lester 1978; Hunt and Benford 1994; Snow and Anderson 1987). Because the vegetarian / vegan movement in the U.S. is sometimes claimed to consist of predominantly upper-middle class White women (Maurer 2002), or be stereotyped as such (Harper 2010;

McQuirter 2010), I limited my analysis of explicit and implicit identity cues in messages to those of ethnicity / race, class, and gender. Additionally, because ethnicity and race are such broad conceptual categorizations, I further limited my analysis to White / Caucasian, Black / African

American, and Latino / Hispanic identities. These decisions were theoretically grounded in

52 cultural literature suggesting that typical White, Black, and Latino cuisines in the United States tend not to be vegetarian / vegan, making it likely that activists from these backgrounds would have changed their dietary behaviors and identities (Hughes 1997; Whitehead 1992).

To enhance the reader’s understanding of social identity cue operationalization, I present some examples to illustrate how social identity cues were identified from textual materials. Note that the same content data source may carry multiple embedded social identity cues, some implicitly and others explicitly. The first example comes from the book Skinny Bitch (Freedman and Barnouin 2005) and the second comes from the book By Any Greens Necessary (McQuirter

2010). Both texts advocate becoming vegan to improve health, and both use explicit gender identity cues. They differ however in their treatment of race / ethnicity in this example and are contrasted to show how varying treatments of identity were presented and coded.

In Skinny Bitch (Freedman and Barnouin 2005) improving one’s personal health was one of the motivational frames offered to become vegan. The emphasis on health is decidedly personal, as the book is marketed as a ‘how to’ guide for weight loss. The desire to become a

“skinny bitch” is situated against a contextual reference category of a generic, overweight, under-educated American society. Overt, explicit references to the audience’s race / ethnic and class identities are totally absent from the text. While gender was coded as explicit (the word

“bitch” in the title is used as a gendered reference), ethnicity, race, and class were coded as implicit. While this may (in some views) mean that such a text has wide appeal to all, because it is perceived as being ethnically, racially and class non-exclusive, it may conversely be viewed through a lens of covert privilege (Johnson 2006; McIntosh 1988) or bias as being exclusive because it fails to consider those identities as important at all. In the example below, the authors advise readers to begin eating an organic diet.

Don’t be a cheap asshole. Yeah, yeah, yeah, organic produce is usually more expensive than conventional produce. But we spend countless dollars on clothes, jewelry, manicures, magazines, rent or mortgages, car payments, and other bullshit. Surely our health and bodies (we only get one body) are more important than anything else in our lives (2005:179).

This viewpoint, while being sold as ‘tough love,’ expresses a viewpoint of “we” that is hardly representative of all, perhaps even most, women in the United States. Many women could never spend “countless” amounts of money on clothing or manicures, and might prioritize the health and safety of their only body by using money to maintain stable housing versus risking homelessness. Further, the idea that some women may desire to be seen as “bitches” is deeply problematic within a society that already assesses “bitchiness” (along with angriness, rudeness, and social irresponsibility) on a sliding color scale (Hill-Collins 2005; hooks 1984). Thus, while the text presents improved personal health as something available to all through adopting an organic vegan diet, the assumptions that undergird statements like the one presented implicitly suggest a viewpoint grounded in the privilege to not think about race, ethnicity, or class.

Ultimately, to those who share similar social identities to the authors of the book, such considerations may be unimportant. To those whose social identities bring forth different concerns however, such oversights may appear to be glaringly obvious and potentially affect frame resonance.

In contrast to the previous example, the book By Any Greens Necessary: A Revolutionary

Guide for Black Women Who Want to Eat Great, Get Healthy, Lose Weight, and Look Phat

(McQuirter 2010) is explicit about the role of ethno racial social identity and the connections to personal health. The text opens:

Do you know any black women in their seventies who have excellent health? Who do not suffer from any chronic diseases, including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or arthritis? Who can walk five miles a day; do aerobics, yoga, and tai chi; and maintain a shapely 37-26-37 figure? Can’t name one? Then you haven’t met my mother. At seventy-three, she’s healthy and phat! And there aren’t many like her. In fact, out of fourteen siblings, she’s the only one who’s remained completely disease-free into her senior years” (2010:xi).

The book is, like Skinny Bitch, a manual for how to transition into a vegan diet to improve one’s personal health. But unlike the former text which addresses an undefined class and race / ethnic audience, this text overtly entreats and cues women who identify as Black to not only improve their personal health, but to create a collective “revolution” through group empowerment. By McQuirter asking the reader if they know “any” Black women in their seventies who are healthy, she not only orients the reader to focus on health, but attunes them to collective problems faced by Black women as a category, meaningfully linking personal and political. This strategy is used again in the opening pages of the book, when McQuirter writes about “our families” and “our culture” and goes on to say:

Go to any large gathering of African Americans, in any part of the country, and you will find some version of soul food on our plates. We’re a soul food nation. Fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, potato salad, collard greens, string beans with ham hocks or turkey, cornbread, BBQ ribs, glazed ham, pork chops, grits and gravy, sweet potato pie, and pound cake are all part of the feast...But while this calorie-laden, artery clogging food has come to represent what black folks eat in the popular imagination, most of us don’t eat this heavily on an average day (2010:2).

The text does not carry implicit assumptions about race to a generic genderless and raceless audience, but instead explicitly cues the audience with inclusive language of “us” and

“we’re.” To potential movement recruits for whom race / ethnicity are important to their personal

55 standpoints and intersectional identity constructions, this express identity reference may resonate much more strongly, by making it clear that “we” are a group that has more than gender in common. This is an important theoretical consideration when it comes to fomenting a collective movement identity where potential movement adherents will ask questions of whether or not

“we” are reflective of “me.”

All content data sources were coded as embedding either explicit identity cues which overtly mentioned race, ethnicity, gender, or class, or implicit identity cues where identities were neutral or unnamed, as in the examples above. These examples were presented to orient the reader to how identity cues were coded as well as why they may matter to movement recruits who come across such materials or experience such ideas within the larger culture. When these recruits vary in their social identities and standpoints, the same persuasive materials and ideas promoting vegetarianism / veganism may yield very different interpretations. One potential reason may have to do with these embedded identity cues and which identity related considerations are considered important.

Interview Data

The largest amount of data for this dissertation came from 26 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with vegetarians / vegans conducted over a period of three years. Approximately one- quarter of participants were located using a snowball sampling strategy, while the other three- quarters responded to flyers and signage that was posted. Snowball sampling is most useful for locating small and hard to find populations. Vegetarians / vegans are already a small population, and Black and Latino vegetarians / vegans form an even smaller demographic subset. Therefore, locating enough activists to generate empirically supported conclusions was a difficult task and

56 snowball sampling was one strategy employed among many to gather relevant data. In addition to snowball sampling, flyers were placed in health-food stores, large chain grocery stores, coffee shops, restaurants, online message boards, Facebook pages, and blogs geared towards vegetarians / vegans.

Respondent Demographics

The racial / ethnic breakdown of the participants in this study was eleven White /

Caucasian, ten Black / African American, four Hispanic / Latino (a), and one Asian American totaling to twenty-six. Also, two respondents were cross listed by race and ethnicity—one

“White” and “Spanish” woman is listed as both White and Latina, and one “Black Puerto Rican” man is listed as both Black and Latino. While not expressly seeking Asian American respondents, I included data from the single Asian American respondent who identified as

Filipino. I theoretically ground this decision in the Spanish colonial influence in the Philippines, making traditionally understood Filipino food meat heavy and culturally similar to other colonized cuisines. Table 2 presents an overview of the racial / ethnic categories of interviewed activists. More in depth information including respondent pseudonyms and demographics can be located in Appendix F. A schedule of the structured questions used can be found in Appendix G.

Table 2. Interviewed Activists’ Racial or Ethnic Category

Race or Ethnic Identity Group of Activists % of Sample Black / African American 33.3% White / Anglo American 45.8% Latino / Hispanic American 16.7% Asian American 4.2%

The gender breakdown was nearly equal, with 12 respondents identifying as men and 14 identifying as women. Questions pertaining to non-dual gender categories as well as sexual orientation were not asked, although many respondents talked openly about their sexual orientation and referenced their partners, whether heterosexual or homosexual.

Contrary to the stereotype that most vegetarians / vegans are from upper middle class backgrounds, the participants in this study were largely from working class or poorer backgrounds (15 out of 26), with parents working as maids in hotels, ‘handymen,’ hairdressers, waiters, mechanics, farmers or “share-croppers,” security guards, or being unemployed and describing themselves as growing up “poor,” “hard,” or “without much money.” Those who described themselves as coming from middle or upper middle class backgrounds had parents who were public school teachers, sales people, professionals or government officials.

Additionally, while most respondents came from modest means, nearly all had some college experience; only three had none. Eight of the 26 respondents had professional or advanced degrees in education, law, history, or various social sciences. The other 15 respondents were either working towards or had attained their Associates or Bachelor’s degrees.

Interviewing Safeguards

Cognizant that face to face activist-researcher interactions may be affected by the multifaceted identities involved, various considerations were made. The class statuses of many activists while growing up as discussed above as generally modest. Many had experienced upward mobility over the course of their lives however, especially as a result of gaining higher education. Older respondent activists often leveraged this to attain professional positions while many younger respondents were still students or graduate students. These respondents had a high

58 degree of educational attainment, but had not yet entered their profession. A common theme among many of the respondents was that they were generally talented enough students to graduate from college or be working to that end, or to have gone to graduate school. In this sense, I am very similar to most of the activists who were interviewed, having also grown up in a working class environment and been a high performing student engaged in higher education. My status as a graduate student was known by all activists as it was included in the informed consent forms, which respondents signed.

Recall that interviewed activists were nearly equal in their gender breakdowns. While responses for some activist men may have possibly been affected by my gender identity as a woman, it seems unlikely. Few activist men seemed uncomfortable in their narrative framings of their movement participation. The topic and questions did not hint at gender based discrimination which might sensitize their respective gender identities beyond normal day-to-day interactions.

Alternatively however, my own race / ethnicity as a White / Anglo researcher studying culture and dietary lifestyle was understood to be potentially off-putting for activists of color from the outset (Ryen 2003). To allay these concerns, multiple efforts were made to ensure that activists were comfortable. First, consent was required of all respondents, who were instructed that they were permitted to stop their participation at any time. This was done to ensure that no respondent would be participating in anything they did not want to do.

Second, in many cases activist respondents were talked with multiple times to build greater trust and reassure participants that I would create and present a culturally sensitive, fair- minded analysis. Meetings on different college campuses or in coffee shops permitted some activists to gain a better sense of who I was as a person, aside from a researcher, allowing them to feel safer in offering their honest opinions and retellings of their experiences. Relationships

59 were built with several interviewed activists over many months (or in two cases over two years) allowing them to get to know me more fully and understand my perspectives, especially as they related to race, ethnicity, and culture before interviews were conducted. In four cases, activists with whom I had built longer relationships and who considered me an ally vouched for my credentials as a ‘safe’ interviewer to newly recruited respondents when snowball sampling was employed.

Third, in a few instances, respondent activists became visibly comfortable after an occasional stiff start when they came to understand that I was experientially familiar with many different types of foods and cultures. In one instance for example, a respondent who spoke repeatedly of “salted cod” sat back in his chair, and then smiled and dropped his shoulders when

I asked if he was referring to “bacalao.” Small hints of cultural familiarities like this example enabled activists with different ethnic / racial identities to situate me as a knowledgeable ally, rather than simply as an outsider with unknown, potentially damaging motivations.

Thus, while it is impossible to completely know if activist’s awareness of my own racial / ethnic standpoints affected their responses, I believe that any serious fears about my alliances were ameliorated by the informed consent safeguard, the personal relationships which were built in many cases, and the occasional disclosures of cultural familiarities. In the future, I would like to explore this more directly by having a colleague co-investigator with a different ethnic / racial standpoint also conduct interviews, so that any divergences emerging in data (if present) could be noted.

Analytic Strategy

Recall that frame resonance is the process by which a message’s content ‘rings true’ to individuals and then facilitates “frame alignment,” where activist’s personal viewpoints exhibit congruence with frames. In practice, resonance and alignment entail individuals cognitively agreeing with frames (Babb 1996; Snow and Benford 2000; Zou and Benford 1995) and engaging in framing processes, where they talk about their rationales for movement engagement in ways that express thematic overlap (Hunt and Benford 1994; Ladd 2011; Snow et al 1986). To tease out frame alignment from data, I compared the proffered frames located in the content analysis to themes in narrative framings from mobilized activists. Successful frame alignment was evidenced in activist responses elaborating how they became a vegetarian / vegan.

With these comparisons, I began to address the research questions of why and how some frames resonate and produce alignment. I first examine whether particular identity cues are significantly related to certain frames in content data. I next examine whether patterns emerged along social identity lines in the first framings offered by activists for their mobilization rationale to explore whether people with different social identities offered similar or different narrative framings of their movement participation. To see if any patterns identified could be explained by the identity cues embedded in frames themselves, I next assessed whether these narrative framings offered by activists corresponded with the identity cues embedded in the static frames themselves. Did the identity cues of frames match the social identities of respondent activists when engaged in framing? This would ultimately suggest that the identity cues embedded in messages were, at least partially, driving their resonance and alignment with activists.

Lastly, research questions about how individuals use frames to signify their identities within movements were addressed using interview data while drawing on an identity talk

61 perspective (Hunt and Benford 1994). Interview transcript narratives were coded for themes that showed overlap with frames (Reissman 1993) as well as inductively coded to capture additional concepts (Charmaz 2006; Glaser and Strauss 1967; Kuhn 1970; Strauss and Corbin 1990). These codes were used to generate arguments about how activists engage in identity talk to negotiate the locus of blame embedded in varying frames which produced insider / outsider boundaries.

Did respondents’ social identities influence their boundary negotiations as evidenced through differential identity talk? Implications suggest that activists with marginalized identities may have greater difficulty rhetorically crossing these symbolic boundaries than activists with privileged identities. Implications for successful frame alignment and subsequent mobilization as mediated by social identities are discussed in the final chapter.

Limitations of the Data

One of the key limitations of this research is that content data was not bound by measures of popularity, which are common in content analyses. For reasons previously explained, only drawing on popular media items would have excluded some materials that speak to marginalized standpoints which this research seeks to explore. Because media content were divergent in terms of type (websites, films, books, songs, or pamphlets) as well as reach, bounding the data so rigidly as to allow for statistical comparison between media types and frames would present issues of ‘cherry picking.’ The associations between frames and media types therefore are anecdotal in this design and empirically weak.

This weakness is circumvented by examining the relationship between frames and whether or not the media source contained implicit or explicit identity cues until theoretical saturation of vegetarian / vegan frames was reached within the data. In this way, associations

62 between frames and identity cues were not affected by lack of dataset bounds. Thus, this dataset can continue to grow and associations identified between frame and identity cue would only become stronger as the sample size increased (provided of course that the trends identified are replicable and continue over time). As the goal of this research was to examine the relationships between frame alignments and identities and not necessarily the media by which frames are presented, this limitation is a side issue. While media sources offer an arena by which to examine messages within a culture, future research designs which creatively do bind datasets may also yield pertinent results.

Limitations of the interview data are primarily due to the small sample size. Because there is very limited research that has been conducted on vegetarianism / veganism as a lifestyle social movement, coupled with the fact that this is a small movement in size, locating activists proved difficult. Further, finding activists to interview who self-identified as Black, African

American, Latino (a), or Hispanic also proved challenging, even in different metropolitan areas.

Ultimately however, because the population of vegetarians / vegans itself is small, and because the interview analysis is conceptually conservative, I believe these findings to be robust to the population.

CHAPTER 5

IDENTITY CUES IN VEGETARIAN / VEGAN FRAMES

This chapter presents findings from content analysis data that highlight how vegetarian / vegan frames are offered today, and how they are connected to symbolic racial, ethnic, gender, and class identity cues. The purpose of these analyses is to identify whether particular messages are statistically associated with particular social identities. Theoretically these connections then speak to perceived identity stereotypes about vegetarian / vegan messages and, by association, the movement itself. As these connections relate to both activist concerns and frame alignment questions, it is possible that frames which are associated with particular identities facilitate and ease frame alignment for activists whose identities are congruent with those embedded in messages. Alternatively, activists whose identities differ may be positioned vulnerably to claims of inauthenticity which then must be navigated upon movement entry. While narrative framings are presented in chapter six which highlight alignment, knowing whether some messages are significantly associated with certain social identities is a necessary component to addressing questions about successful frame alignments as mediated by social identity.

In this chapter, I first present frequencies for the six identified collective action frames as analyzed along social identity lines. I then present results from statistical tests of independence and identify five statistically significant relationships between frame type and ethno racial and gender audience cues, demonstrating that certain messages are significantly associated with certain identities. Specifically, I find that ethno racial neutral identity cues are inversely associated with animal rights and welfare frames and explicit gender identity cues are positively associated with cultural justice and spiritual development frames. I go on to present examples of each of these frames to contextualize for the reader the ways that these messages appear.

Frame Frequency Variations by Identity Cues

Each of the 49 content sources which offered 132 total instances of six collective action frames were dissected for social identity cues based on race / ethnicity, gender, and class. Codes were used as binaries, with neutral identity cues coded with 0 (absent) and explicit cues coded with 1 (present). Ultimately, content data was classified as either explicitly cueing an identity if it was meaningfully presented in the text somewhere, or neutrally if identities were omitted or dismissed. In the following two subsections, I present data illustrating connections between frames and ethno racial identity cues and then frames and both gender and class identity cues.

Frames and Ethno Racial Identity Cues

Many resources were sought that explicitly cued race / ethnicity as “Black / African

American / African” or “Latino / Hispanic” to provide contrast. Other races / ethnicities were sometimes referenced in data of course, but these two explicit race / ethnic cues were deliberately utilized to see how these identities and offered frames were connected. Data are presented here with ethno racial minority identity cues collapsed into a single category, labelled racially / ethnically explicit.

A standpoint theoretical orientation suggests that perspectives of people in identity categories associated with socio cultural privilege generally go unnamed as such. Instead, these points of view, shaped by the privileged identity in question, pass as ‘taken for granted’ or objective. The identity considerations shaped by powerful social locations remain covert, most especially to those with privilege. Using this analytic framework, race / ethnic neutral identity cues can be interpreted as the implicitly racialized / ethnicized perspectives of dominant groups, masquerading as perspectives that represent everyone. Consistent with this reading, no materials

65 located explicitly cued Whiteness as a racial / ethnic identity worthy of consideration when becoming a vegetarian / vegan. Sometimes materials referenced family discord or general / diffuse cultural difficulty finding acceptable foods, but no pro vegetarian / vegan frames cued

Whiteness as meaningful. With these insights in mind, the percentages of content sources that either offer neutral identity cues or explicit identity cues by race / ethnicity are presented in table

3 below.

Table 3. Frames Presented by Racial / Ethnic Cues, by Percentage Frame Audience Defined as Audience Defined as Presented Racially/Ethnically Neutral Racially/Ethnically Explicit % Total Health 32.9 28.0 31.1 Animal Rights and Welfare 26.8 12.0 21.2 Political Economy 17.1 12.0 15.2 Environmental Justice 17.1 8.0 13.6 Cultural Injustice 3.7 20.0 9.8 Spiritual Development 2.4 20.0 9.1 Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 (n) (82) (50) (132)

As shown in Table 3, connections between race / ethnic identities as explicitly or neutrally cued vary by the collective action frame offered in media. Each column compares the frequency of frames which were presented within each identity categorization; the columns do not compare frame presence to absence. Of frames presented, health appears to be the most common regardless of how identity is incorporated, appearing at 32.9 percent and 28 percent respectively, suggesting this is an influential and important frame to claims makers of all backgrounds. Animal rights and welfare frames are roughly one in four messages that do not mention any identities related to race / ethnicity, but drop to just over one in ten messages when identities are cued (12%). A standpoint analysis of this data suggests that animal rights frames may be more commonly presented by White claims makers than claims makers of color. Political

66 economy and environmental justice frames each come in around 17 percent of the sample when identity cues are not explicit; both fall in usage when race / ethnic identities are cued. As read through a standpoint lens, this suggests that some both frames may be considered greater priorities by White claims makers than by claims makers of color or those targeting an audience of color. Inversely, cultural justice and spiritual development frames are sparsely used when race

/ ethnic identities are neutral, but rise to one in five messages offered when specific racial / ethnic identities are defined. These trends suggest that ideas about cultural justice and spiritual development may have less salience or urgency to White claims makers than other types of messages. At the same time, these concerns may be more important for claims makers and / or audiences of color.

To further analyze the frames presented by implicit or explicit identity race / ethnic cue, frame presence as well as frame absence were examined. Specifically, each frame’s presence or absence was operationalized as a binary. These two sets of binaries are presented in tables 4 and

5, which should be examined together in tandem.

Tables 4 and 5 utilize the data previously presented in Table 3 and reveal each identity cue category independently. Note that the total number of frames presented between the two tables (82 and 50 respectively) total to the 132 total identified frames. Frame absences or omissions are treated as potentially meaningful, as some frames may deliberately be avoided by claims makers. Frame absences in the second column are a representation of the data’s inverse values.

The data in Table 4 shows that when frames do not mention race / ethnicity, health is a prominently offered frame. When compared against sources in Table 5 that cue racial / ethnic identities explicitly however, we find that health messages increase, being presented over 90% of

67 the time. Both of these findings are consistent with the Table 3, where health was the most offered frame across all groups. Thus, while health frames are seen as an important reason to become a vegetarian / vegan for people of all race / ethnic backgrounds, claims makers and / or audiences of color are particularly interested in this message.

Table 4. Frames Used in Racial / Ethnic Neutral Media, by Percentage Frame Presented Frame Present Frame Absent Total Health 79.4 20.6 100.0 Animal Rights 64.7 35.3 100.0 Cultural Justice 8.8 91.2 100.0 Political Economy 41.2 58.8 100.0 Environmentalism 41.2 58.8 100.0 Spirituality 5.9 94.1 100.0 Total Frames (82) (122) (204) N (sources)=34

Table 5. Frames Used in Racial / Ethnic Explicit Media, by Percentage Frame Presented Frame Present Frame Absent Total Health 93.3 6.7 100.0 Animal Rights 40.0 60.0 100.0 Cultural Justice 66.7 33.3 100.0 Political Economy 40.0 60.0 100.0 Environmentalism 26.7 73.3 100.0 Spirituality 66.7 33.3 100.0 Total Frames (50) (40) (90) N (sources)=15

Animal rights and welfare, the second most common vegetarian / vegan collective action frame, is present in 64.7% of the data sources that fail to mention race / ethnicity, but drops down to being mentioned less than half the time (40%) when the Black and / or Latino identity cues are present. This underscores that when ethno racial identity cues are neutral, potentially signaling covert Whiteness, animal rights feature prominently. When the races / ethnicities of people of color are discussed however, animal rights conversations fade in prominence.

Cultural injustice frames do not appear to be common frames when race / ethnicity are neutral, but jump up to over 66% of the presented messages when these social identities are explicitly cued. This change shows there is a strong connection between offered frames in media that cue (and likely target) people of color that then connect to messages of justice and liberation from oppression. Conversely, these data suggest that cultural justice concerns represent either low priority to claims makers, or, that claims makers believe such messages will not be received well by intended audiences.

Political economy frames remain relatively stable regardless of how identity is cued, moving from 41.2% to 40% between the alternative examinations. Environmentalist frames however, like animal rights and welfare frames, appear to drop when race / ethnic is explicitly defined, suggesting that such messages may more prescient to Whites.

Lastly, frames that center on spiritual growth and development receive a small percentage of mentions (5.9%) when race / ethnicity is not specifically cued, but increase to being mentioned in roughly every two out of three materials that explicitly include Black or Latino identity cues. Standpoint analysis suggests making appeals to spiritual development may be seen as more important or efficacious for mobilization for race / ethnic minorities than for Whites.

Frames and Gender Identity Cues

Resources that explicitly cued gender as a vegetarian / vegan identity consideration were also utilized and recorded. While gender could have been operationalized in a variety of ways, in this research explicit gender cues were coded as feminine and implicit or neutral gender cues were coded as masculine. Additionally there were no identified sources of content data that explicitly contained masculine identity cues. As much scholarship on gender has unpacked

69 associations of vegetarianism / veganism with femininity (Adams 1994; Bailey 2007), the dearth of reasons tying mobilization to being a man or being masculine also fits within a gendered cultural context. In the table below, frames were analyzed for gender identity cues. The results are presented in Table 6.

Table 6. Frames Presented by Gender Cues, by Percentage Frame Audience Defined as Audience Defined as Presented Gender Neutral Gender (Feminine) Explicit % Total Health 33.0 25.0 31.1 Animal Rights and Welfare 23.0 15.6 21.2 Political Economy 15.0 15.6 15.2 Environmental Justice 15.0 9.4 13.6 Cultural Justice 7.0 18.8 9.8 Spiritual Development 7.0 15.6 9.1 Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 (n) (100) (32) (132)

Gender cues were not as prevalent in the data as ethno racial cues, but when they are located they appear to be connected to racial / ethnic awareness by claims makers. Further, Table

6 demonstrates that health, animal rights and welfare, and environmental arguments appear more commonly in gender neutral materials (potentially read as materials where claims makers and / or targeted audiences are men) than in those which explicitly cue femininity. Political economy frames emerge at nearly equal rates (15% and 15.6% respectively), while cultural justice and spiritual development are more prevalent when femininity is explicitly cued. Conversely, these frames may be seen as more dispensable to men by claims makers.

Frames and Class Identity Cues

Content resources were sought pertaining to class, yet finding material that explicitly carried working class, middle class, or upper-middle class identity cues was problematic. Instead,

I sought materials that in some way referred to the financial expenses of either the current food system or going vegetarian / vegan on a shoestring budget. Nonetheless, the potentially prohibitive expense of becoming a vegetarian / vegan was not something that was expressly presented often in conversion oriented pro-vegetarian / pro-vegan frames, which made most class cues identified implicit and provided little variation in data. Instead, class in collective action frames operated more like a constant than a variable by not being discussed as a reason to convert. Instead, class identity cues (especially for working class or lower SES people) were generally associated not with frames for why to be a vegetarian, but with messages for how to be a vegetarian / vegan and not ‘break the bank.’ Thus, while these messages are prevalent as they relate to vegetarian / vegan identities, they are not often tied to frames that push individuals to change or mobilize. Table 7 overviews the differences located, although with only eight explicit class considerations versus 124 non-considerations, the validity of any associations is highly questionable.

Table 7. Frames Presented by Class Cues, by Percentage Frame Audience Defined as Audience Defined as Presented Class Neutral Class Explicit % Total Health 30.6 37.5 31.1 Animal Rights and Welfare 22.6 00.0 21.2 Political Economy 14.5 25.0 15.2 Environmental Justice 13.7 12.5 13.6 Cultural Injustice 9.7 12.5 9.8 Spiritual Development 8.9 12.5 9.1 Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 (n) (124) (8) (132)

Explicit class cues as associated with frames were very difficult to find, as mentioned previously. Aside from these identities containing a problematic relationship with motivational

71 frames, their absence may additionally be due to American cultural taboos of discussing income or money.

Just as ethno racial cues were dichotomously constructed as categories and analyzed for frame presence or absence, the same process was repeated for gender and class audience cues.

Frames presences were compared against their inverse absences in gendered and gender neutral media, and frame presences were compared against their inverse absences in class explicit and class neutral media. Analyses with tables similar to numbers 4 and 5 were created but are omitted here for brevity. They are available upon request.

Statistical Tests of Independence between Frames and Identity Cues

While frequency data is suggestive of relationships, stricter statistical tests were used to assess whether the differences observed were significant. First, a Pearson Chi-Square test was run6. A Chi-Square test revealed a statistically significant relationship at a .001 level (χ² (5,

N=132) = 23.2 p < .001), suggesting that at least one or more relationship(s) exists between a collective action frame typology and an explicit audience construction. To investigate this connection further however, greater precision is needed. Specifically, while the Pearson Chi-

Square is an excellent tool for generally assessing whether a statistically significant relationship exists somewhere among the variables, it cannot assess specific relationships between individual frames and the targeted audience.

6 A Chi-Square approximation is believed to be robust if "no more than 20% of the expected counts are less than 5 and all individual expected counts are 1 or greater" (Yates, Moore, and

McCabe, 1999: 734). Applied to this data, no more than 3 of the cells may have a count less than

To refine findings further, Fisher exact tests of independence were run on racial / ethnic, gender, and class identity cues by frame types in 2x2 contingency tables. The number of sources which were identity neutral and the number of occurrences of a given frame were run against the number of sources that were identity explicit along with the number of occurrences of the same frame for such data.

Performing this test 18 separate times revealed five statistically significant relationships

(p ≤ .10 or less) between three frames and two identity cues. Specifically, animal rights frames were significantly inversely associated with explicit racial / ethnic identity cues, while cultural injustice and spiritual development were significantly positively associated with both racial / ethnic and gender explicit identity cues. Ultimately these tests show that certain messages are associated with certain embedded identities. These embedded identities may then potentially affect the ways that real activists engage in framing and alignment processes, linking their personal interpretations to those provided by the frame. Ways that these connections might matter for real people’s identities as connected to these specific frames are discussed in further detail below.

Animal Rights and Welfare Frames and Race / Ethnic Identities

The first statistically significant frame—animal rights—shared an inverse relationship with an explicit ethno racial identity cues, suggesting that such frames may either not resonate as strongly for minorities, or reflect that claims makers are hesitant to offer this type of message when ethno racial identity cues are present. Certainly the statistically significant association of animal rights frames with racially / ethnically neutral identity cues may contribute to some people’s claims (see Harper 2010; McQuirter 2010 in media as well as activist’s interviews in

73 later chapters here) that being a vegetarian / vegan is stereotyped as a culturally White / Anglo identity, especially if done for a love of animals.

To contextualize some of these claims, consider the contrasting ways in which animal rights are presented in Peter Singer’s (1975) seminal work Animal Liberation and by PETA to

Jonathan Safran Foer’s arguments in Eating Animals (2009). Singer’s text (1975) is foundational to the animal rights movement, and is often handed out at movement gatherings (Jasper and

Poulson 1995). In the work, the author argues that ethical evaluations of human and animal interactions must be evaluated equally in terms of sentient suffering. If humans and animals are fundamentally equals in this capacity, then the killing or abuse of animals in factory farm systems cannot be justified (Cherry 2010; Freeman 2010). Singer goes so far as to liken the abuse of animals to the abuse of peoples of different races or backgrounds: “To give preference to the life of a being simply because that being is a member of our species would put us in the same position as racists who give preference to those who are members of their race” (1975:76).

This viewpoint regards speciesism as qualitatively similar to racism, sexism, and other ‘isms,’ and undergirds many of the ethical justifications for vegetarianism (and especially veganism).

The organization PETA also relies on this particular reading of ethical human and nonhuman animal relations as part of their most prominent justification for becoming a vegan, and advocates similar messages on their website:

Human beings create temporary and arbitrary boundaries to exclude beings who aren’t like them. Human beings have justified wars, slavery, sexual violence, and military conquests through the mistaken belief that those who are “different” do not experience suffering and are not worthy of moral consideration… These boundaries change throughout history, and we’re horrified now to recall the abuse inflicted on others once classified as outsiders: the extermination of Jewish people by the Nazis, the enslavement of African people by American plantation owners, and the slaughter of Christian people 74

for entertainment by Roman centurions. Laws now forbid discrimination based on gender, race, religion, ability, age, and sexual orientation. Yet just a century ago, human beings who were seen as different by those with power faced torture, exploitation, and death… We must abandon the archaic and incorrect boundary of “human,” which we use to justify the ongoing massacre of billions of beings (PETA Homepage 2014).

The audience for both Singer’s book as well as PETA’s outreach are deliberately constructed as identity neutral. Indeed, even the boundaries of identifying as “human” are challenged by these positions, being reframed as fundamentally similar to and within the same ontological category of “being” or “animal.” Race, ethnicity, class, and gender are each posited as irrelevant or damaging divisions to be overcome.

Yet for potential movement audiences who do not feel as though the generic category of

‘animal’ or ‘being’ is as salient to informing their interactional experiences as their race, ethnicity, gender, or class (perhaps because they may have been defined by such statuses in the past), such identity neutral frames may again fall flat. Even worse, because historical associations purposely connected African Americans, Jews, and other minority groups with dehumanized, animalistic statuses as a justification for oppression and genocide, the collective memories of these associations may render painful emotions and oppositional reactions from such audiences who have struggled to be seen as fully human and equal. Rather than these frames resonating with personal experience and aligning, they may instead inspire opposition from people who have lived with the scars of being deemed an “animal” or “creature” themselves.

Contrasting the previous treatment of social identities, Jonathan Safran Foer’s (2009) book Eating Animals takes a literary, nuanced approach to this issue, slowly building to vegan

75 advocacy as he interweaves connections between diet and culture. The book opens with the author’s reflections on his grandmother, a Holocaust survivor:

When I was young, I would often spend the weekend at my grandmother’s house. On the way in, Friday night, she would lift me from the ground in one of her fire-smothering hugs. And on the way out, Sunday afternoon, I was again taken into the air. It wasn’t until years later that I realized she was weighing me. My grandmother survived the War barefoot, scavenging other people’s inedibles: rotting potatoes, discarded scraps of meat, skins, and the bits that clung to the bones and pits… It was my grandmother who taught me that one teabag makes as many cups of tea as you’re serving, and that every part of the apple is edible… Money wasn’t the point… Health wasn’t the point… In the forests of Europe, she ate to stay alive until the next opportunity to eat to stay alive. In America, fifty years later, we ate what pleased us. Our cupboards were filled with food bought on whims, overpriced foodie food, food we didn’t need. And when the expiration date passed, we threw it away without smelling it. Eating was carefree. My grandmother made that life possible for us. But she was, herself, unable to shake the desperation (2009:1).

In the same chapter, Foer says:

Stories about food are stories about us—our history and our values. Within my family’s Jewish tradition, I came to learn that food serves two parallel purposes: it nourishes and it helps you remember. Eating and storytelling are inseparable—the saltwater is also tears; the honey not only tastes sweet but makes us think of sweetness; the matzo is the bread of our affliction (2009:8).

He finishes the first chapter of the book with a story he has with his grandmother that cuts to the heart of his vegan argument while not discounting the role of culture and ethnicity, as most animal rights frames do. In the story, the kosher grandmother recounts being offered some pork at the end of the war by a Russian farmer. She refuses it. When Foer asks her why in disbelief, she simply replies, “If nothing matters, there’s nothing to save” (2009:10).

The arguments presented in Foer’s text, while not necessarily targeting an audience who identifies solely as Jewish, positions ethnicity centrally and explicitly. While other animal rights arguments treat culture and other identity distinctions as problems that must be overcome to achieve moral progress, Foer reframes culture as enacting behaviors consistent with particular values rather than holding onto specific behaviors. This careful and nuanced treatment of culture, behavior, and change is decidedly different from Singer’s and others representations’ of animal rights, and offers a way forward for individuals who may feel constrained by their respective cultural cuisine but for whom their ethnic identity is important. Additionally, for people whose social identities have strongly influenced their experiences, throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater may rob them of deeply meaningful boundaries and sources of psycho social support and strength.

Cultural Injustice Frames and Race / Ethnic and Gender Identities

Tracing its roots back to Black Power ideologies and notable activist / comedian Dick

Gregory’s critical stance on typical ‘soul food’ during the 1970s and 1980s, the cultural justice frame identifies Whites / Europeans / colonizers as responsible for forcing inauthentic, unhealthy dietary changes to the traditional diets of Blacks / African Americans / Africans and Latinos /

Hispanics / Indigenous and other colonized peoples. Whites are additionally culpable for the disproportionate health inequalities suffered by Black and Latino communities in the U.S. While

Dick Gregory may have been an important icon for promoting critical dietary consciousness in the past (Gregory 1973), cultural justice frames carry on those messages to a larger community today.

Cultural justice frames were found to be significantly positively associated with both ethno racial minority and feminine social identity cues. Cultural justice frames represent roughly one out of ten offered frames located in the total sample, but are present in two out of three materials that explicitly cue race / ethnic identity, and three out of four materials that explicitly cue women’s gender identity. Thus, messages that speak to oppressive cultural histories may be seen as more important by claims makers to women and minorities than to Whites or men.

Considering that the associated villains in such frames tend to be Whites, it also makes sense that claims makers who are crafting messages to a general audience may be hesitant to offer such for fear of ‘turning off’ a potential White movement recruit.

An example of one cultural justice frame comes from the nutritional text Nutricide

(Afrika 1994). As the title suggests, this text posits that “Africans” (Afrika refers to all people with darker skin tones and African ancestry as African rather than Black or African American) are made sick and dying early due to deliberate, nutritional malfeasance by ignorant White oppressors. In his chapter on health, he states, “The Caucasians forced the practice of cooking foods upon Africans. This food cooking habit started during colonialism, slavery and the societal disruptive invasions (wars) of Africa. Caucasian invasions destroyed crops, farmers, irrigation, and the agricultural trade system…[and] caused Africans to lose control of… their diet”

(1994:74).

Afrika argues that traditional food practices of Africans were subverted to European food customs, which are poorly informed and encourage illness and disease. Afrika additionally argues that one’s racial heritage is an important dietary consideration because some foods are detrimental depending on one’s lineage and genetic adaptations. Specifically, diets that include dairy are argued to be highly problematic for individuals with African ancestry, as opposed to

European heritage, because of lactose intolerance issues and general indigestibility. The text urges individuals of African ancestry to leave behind their previous diets, which are a framed as a legacy of racial oppression, and instead forge a new yet ‘authentic, traditional’ diet that is expressly African and vegetarian. Foods that are often described as ‘soul foods’ such as fried chicken, collard greens, macaroni and cheese, chitterlings, and so on are contextualized by

Afrika as the historical ‘table scraps’ of White oppressors, whose continued consumption only extends the legacy of racial devaluation and cruel, unequal health outcomes. Thus, changing one’s diet and becoming a vegetarian are framed in this text not just as a means of improving personal health, but as way to throw off the historical yolk of racial injustice and oppression.

Similar injustice frames were found in books, songs, and some websites and was associated with

Black Nationalist, anti-colonial, pro-resistance rhetoric. In another example from the song FDA

(Ruffmic’ and Freedom Writer):

We got away from what we used to eat, we forgot we were kidnapped and forced to eat meat. We ate from the earth, so we communicated with it, we cut the conversation, now check the situation. See, blacks the leaders in heart disease, cancer. We give ‘em money like bills is the answer… You keep trusting the enemy with your well-being? Black man! Black woman! What is it you’re not seeing? Deaf, dumb, sick all the while slaving to keep them rich, wake up and read the label! Tell that Cracker keep them crumbs on his table! [Chorus] Wrong foods revert mentality back to slave. Fluoride in ya water just to make you behave. Wrong foods revert mentality back to slave. Black community filled up with stop, shop, and save. Wrong food revert mentality back to slave.

These lyrics are meant to not only motivate individuals to fundamentally re-think their dietary choices, but collectively construct the ‘Black community’ as a point of reference. For the

79 musicians and the fans who agree, changing diet is about more than making oneself healthier; it is about resistance, self-determination, and justice.

Another text, Breeze Harper’s Sistah Vegan (2010), espouses a similar cultural justice frame, where colonialism is positioned as a culprit for many forms of oppression. In the chapter on “Social Justice Beliefs and Addiction to Uncompassionate Consumption,” the author says:

I understand that many of us have our ethnic and racial identities embedded in the foods that we and our families have been eating since colonial times. We are scared to lose these. However, there are many ways to be Black without eating the traditional Soul Food diet. There are thriving communities of color throughout America that are rooted in holistic healing and have adapted their ethnic identity to more plant-based diets from their people’s indigenous philosophy before colonization, while simultaneously practicing eco-sustainability, decolonization, and respect for nonhuman animals. These communities wholeheartedly know that the ‘master’s tools will not dismantle the master’s house,’ nor will his concept of food production or abuse of natural resources and nonhuman animals (2010:37).

In this paragraph, Harper explicitly cues ethnic / racial identities and expounds on the ways that identities may serve as barriers to becoming vegetarian / vegan as people may be

“scared to lose” their cultural identities, yet then goes on to reframe cultural authenticity in precolonial terms. Further, she ties the non-plant-based diets to Audre Lord’s “master’s tools” of oppression, imbuing dietary change with themes of liberation.

In addition to the statistical associations between cultural justice frames and ethno racial social identity cues, gender cues were also often intertwined with these perspectives. Often, most claims makers who offered messages that were critical of racial / ethnic arrangements were also critical of limiting gender constructions as well. As previously mentioned, Tracye McQuirter’s work By Any Greens Necessary (2010) is a call to arms for Black women specifically to become

80 vegan. In the chapter entitled “A Chicken Wing and a Prayer,” she states, “I have watched one too many sisters wave a greasy drumstick in my face and say, ‘I gotta have my chicken!’ Like eating chicken is our birthright… Ladies, eating chicken does not make you Black, it makes you blocked” (2010:29-30). In this chapter, the author acknowledges scholarship on the ways in which fried chicken plays an important role in the lives of Black women—as a means to achieve status by showing off cooking skills; as a means to achieve economic improvement through the sale of cooked chicken; as a means of journeying by-proxy when personal travel was not possible (chicken could be sent with others as an emotional gesture of love). Through the text however, she challenges and ultimately redefines such experiential connections between race, gender, and ‘soul foods’ as culturally inauthentic. “Most of us are only a generation or two removed from the South—and not that many more generations removed from West Africa, where our forebears ate organic fruits, vegetables, and legumes daily that they plucked fresh from the fields of their own farms. Ours is a tradition of healthy eating” (2010:xxiii). Thus, even while McQuirter notes the varying ways that gender and race each play an important role in shaping dietary identity, she rebuts and reframes such connections in order to situate veganism into a culturally authentic symbolic space, providing a bridge whereby individuals can be mobilized by vegetarian / vegan frames without feeling forced to abandon a culturally important identity and community of support.

Cultural justice frames are heavily intertwined with explicit cues about race / ethnicity as well as gender identity. As frames which present ethno-racial neutral cues may alternatively be read by potential targets as wholly inclusive on one hand, or as rooted in categorical privilege on the other, then this connection makes sense. Frames that carry embedded standpoints of ethno- racial or gender privilege are unlikely to be critical of said privilege. Instead, such privilege

81 remains a blind-spot for those who have it. American Whites collectively assuming cultural responsibility for the epidemics of obesity, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes that disproportionately plague communities of color remains a problematic sticking point in the politics of food justice and is evident in the lack of frames that argue for cultural justice for minority groups while potentially carrying an implicit, privileged point of view.

Building on this recognition, the situation is actually worsened when identity neutral frames are critical of cultural or other practices that may be deemed important sources of support and self-definition for targeted audiences. Such frames may be perceived as an outright attack or further imposition of a foreign oppressive culture, especially as many frames push minorities to abandon practices like eating soul food or national cuisines that are commonly believed to be culturally authentic. Without cultural justice messages that reframe cultural authenticity and cuisines in pre-colonial terms, racially / ethnically neutral frames leave minorities vulnerable to micro aggressions or other attacks (often from other cultural insiders) about ‘acting white.’ Thus, cultural justice may be used to fortify the psyches of people who must traverse a perceived boundary of cultural abandonment. That said, cultural justice frames can only be employed by targeted audiences and activists if they are known. The small overall percentage of these frames in the content analysis demonstrates that they only appear in roughly one out of every ten frames offered by activists; conversely, this means that nine out of ten other frames that are offered may be potentially read as isolating or ethically paternalistic. The fact that such frames are not offered more may reflect the privilege of claims makers in dominant categories who don’t negotiate such boundaries and grapple with the same sets of concerns. For audiences who do feel strongly connected to others in their cultural group and who may associate their culture’s food with meat, encountering frames that encourage dietary change but do not reframe cultural authenticity as

82 connected to the new vegetarian / vegan identity may feel like cultural abandonment. Thus, such frames may inspire more dismissive retrenchment than curiosity among people who do not interpret the world through the same lenses as those who make claims.

Spiritual Development Frames and Race / Ethnicity and Gender

Spiritual development is the third frame identified to have a statistically significant relationship with race / ethnic as well as gender identity cues in media. The frame occurs in roughly nine percent of the offered frames in the overall sample, making it the least common offered frame by claims makers. When broken down along explicit versus implicit identity cues however, a clear divide emerges. In media where identity cues are neutral, spiritual development is only mentioned in roughly three percent of the sample, with other messages about health or animal rights taking clear prominence. When specific race / ethnic or gender identities are cued however, messages regarding spirituality rise to one in five offered. Considering that women and ethno-racial minorities are often reported to have higher rates of religious and / or spiritual belief

(Maselko and Kubzansky 2006), as well as higher religious service attendance than men or

Whites as categories (Chatters et al 2009; Wright, Frost, and Wisecarver 1993), the connections make sense. If claims makers are seeking to offer frames that will resonate, then messages should carry ties to deeply meaningful belief systems. The fact that such frames are again so few in media that do not offer explicit gender or ethnic / race cues may consistently be read as a reflection of the unacknowledged biases of claims makers, for whom such messages are not as integral for creating meaning and dignity in one’s life.

One example of spiritual frames that do not cue an explicit racial / ethnic or gender identity (but that do cue a religious identity) is offered by the Christian Vegetarian Association.

In their pamphlet entitled “Are We Good Stewards of God’s Creation?” Christian scriptures are presented alongside interpretations that argue vegetarianism / veganism are forms of devotion to

God. On the second page of the multi-page booklet, it states “According to the Bible, God granted humanity ‘dominion’ over God’s Creation. More and more, faithful Christians are coming to see ‘dominion’ as a sacred responsibility, rather than as a license to do whatever we want with the earth or God’s animals…If we fail to show love for God’s Creation or mercy for

God’s creatures, should we expect God to protect us from the consequences of our own heartlessness and self-indulgence?” (2007:2). The pamphlet goes on to say “The Bible depicts vegetarianism as God’s ideal, and the diet conforms to the central biblical principle of stewardship. In Eden, all creatures lived peacefully, and God told both humans and animals to consume only plant foods (Gen. 1:29-31) (2007: 6). Thus, this pamphlet cues a religious identity among potential targeted audiences, but does not provide ethno racial or gender cues. It was also one of the only materials located that used a spiritual development frame that did not have explicit ethno racial or gender cues.

In contrast, the text Sacred Woman by Queen Afua (2000) explicitly cues gender in the title and advances an Afrocentric spiritual perspective, explaining that eating meat will produce degeneration of mind, body, and soul. In the “Sacred Foods” chapter, she writes “Eating flesh, fast food, and junk food will destroy a woman’s vitality. Vegetarian, vegan, fruitarian, and live- food eating will strengthen and heal a woman’s body. Live foods give the Sacred Woman longevity and will eliminate fear, hate, and a sense of being overwhelmed with life’s challenges.

Sacred Food is the foundation of the Body Temple of a divine sacred woman” (2000:160). Afua explains in the beginning of the work that she is trained as a holistic healer as a “Minister of

Purification and a Nubian Priestess of the Temple Nebt-Het, initiated through the Shrine of Ptah”

(2000:1). She expresses her concern for women’s health, especially Black women’s health, as one of her motivators. “The issue of African American women’s health has always been one of my primary concerns. I know how chilling the statistics are. There are more than 550,000 hysterectomies performed each year in the United States…an article on indications for hysterectomy found that African American women and women with male gynecologists are more likely to undergo hysterectomy” (2000:1). Thus, while Afua cues gender with her references to women, she also cues race / ethnicity with her recognition of disparate health outcomes along such lines.

The statistical connections between spiritual development frames and ethno racial and gender identities suggest that these messages may (or are believed to) resonate more for women and / or ethno racial minorities than for men or Whites. Their relatively low prominence among all offered frames however, especially those frames that are identity neutral, once again illustrates that the standpoints of culturally powerful claims makers are over-represented in vegetarian / vegan frames that are offered. Perspectives, issues, and problems associated with becoming vegetarian / vegan for people whose social identities are in positions of less power end up relegated to marginal, fringe status in the cacophony of movement frames.

Conclusion

In this chapter, I demonstrated that particular vegetarian / vegan messages are statistically associated with particular identity cues. That is, hints about particular types of identities are wrapped up with particular messages about why someone should become a vegetarian / vegan as they exist in media. In particular, three vegetarian / vegan collective action frames were found to be statistically connected to gender and race / ethnic social identity cues. Animal rights frames

85 were inversely associated with explicit race / ethnic identity cues, suggesting either that claims makers are hesitant to offer such frames when racial / ethnic cues are present, or that claims makers who push animal rights agendas do not see racial / ethnic considerations that individuals must negotiate. Cultural justice and spiritual development frames were each positively statistically associated with racial / ethnic and gender identity cues, suggesting that these messages may matter more to people whose gender or racial / ethnic identities are perceived as important for signifying and making sense of their everyday experiences.

Whether intentional or not, certain types of messages about why someone should change their dietary lifestyle are statistically enmeshed with specific identity considerations. When these three frame-identity connections are examined in relation to each other, they suggest a pattern of bias where the issues and concerns associated with more privileged social identities, as evidenced by identity implicitness, take prominence among offered movement messages. What remains unclear from this discussion however is whether these identified frame-identity connections matter to audiences and non-claims maker activists. As activists use frames as symbolic resources when engaged in framing to explain their movement involvement, do differences emerge along social identity lines in ways that are consistent and expected with the frame-identity connections identified here? That is, do more White activists tend to talk about their vegetarianism / veganism using themes of animal rights, demonstrating an animal rights alignment? Do women and activists of color tend to talk about their vegetarianism / veganism using cultural justice or spiritual development arguments?

In the next chapter, I examine frame alignment among vegetarians / vegans with differing social identities. I question whether correspondence exists between activists’ social identities and their narrative framings of movement involvement and the frame-identity connections identified

86 in content data. If framing-identity connections emerge from activists in accordance with expectations, then this suggests that messages may carry differential risks or rewards for their usage among activists occupying different social locations. As a potential reward, frame alignment may be a simpler process for individuals with concordant social identities to those statistically connected to frames. Like drawbridges that lower for some activists but not others, some frames may simply be easier to use when embedded identity considerations match those of activists. Conversely, frame alignment may be more challenging for people whose social identities do not match those embedded in particular frames. If this is the case, hidden trapdoors of symbolic risk may open with their usage for activists with discordant social identities, leaving them in difficult rhetorical positions.

CHAPTER 6

SOCIAL IDENTITIES, FRAMING, AND ALIGNMENT

When activists explain their mobilization and involvement in social movements using themes that overlap with collective action frames, they are involved in framing activities (Ladd

2011). By creating narratives that share thematic elements with collective action frames, activists can use the ready-made interpretive lenses of frames to understand their movement involvement in a broader context, identify culprits, and foresee solutions. When activist’s own “interests, values, and beliefs [are congruent and complimentary to the] activities, goals, and ideology” of social movements, activists are said to be “aligned” with frames. This alignment is seen as an

“interactional accomplishment” (Snow et al 1986:467), and is considered a necessary component of both successful mobilization as well as movement identity construction (Snow and McAdam

2000; Polletta and Jasper 2001; Taylor and Whittier 1992).

In this chapter, I first present activists’ accounts of how they became vegetarians / vegans. As interviewed activists narratively construct their movement participation and engagement, their perspectives demonstrate a high degree of thematic overlap with extant frames identified with the content analysis7, suggesting successful frame resonance and alignment. I also note themes that diverge from identified frames in the narrative accounts. Next, I analyze how ethno racial, gender, and class categories influenced frame alignment patterns, highlighting the ways that social identities play a mediating role in frame resonance and alignment processes.

Last, I find some empirical support for congruence between the identity cues embedded in particular vegetarian / vegan frames and the social identities of mobilized activists. Specifically,

Whites engaged in more animal rights framings and activists of color engaged in more cultural

7 See chapter 4, Table 1. 88 justice framings of their movement participation. Expectations that more activists of color would engage in spiritual development framing were not supported, nor were gender expectation. This limited support suggests that the identity cues embedded in frames may facilitate or hinder frame resonance and subsequent alignment for activist mobilization along lines of race / ethnicity, but not gender or class.

Vegetarian / Vegan Narrative Framings of Movement Entrance

Interviewed activists gave a variety of explanations for how they became vegetarian / vegan and offered diverse strategies for how they transformed. When respondents were asked how they became vegetarians / vegans, most indicated several reasons, with one primary reason given first and then several other reasons ‘tacked on,’ afterward. Activist’s narratives expressed a high degree of thematic overlap with animal rights frames, which were one of the top two ways activists explained their initial transitions into vegetarianism / veganism.

As an offered frame in media and the culture at large, animal rights are commonly understood to function similarly to human rights, whereby the possessor has certain interests that are inalienable and inviolable by virtue of being alive (Adams 1994; Bailey 2007; Singer 1979).

Animal rights frames build atop a master frame of “rights” (Benford and Snow 2000). Animal welfare frames draw upon the same master frame, but reach different conclusions regarding ethical behavior of humans towards animals (Freeman 2010). Animal rights and welfare frames used in the context of the vegetarian / vegan movement diagnose a problem (violation of rights), prescribe solutions (greater consideration of animal interests), and motivate individuals to engage in consumptive direct action by ceasing or reducing their consumption of animal products that impede the proper expression of the animal’s interests, thereby fiscally punishing companies and

89 organizations that violate the master frame of rights (Johnston 2008). Some animal rights and welfare frames additionally advocate altering laws through the political system by citizens, but most focus on a consumerist model of societal change as an accessible, urgently needed activity.

Framing Vegetarianism / Veganism with Animal Rights

Among interviewed activists, ten indicated that concern for animals was their primary motivator for becoming a vegetarian / vegan. Several respondents had grown up with farm animals and had spent time caring for them, feeding and cleaning them, and responded that after such an experiences they couldn’t bear the thought of killing the animals that they had once seen as their companions. One participant, a petite White brunette woman in her late twenties named

Julie said:

You know baby feeding, um, bottle feeding the cows, it makes a bond there. And so, I guess when I was 17 I started eating more vegetarian foods since I had my own income. I could go out and buy my own food… And I became completely vegetarian when I was 18. I got in an argument with my mom about some cows and how we weren’t supposed to eat them. And she had tricked me into eating them, and so I was like, ‘I’m just not eating meat anymore.’ So that was it for me. So she actually tried to trick you? Or was it a mistake? She just didn’t, she conveniently didn’t tell me that they had come from our farm. I don’t think that animals are quite on the same plane as humans, but at the same time, it’s just kind of a respect for life. I feel like, you know, they can’t tell us like their wishes or anything like that, but growing up on a farm, just, we had goats. And I had a little pet pygmy goat. And she had a baby, and the baby didn’t make it. And she went out and she was looking for him. And she was making all these awful cries. And you know, animals grieve. And that’s something that really hit home with me. I just couldn’t eat an animal that, you know, thinks, and obviously has feelings.

In this example, Julie considers the interests of the animals she cared for who couldn’t tell humans “their wishes.” She acknowledges animal subjectivities as capable of grief, which helped her to view animals as deserving of protection. Considerations of interests and subjectivities are key components of animal rights frames (Donovan 1996). Julie not only considers consuming animals to be wrong on these bases, but also connects her mother’s deception to her transition. For Julie, the extent to which she felt that vegetarianism / veganism was both important and correct was underscored when she explained that she would not consider marrying or seriously dating a man who was not “at least a vegetarian.”

A bubbly West Indian respondent in her thirties named Maya also indicated that growing up around cows made her not want to eat them or, by extension, other animals. She admitted she still had a hard time staying away from chicken, and struggled to remind herself that chickens and birds were just like the cows she cared about.

I think… my love for animals. Like I really…We grew up with cows in our backyard. So I always thought it would be ridiculous getting a hamburger from McDonalds because I understood that meat was the same cow that came up to me and I was petting it through the fence… Before everything started becoming overdeveloped… we had a huge pasture in our backyard with horses and cows. And they would just roam freely and they would come to the fence so we would feed them. And, you know, just even that. Like they recognize our face or certain ones, you know, you could see how they just like did their own thing and everything, as a little kid you really did understand that they were family. They had babies. They had aunties. [laughter] It was really cute. I understood that from sitting in my backyard on a swing watching them.

Similarly to Julie, Maya anthropomorphizes animal familial relationships with terms like

“aunties,” “family,” and “babies.” As she constructs these relationships through a human familial lens, it is implicitly understood that just as someone should not harm a family member or

91 someone else’s family member, she would not want to harm these animals. She also grants the animals a place of knowledgeable subjectivity by stating that they could “recognize our face.”

Each of these arguments draw connections to animals as subjective and worthwhile beings who are therefore worthy of consideration from a rights and welfare perspective.

Another respondent named Cassie is a conservatively dressed African American woman in her mid-twenties with shoulder-length, relaxed hair. She discussed growing up on a farm in

Oklahoma with her five brothers and sisters. Like Julie and Maya, direct experience with farm animals changed her attitudes towards consuming animals. Also similarly to Julie, she recounts a turning point rooted in emotional pain, demonstrating the well documented importance of emotions in spurring movement engagement (Jasper 2011). After forming an emotional bond with the chickens and piglets on the farm, especially her pet pig who she named Wilbur, she recounts feeling disgusted by meat after Wilbur was slaughtered after finishing a 4H show.

Unfortunately, when I was 14, I had to show my pig at Oklahoma City, and they slaughtered it. And it really affected me. And I decided after that I just didn’t ever want to eat meat. It made me sick to my stomach. I was just really traumatized by that. Mr. Flanders, the advisor, he was like “you better not cry if they take your pig” And I tried not to, but it was horrible.

While Cassie narratively traces her transition as growing from the event where her pet was killed, she does not couch her vegetarianism in arguments about Wilbur’s rights. Instead, she signifies emotional disgust as a reaction to her private ‘moral shock’ over having a beloved pet killed. Thus, while framing her transition implicitly aligns with concern for animals, the language used diverges from most treatments of animal rights which are often cognitively oriented.

Other respondents moved towards vegetarianism because the idea of eating animal flesh had always seemed repulsive in some way to them, although generally these were given as supporting reasons for vegetarian / vegan commitment rather than initial activism (Hamilton

2006). Ella, a middle aged woman who identified as White Hispanic and wore flowing beige and pink clothing with long white hair and a rhinestone necklace explained:

When I was a child, the thought of eating meat I always thought was kind of gross and disgusting because I could see the blood on the plate. I remember asking my mother once about a hamburger I was eating, if it had brains in it… And she’s like, “Oh yes. Just eat it.” And I was like, “How disgusting is that?” So if I had been allowed to be a vegetarian as a child, I think I would have been, but we had to eat what they prepared and of course their mindset was always “meat is good for you.” But as soon as I became an adult, when I was eighteen, I pretty much cut out meat. There were a few times, rarely, where I might have, you know, a little bit here or there, but um, but I completely gave it up, um, I think three or four years ago I think was when I finally gave up seafood. That was the last of the, of the meat. And also, about five years ago, I gave up meat and dairy when I saw a film called, “Meet your Meat.”

Ella gives an initial account that is similar to Cassie’s disgust reaction toward meat, but then solidifies her commitment to concern for animals with a reference to a film associated with a pro vegan / animal rights social movement organization. For many vegetarians / vegans as well as animal rights activists who do not have personal experiences with farm animals, these sorts of videos and their associated frames are often instrumental in fomenting mobilization (Jasper and

Poulson 1995).

Combining these themes of personal experiences with animals as well as exposure to animal rights and welfare frames, a White activist in his forties with a Northeastern accent named Anthony discussed his perceptions changed about eating meat.

I was in the Marine Corps myself for twelve years, and when I got out of the Marine Corps, I had a couple of dogs. I did dog obedience. I didn’t know what I was going to do after the Marine Corps and I saw an animal control thing going down the street and I said, ‘Well I could do that,’ so I began my career, um, in the animal sheltering profession as an animal control officer. And most everyone there was a vegetarian, or vegan, and I, I’m very strong willed and they tried to push or tell me about it and I didn’t want to hear anything about it. I told them I used to hunt, I used to fish, and I’m a meat eater and I didn’t want to change. Which is quite different, um, but then after a short amount of time I start seeing and listening and decided on my own that I wanted to become a vegetarian. I became a vegetarian for the animals… What I saw and what I learned about farm animals and stuff like that, it’s what made me choose vegetarianism. I saw like videos of PETA, you know, different things that they had. I worked in [large Northeastern city] and they would come and put up booths and I would look at some and didn’t really want to look at them, but what I saw then resonated with me to make the change on my own.

Later, Anthony said that he took a job with PETA as an undercover investigator documenting animal abuse in slaughterhouses. Witnessing daily abuses, he said he became a vegan shortly after taking the position and would never go back to eating meat or animal products.

A few other respondents indicated that they transitioned into a vegetarian lifestyle after exposure to animal rights related materials and literature. Karen, an extremely thin nineteen year old with pronounced features and shoulder length blonde hair also credits PETA for changing her opinion about animals and “opening her eyes,” even while saying she’s “not a fan” of the organization. Once she had seen some of the PETA videos however, she said she became a vegetarian. To underscore the point, she later adds “[if people asked me why I am a vegetarian I would respond] because I love animals.”

While the narratives employed by activists differed in terms of emotional content and personal versus indirect experience with animals, they each speak to the centrality of concerns 94 for animal wellbeing and thematically share significant overlap with animal rights frames offered by various claims makers. Each of these narratives aligns with the diagnosed problem of lack of concern for animal interests and supports a vision where animals will be unharmed in the future.

The motivational elements of the frames are rooted in activist’s behavioral movement identities themselves as people who don’t consume meat or animal products respectively.

Framing Vegetarianism / Veganism with Health

Ten activists indicated that they had become vegetarians / vegans primarily for the purposes of improving their health. Vegetarian / vegan health frames as offered in media function by diagnosing a problem (unhealthy or unattractive bodily physical states arising from meat consumption), prescribing a solution (healthier or more attractive bodily physical states are achievable), and motiving individuals to act (eliminating meat and / or all animal products from one’s diet). Activists commonly framed their reasons for turning to vegetarian / vegan diets with themes of health that overlapped static health frames strongly. One activist, Josh, a young strawberry blonde nineteen year old explained how he became a vegetarian:

I have to say, um, I grew up eating healthy my entire life. My mom and dad are like super, ‘you gotta eat healthy.’ Breakfast, lunch and dinner. And then, um, let’s see, I guess I moved out and that kind of ended fast. What’s funny is when I was in high school, I thought vegetarian was just funny, and I had a friend who was a vegetarian. I used to make fun of her all the time, and actually I snuck bacon into her food once. She got really sick. But I-I didn’t think that was really gonna happen. But then I started watching Food, Inc. I watched Food, Inc. and my mind was like, ‘Okay, this is hell.’ And then I actually started reading into it more and more and more, and learning about all these other companies, the Monsanto’s and stuff like that.

Josh’s narrative clearly articulates ‘healthy eating’ practices as important. Like many other activists, he mentions a media resource as instrumental to his rationale for becoming a vegetarian—the documentary Food, Inc. He went on in the interview to talk about the foods that eat now and emphasizes ideas of health repeatedly through the interview.

A second activist, a White psychologist in her mid-thirties with soft brown hair and a reserved demeanor responded that she also transitioned due to health concerns after reading the book The China Study (Campbell and Campbell 2006). Several interviewed activists cited this text as particularly important for providing what they felt was credible evidence promoting vegetarianism / veganism as superior diets for the prevention of many serious diseases.

Also offering a health framing of his veganism, Don, an older African American school- teacher with freckles and a ready smile talked about his struggles with health ailments beginning in his college years during the 1970’s. Finding that traditional medicinal techniques did not end his problems, he began to explore alternative diets and medicine.

…maybe the late 70’s, I had um, a cyst develop on my head, and my doctor said to me, that I went to, that it’s nothing, we can lance it. And he did. And it would go away, but it didn’t go away, it filled up again, and I went back to him, and he said oh, well it just filled up once, and he wanted to lance it a second time, well that’s when I kind of gave up on him as far as seeking other medical assistance, and I did go to at least two other doctors and they were shocking me with, one doctor said, we can cut out the whole area of the head, and it was just my hair falling out around this little, small area, which seemed to be this ingrown hair. And knots formed on my head, and no one could test me and find anything, and you know, I was still a kid, but nevertheless, what happened was that with this lack of hair in this area, I went to a few regular AMA doctors, and I was never was pleased.

Later, Don met an alternative, holistic health practitioner whom he trusted who instructed him to become a vegetarian.

After meeting him, I went in and he checked out the head, and I guess you could say he made his diagnosis, and he recommended that I come and change the foods that I ate… and he was telling me that my flow of energy was being interfered with, from whatever I was eating, and so we started sessions… and I guess by the end I had eliminated all meat.

This response is very personal—Don was concerned about his own health. Within the same interview however, Don also discussed how the health of young people in the United

States, especially African American and Hispanic youth, could be improved if people would

“listen to their bodies” and change their diet to healthier foods.

I’ve seen enough of the cases where even the young people are dealing with, you know, the unhealthy choices. And the foods that we consume, and having the full picture of what’s going on. Uh huh, and you think this is especially bad for young people? Yeah, because they still have their whole lives and they have to deal with being so large. You know American kids are some of the biggest in the world, but also for the African American and Hispanic kids it’s even worse and they have the higher risk of diabetes and blood pressure problems, so it’s a definitely a problem with all these unhealthy choices.

Thus, Don acknowledges that his transition to vegetarianism was fundamentally personal and motivated by a desire for better health and wellbeing, consistent with a health frame alignment of his movement identity. Simultaneously he acknowledges that health problems within communities of color are disproportionate. The rhetorical inclusion of collective health problems in the African American and Latino communities may also indicate Don’s enhanced sense of shared connection to people of color, making his embraced social identity meaningful.

Another respondent, a stylish woman in her mid-fifties named Alicia, discussed suffering from recurring Hodgkin’s lymphoma as well as a heart condition her entire adult life. She said that a friend suggested veganism as a way to improve her health overall and reduce her risk for further heart problems.

The doctors told me that I had to have open heart surgery. That was it, they said I had to have it. But I thought no, I’m not gonna do that. I’m gonna find another way. I’m gonna find another way so I don’t have to go through that. Because you know, when they crack the breastbone and pull it all apart, it’s so hard to heal from. And I’ve been through enough surgeries. So I went hardcore vegan. I had a friend whose 82 years old, he’s a retired judge, and he’s been a vegan forever and he’s real, real healthy. So I got his number and he helped me and taught me how to do it. And over the next 15 months I got down to a healthy BMI for my height, and I was feeling better, but my family was worried that I was getting too skinny. I lost 15 pounds. So now I actually have started eating fish and even sometimes a little chicken again just recently because my family was so worried about me and they thought I was just too thin. But I did feel much better as a vegan.

In Alicia’s story, similar to Don’s, individual health concerns undergird her now defunct vegan movement identity. Also like Don, Alicia offered health stories that spoke to a collective concern regarding disproportionate health risks within the African American community.

Well, the rest of my family, they think I’m crazy and they still eating the soul food. What types of soul food? You know, the collard greens and the mac and cheese, and corn bread, ribs, pork, and chitins. And it’s mostly fried and pretty greasy stuff really. And most of my family are pretty big because of it, so maybe they could stand to try some veganism for a quick minute! [laughs] You know, ‘cause my family and the--a lot of the people in my neighborhood that I grew up in, they still eat the same foods that they always did, and the older that they get the more health problems they’re having. Diabetes and hypertension

and they have high cholesterol--and Black people have the biggest risk of these types of problems and I know that some of that is the food. It has to be.

Two other respondents—one African American woman in her sixties and one Latina in her sixties—offered extremely similar usages of health frames, each indicating they had a particular health problem where they became ill if they consumed meat. Even while both believed they could probably return to meat eating if they wished and not suffer significant health setbacks, both said they were satisfied with their vegetarian and vegan identities respectively and would not go back to being omnivores.

Each of these activists used health framings to understand their dietary choices and movement identities. Interestingly however, because health frames do not demarcate movement insiders from outsiders along moral lines in the same way that animal rights frames do, many people whose vegetarian / vegan narratives exhibited alignment with health frames also talked about occasional cheating or ‘indulges.’ While health frames were resonant for some activists enough that their narrative framings demonstrated alignment, the diagnostic boundary does not pivot on a moral axes, which depoliticizes the health identity. While existing studies suggest that motivations for vegetarianism / veganism that revolve around health concerns yield less strict behavioral codes (Maurer 2002; Fox and Ward 2008), I theorize that the relative lack of politicization is also a partial contributor as the vegetarian / vegan movement identity lacks a villain to pit one’s movement identity against (Morris 1992).

Alternative Vegetarian / Vegan Framings

Three other framings emerged from activists as primary which were identified in the content analysis. One White respondent named Suzy indicated that she transitioned to vegetarianism due to environmental concerns. Her narrative demonstrated overlap with an 99 environmental justice frame, which diagnoses environmental degradation a result of intensive factory farming and meat production processes. While there are several prescribed solutions

(becoming vegetarian / vegan; consuming foods that are locally grown and require less fossil fuel for shipment; consuming organic foods which reduce environmental toxicity), the motivational component is similar to the others—become vegetarian / vegan.

Another respondent indicated that he first transitioned to vegetarianism due to a yearning for greater spiritual growth. His narrative overlapped themes found in the spiritual development frame, where the problem was diagnosed (lack of mindfulness; lack of spiritual connection), the vision prescribed (greater mindfulness; greater spiritual communion or enlightenment), and the motivator posited as a desire for growth. He was the only interviewed activist who indicated a spiritual motivation for dietary conversion.

The last types of narrative framings that emerged from interviewed activists were those that overlapped with themes of cultural justice. Recall that cultural justice frames function by diagnosing a problem (health inequalities and cultural devaluation as legacies of colonial / White

/ Euro oppression), prescribing a solution (improved community and personal health; self- determination; liberation), and offering a motivating rationale (becoming vegetarian / vegan will lead to justice). The narratives of these activists often discussed historical legacies of oppression that needed to end and saw their vegetarianism / veganism as a strategy by which to achieve such.

To restate, activists who were interviewed engaged in narrative framings of their movement participation that demonstrated a high degree of thematic alignment between their discourse and five vegetarian / vegan collective action frames. As activists offered their respective rationales for movement engagement, it was evident that many themes carried in pro

100 vegetarian / vegan frames were present in their discussions. These themes suggest that the associated frames were resonating successfully, as they exhibited alignment among activists.

Activists’ narratives displayed the greatest alignment with themes found in animal rights and health frames. These two distinct frame alignments were bimodal, each appearing ten times as primary considerations influencing their decision to become vegetarian / vegan. Cultural justice, environmental, and spiritual development narratives also occurred in the interview data, although they were far less popular than the first two, suggesting that these respective collective action frames are not as culturally resonant (Kubal 1998) or prominent. The last of the identified frames from the content analysis--political economy--was not clearly expressed as an initial rationale for movement engagement, although it did often appear as a supporting explanation.

Expected Social Identity Frame Alignment Patterns

As shown above, activists’ interviews demonstrated frame alignments with five of six vegetarian / vegan collective action frames. When examined along social identity lines, some patterns in these alignments emerge. Support was mixed for the assertion that identity cues embedded in frames facilitate frame alignment for activists with correspondent identities.

Specifically, only some statistically significant connections identified between frames and identity cues appeared to be supported by narrative alignment data. Tables 8 and 9 present frame alignments from interviews along race / ethnic and gender social identity lines (see next page).

Supporting expected patterns, animal rights alignments were used more often by respondents who identified as White in the study. Six out of the eleven White respondents discussed animal rights as their most salient motivator. By contrast, only two African American

101 respondents out of eight offered this frame first, and both had direct experience with farm animals (Cassie and Maya).

Table 8. Frames Offered by Activists by Ethnic / Racial Social Identity Category

Frame White Black Hispanic Asian Alignment African American Latino American Total Health 3 5 1 1 10 Animal Rights 6 2 2 0 10 Cultural Injustice 0 3 1 0 4 Political Economy 0 0 0 0 0 Environmentalism 1 0 0 0 1 Spirituality 1 0 0 0 1 N 11 10 4 1 26

Table 9. Frames Offered by Activists by Gender Identity Category

Frame Alignment Women Men Total Health 4 5 9 Animal Rights 8 3 11 Cultural Injustice 1 3 4 Political Economy 0 0 0 Environmentalism 1 0 1 Spirituality 0 1 1 N 14 12 26

Interestingly, two Latino respondents out of four also presented animal rights frames first, which appears higher than what might be expected from the culturally neutral identity cues often packaged into the frame. Upon closer examination of these cases however, I found that one of these respondents felt somewhat disconnected from their ethnic identity, and the other could not be clearly determined. That is, one of the respondents indicated in the interview that they didn’t feel that their identity as a Latino was particularly meaningful in shaping his behavioral decisions or concerns, even though he lamented a feeling of cultural loss. Thus, the assertion that identity

102 neutral frames will resonate more with those sharing a strong sense of connection to others occupying similar social locations appears to be supported for animal rights frames.

Assertions of identity cue’s capacities to intercede in frame resonance and alignment processes were also supported for cultural justice framings, which were only offered by minority activists. Cultural justice frames were found to be statistically associated with ethno racial minority identity cues in media; this connection is supported in the narrative framings of activists as well. At the same time, cultural justice framing was only done four times by interview respondents, reflecting the frame’s marginal status in media presentation as well as overall respondent usage. Nonetheless, the selective use of this frame by activists permits a very different boundary negotiation than either the animal rights or health frames (this will be discussed in greater detail in chapter 7), so this frame still has an explanatory role to play in differential frame alignment along social identity lines.

Inconsistent support for embedded identity cues to intercede in resonance and alignment processes emerged along gender lines. Neither gender expectation about activist women’s narrative framings were met. Additionally, the expectation that minority activists would be more likely to offer framings consistent with spiritual development themes was contradicted. Thus, explanations of differential frame alignments along social identity lines due to identity cues and standpoints within the frames themselves do not find consistent support in this research.

Ultimately however, because the activist sample size is small, larger sample sizes may shed greater explanatory light on this mechanism’s potential to influence frame resonance and alignment with activists.

103

Conclusion

Although still relatively under-researched in framing literature, this research adds to scholarship on narrative framing alignment processes performed by activists when explaining their movement participation. The framings of activists are discursively aligned with themes in frames located in media and the larger culture (Ladd 2012; Steinberg 1998). Two framings emerged as dominant among interviewed activists—animal rights and health, which were bimodal in the distribution. Three other framings aligned with identified frames in the content data—environment, spiritual development, and racial justice.

Next, narratives were examined along lines of social identity categories and compared against expectations generated from frame-identity cue associations identified in the previous chapter. Identity cues, conceptualized as social identity hints or perspectives embedded within frames, were analyzed statistically to discern whether these could account for some of the variation in the narrative framing processes of activists with mixed support. Specifically White race / ethnic expectations for animal rights framings and Black / Latino expectations for cultural justice framings were supported, while gender and race / ethnic spiritual expectations were not supported. The two supported relationships identified suggest that identity cues associated with race / ethnicity may matter more for vegetarian / vegan frame resonance and alignment than those associated with gender. At the same time, activists’ narrative framings of their movement participation also displayed patterns by race / ethnic identity that could not be accounted for by identity cues alone, suggesting that other factors mediating frame alignment processes are unaccounted for.

In the next chapter, I examine the identity talk (Hunt and Benford 1994) that activists of color performed when negotiating diagnostic loci of blame that served to create boundaries

104 between movement insiders and outsiders. Activists engaged in identity talk to signify who they were within the vegetarian / vegan movement, as well as who they weren’t.

I also examine a tension that exists between ethno racial cultural identities and vegetarian

/ vegan identities. I argue this tension constructs movement identities and cultural identities as oppositional to one another, forcing activists for whom culture is meaningful and salient into a position of rhetorical trade which then must be rhetorically navigated using the symbolic resources available to the individual. As a frame, I argue that cultural justice messages provide a valuable symbolic resource that activists’ of color can discursively utilize to reframe cultural authenticity and bring oppositional movement and cultural identities into alignment with one another, thereby linking their embraced social identity and collective movement identity.

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CHAPTER 7

“THAT’S WHAT WHITE PEOPLE DO:”

NEGOTIATING MOVEMENT IDENTITY AND CULTURAL AUTHENTICITY

Interviews with vegetarians / vegans of color who identified as several races and ethnicities (and many nationalities8) revealed that individuals contended with cultural stereotypes about the movement and their participation therein to varying degrees. Many race / ethnic minorities, especially Latinos, felt they traversed a cultural minefield negotiating their vegetarian

/ vegan identity while having to rebut critical jabs from family and friends about abandoning their culture or “acting white.” Most interview respondents of color indicated that regardless of whether or not they believed that the U.S. vegetarian / vegan movement is actually dominated by upper-middle class Whites / Anglos, the association and stereotype with White Americanism existed within their social circles.

Considering the statistical associations with particular frames outlined in chapter 5, this makes sense. Some frames were found to be more or less associated with particular identity cues, and potential movement recruits may interpret these cues differently. Unfortunately for movements wishing to recruit and mobilize more diverse networks, embedded neutral social identity cues are polysemous: while some may view a lack of identity considerations to be inclusive, others may view the same lack of identity considerations as an exclusive function of privilege (Johnson 2006; McIntosh 1988). If messages about the identities of movement participants are interpreted as dissimilar from those of a potential recruit (or if stereotypes are

8 Respondents self-identified as White, Italian, Hungarian, Filipino, West Indian, Cuban, Black

Puerto Rican, Dominican, Colombian, Chicana, Indigenous, Spanish, and African American.

106 believed to a similar effect) then newly mobilized activists are rendered vulnerable to challenges of inauthenticity. Their fledgling vegetarian / vegan identity may be rhetorically positioned in direct opposition to their traditional omnivorous cultural identity, pitting one against the other.

Thus, for individuals who believe their ethno / racial cultural identity includes meat consumption and who value that identity, strengthening a collective vegetarian / vegan identity may be seen as a personal loss. Additionally, if a vegetarian / vegan movement identities are also overlaid with particular race / ethnic associations in the minds of a potential movement recruit’s extant social circles, change may be interpreted as a culturally inauthentic. For movement activists whose social identities are embraced as meaningful but also associated with non-vegetarian / vegan behaviors, these differential identities are in tension with one another and must be negotiated.

In this chapter I first present how interviewed activists viewed identity stereotypes related to the vegetarian / vegan movement. Next, I show how activists who did feel that vegetarianism / veganism was associated with Whiteness but who didn’t identify as White made sense of their movement participation. Specifically, as activists offered one of three narrative framings to justify their vegetarianism / veganism, the various diagnostic elements of those framings created boundaries differently between movement insiders and outsiders. Some diagnostic framing elements drew moral divisions between insiders and outsiders, while others generated amoral borders.

As social identities may be rhetorically positioned at odds with collective movement identities like vegetarian / vegan identities, and as those movement identities create insiders or outsiders using different loci of blame, I propose these intersecting identity-frame divisions conceptualized as a matrix of boundaries which successfully aligned activists must traverse using different identity talk strategies.

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Activists of Color in a Stereotyped White Movement

Interviews revealed that while many White / Anglo vegetarians / vegans didn’t necessarily see the movement as White dominated, nor think that their racial / ethnic identity was particularly important for determining their movement identity. When asked what race / ethnicity

White activists considered themselves, several responded “the human race.” When pressed as to whether they believed their race / ethnic identity potentially mattered for becoming a vegetarian / vegan, most White respondents indicated that it did not (one White respondent even said “not at all and anyone who thinks it does is using that as an excuse”). By contrast, most of the respondents of color did believe that vegetarianism / veganism was stereotyped as associated with White, and that they struggled to reconcile their collectively embraced social identities against this association9.

One respondent, named Alvaro, self-identified as a Black Puerto Rican man. He is a professor at a Southern HBCU. A red, black, and green Pan-African flag and a poster of

Malcolm X hang on the wall above the desk in his office. Alvaro has intense eyes and a deep, raspy voice, but comes across as light-hearted while dealing with colleagues and students who stop by to say hello or talk about their grades. During multiple interviews, Alvaro discussed his transition away from eating the meat-filled foods he grew up with (like pasteles, mofongo, and pork) to vegetarianism as causing upset within his family, especially with his grandmother.

When I started um, you know, leading up to becoming a vegetarian years and years ago, I mean eating pork was extremely popular and it still is in my family, and so when I gave up eating pork, it was viewed as like a radical thing. I mean my grandmother was very,

9The vegetarian / vegan movement was not seen as being dominated by one gender or another by activists of any background, so this identity consideration is moot.

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very upset. When I would visit the homes of my aunts, they would insist on serving me pork. They couldn’t believe it. They just figured it was for talk or show or something. Why do you think your grandmother felt upset? Well, a lot of it had to do with rejecting the culture in her mind…She identified me not eating pork and the other items in the diet that we had as a cultural attribute, you know people associate eating certain foods with being part of a certain culture.

Another respondent named Alonso, who identified as Filipino, described how he was accused by some of his family members as not being a ‘real Filipino’ anymore.

I’ve wrestled with this for years, especially because my switch to vegetarianism led many members of my extended family to look at me with disdain. They accused me of no longer being Filipino. Some of them even refused to talk to me because of the choices that I made. Even after I shared what I had learned about veganism, it fell on deaf ears… Years later, I find that these same people who accused me of being disrespectful and “forgetting who I was” came back to me--some of whom are now obese and have cancer- -wondering how after eating the way that I did, I was able to lose weight… not have to keep taking medicines, and be generally happier.

Another respondent named Ivan identified as Cuban American. In his early thirties, he is jovial and expressive. Ivan waffled back and forth between vegetarianism and pescatarianism, attributing the latter to problems with personal will power, especially when confronted with shrimp. He talked about having to navigate a similar cultural dynamic, but expressed feelings of cultural loss. “When I first told my family I was a vegetarian, abuelita thought I was gay! And my family was upset. I think my abuelita saw it as turning my back on being Cuban. They didn’t understand it… I like to joke that if I was to yawn at the table I think [abuelita] would throw a pork chunk in my mouth.” Later, Ivan recounts that he does struggle with feelings of cultural loss and being an outsider. “I don’t speak Spanish at home now. I don’t even eat a lot of Cuban foods when I’m a vegetarian. It’s weird. I feel like I’m not even a real Cuban anymore.”

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A recent article from an ethnically targeted website, Latino.com, even mentions some of these dietary dynamics when doing culture: “Growing up on a Latin diet doesn't exactly make it easy to cut out the meat from your everyday meals. Instead, we're often left feeling guilty and confused: How do you have enchiladas without beef? Will abuela be upset we switched up her recipe? How do we eat arroz con pollo without the chicken? If you've ever wanted to go meatless on a Latin diet, then we've got the answer!” (Gonzalez 2014).

In addition to vegetarianism / veganism being interpreted as non-traditional by many cultures that have Spanish influence, there are also racial associations with the diet. A respondent named Tre is a young African American Muslim man in his mid-twenties with a slight beard who wears a kufi. Serious and deliberate in his speech, Tre is a college student who lives at home with his mother and younger sister. While having followed halal rules for many years growing up, he became a vegetarian two years ago. While discussing his transition to a vegetarian, Tre talked about his family and non-vegetarian friends. When asked about how his family responded to his change he remarked, “When I first told my mom that I wasn’t eating meat anymore— every now and then I might eat a little bit of fish, that’s as far as I’ll go. And she was like, what is this? That’s what white people do.” Later in the interview, Tre talked about how customers at the university café where he works sometimes make racist jokes to him regarding food.

“Actually, people make jokes to me at work, and it comes off as racist—it comes off as they’re putting me in a box. They’re like, don’t y’all eat meat? And I’m Muslim, so I don’t eat pork. I don’t eat pork at all. And it’ll just be like tomatoes and spinach and other stuff like that and people will be like, ‘Black people eat meat right?’ And I’ll be like, ‘man!’”

Another respondent, Cecilia, who self-identifies as “Chicana Indigenous” woman explains, “I strongly believe that foodways need to be taught to people of color through a non-

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Western, non-Euro lens. Otherwise just saying the word vegan can be taken as [someone] losing or giving up their cultural identity, for it is associated with being White.”

These stories each describe activists of color confronting categorical social identity challenges while working on their new dietary identity. Eating meat is marked by many of the family and friends of respondent vegetarians / vegans of color as a practice that marks fellow insiders from “White,” “Euro,” or “American” outsiders. A common theme among many Latino or Latina respondents was of their grandmothers’ negative responses to their dietary changes, perhaps because these changes were not only seen as a cultural loss, but also a rejection of a key component of the work that grandmothers often do (cooking) to earn status and value within a family context.

These experiences of identity attack among minority respondents to their fledgling vegetarian / vegan selves shared some similarities with White respondents, but also had important differences. In contrast to the ethno racial social identity challenges experienced by minorities in the sample, few White respondents indicated that they received these challenges.

No White respondent indicated that anyone challenged them and told them they weren’t “really

White” or “really American” anymore. Indeed, most seemed to feel no cultural penalty for their personal dietary change. Only a few of the White respondents discussed their families or friends responding negatively to their newly constructed dietary identity, and much of the rejection pivoted around class.

One of the White respondents named Alexandra said that she no longer speaks with her family due to class struggles, including her veganism. “When I went to college, I kind of split from my family. They think I’ve got my nose up in the air, even though I don’t.”

In another example of dealing with judgment from his social network, Josh commented:

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Like, how can you possibly make fun of me for being healthy? I don’t get it. What’s even better is everyone makes fun of you, but your entire life, [while] you’re growing up, you’re told to eat your vegetables. But now that I only eat vegetables, people make fun of me! That doesn’t make any sense. Like even my parents tease me. They’re like, ‘Oh you’re sick because of your diet.’ Like no, I’m not sick because of my diet, I’m sick because it’s three degrees outside and I’ve got a cold.

In this example, Josh is teased by his friends like many other vegetarians / vegans who participated in interviews, but there are no core challenges to his racial, ethnic, or class identities.

Instead, they tease him based on perceived health deficits which he rebuts in the above comment.

Thus, while some of the White activists contended with teasing and identity challenges based on class or other divisions, challenges to cultural identities were a recurrent theme for activists of color.

The perception that vegetarianism / veganism is associated with Whiteness put activists of color on the defensive not just about their food, but about a core identity component of who they ‘really’ were. In many cases activists of color were challenged as inauthentic. For activists of all identities who changed their dietary behavior from what it had been prior, justifying transition was typically accomplished through narrative framing. But because frames contain diagnostic boundaries that differentially locate blame (Čapek 1993; Errnst 2009; Gamson 1992;

Hunt, Benford, and Snow 1994; Jasper and Poulson 1995; Klandermans et al 1999; Snow,

Vliegenthart, and Corrigal-Brown 2007; Snow et al 1986), the opportunities and costs inherent in their use in a racially / ethnically stratified society theoretically varies. That is, the ways in which frames facilitate movement identity formation through boundary drawing also carries different risks for different people. Those with greater privileges, especially racial and ethnic privileges conferred by being in dominant social identity categories, may experience fewer risks when cordoning themselves off from a larger group to which they belong, even if using blame to do it. 112

Those who are already racially / ethnically marginalized however may pay a greater psychic penalty for weakening extant support networks who provide symbolic and material resources

(Cattell 2007). Further, if framing movement mobilization with messages that carry diagnostic moral blame, such attributions can be interpreted as blaming the victim.

In the section below, I show how activists of color engage in identity talk to negotiate diagnostic boundaries embedded in frames while engaged in framing processes. Those activists who draw on diagnostically amoral frames may justify their changed behavior in ways that do not lower the moral-worth or different choices of people in their extant support networks. Those who draw on diagnostic moral frames however must tread lightly, as such frames judge the alternative choices or practices of friends and family members. That is, when situated within a racially / ethnically oppressive social hierarchy, diagnostic frames that construct boundaries on moral axes potentially devalue the collective that an individual finds meaningful.

Blame and Power: Diagnostic Moral and Amoral Frames as Boundaries

Diagnostic frames that construct moral boundaries do so along axes of rightness and wrongness and facilitate injustice diagnostic claims (Gamson 1992). These types of boundaries are embedded in animal rights (Donovan 1996; Freeman 2010), environmental justice (Čapek

1993), and cultural justice frames. Two of these three vegetarian / vegan frames (animal rights and environmental justice) are theorized as problematic for people in marginalized social identity categories who are then open to having blame directed their way for not participating in the movement. Cultural justice frames however are theorized as beneficial because they do not locate blame in marginalized ‘bad people,’ instead direct blame towards people with powerful social locations (Whites / Anglos / former colonizers). Further, they reposition the blame of ‘bad

113 choices’ away from individuals and onto historical legacies and processes. In this sense, cultural justice frames do not cleanly represent either ideal type of diagnostic frame, but constitute a blended diagnosis that appears to be beneficial for fomenting behavioral change for people located towards the bottom ends of power hierarchies while also providing an identifiable villain to mobilize against. In this sense, cultural justice frames seem to capture the best of both.

Diagnostic frames that construct amoral boundaries posit differences between ‘us’ and

‘them’ as morally arbitrary. Day to day activities are not politicized when amoral frames are employed. Therefore, a person may create a collective identity within a movement using amoral boundaries (Hunt, Benford, and Snow 1994; Taylor 1999) where they won’t place others lower on a value hierarchy. Vegetarian / vegan amoral boundaries situated in health, political economy, and spiritual development frames direct blame towards processes rather than people, and as such are less problematic to use for people in marginalized social locations. At the same time, these boundaries between us and them are also difficult to collectivize because they are discursively constructed as arbitrary.

In the narrative framings of activists of different race / ethnic identities presented in chapter 6, health frames were over-represented among minorities per the identity cue connections which were expected while animal rights framings were found among Whites at expected high rates. I propose that these narrative framing patterns by social identity were not random, and not solely a function of identity cues, but a cumulative product of intersecting moral boundary framings, traditional cultural connections to omnivorous foods where food movement identities are mutually exclusive, power dynamics associated with social locations, and identity cues. This assertion is untested and purely theoretical, although it does offer some explanatory power for why divisions by health and animal rights framings (in particular) emerged the way

114 they did from activists. Further, I believe these insights help explain why two identity talk strategies emerged among activists of color when navigating moral boundaries and explaining their movement identities: vanguarding and distancing.

Locating the Self in Relation to Social Identities: Vanguarding and Distancing

For some activists of color who were interviewed, explaining their movement participation was double edged. While all activists when engaged in framing are explaining their own participation in movements, they are also conversely explaining the non-participation of others. For movements like vegetarianism / veganism which are mutually exclusive by diet, this means that most people are not movement insiders. Overlaid with structural power dynamics as presented above, people of color with more marginalized socio cultural identities are placed in a difficult rhetorical position of potential victim blaming in explaining their movement identity. To navigate this hazardous maze of boundary associations and disassociations, a strategy I refer to as “vanguarding” emerged.

Vanguarding constitutes a deliberate reframing strategy that defines the relationship between a marginalized individual and the larger collective not as an isolated outsider, but as a leader and visionary engaged in authentic cultural practices whose constituency will eventually follow. By repositioning the self as a practitioner of authentic cultural traditions, vanguarding acknowledges that differences do separate vegetarians / vegans from omnivores within an ethnic

/ racial group, creating a rigid moral movement insider / outsider boundary that is helpful for movement identity formation. This strategy rhetorically lends cultural legitimacy to the identity conversion. Additionally, by positioning colonizers and colonial processes at fault for deliberate cultural destruction, this frame includes an amoral element (similar to the political economy

115 frame) that argues most omnivores of color have been deliberately misinformed by Whites, history, and / or biased pro-White history. This inclusion removes the practices of the larger collective from the moral realm (wrong or bad choices). Rather than asking movement participants to judge the food choices of their omnivorous family and friends as inferior, unethical, or just plain wrong, vanguarding allows movement participants to attribute blame for these choices onto historical legacies of racial or cultural oppression. With the locus of blame shifted, the negative character associations conferred on individuals when a morality lens is used are avoided. The inherent worth of an activist’s family and friends who provide a support network is not degraded; instead the omnivorous choices made by others are reframed as uninformed.

Many participants of all backgrounds discussed non-vegetarians using a strategy that reframed omnivorousness from bad to ignorant. Many believed that if ‘people’ (whoever they are) really knew the benefits of vegetarianism or how farm animals are treated, that they would convert to a vegetarian lifestyle. Yet because not all movement participants experienced the same sorts of cultural stigmatization by belonging to subordinated categories, this reframing strategy proved more important for ethno racial minorities as it prevented the development of internalized racism (Jones 2000), and the resultant psychological dilemmas that result.

One example of vanguarding comes from Alvaro. After discussing how his grandmother became upset because he moved in a vegetarian direction, he delved deeper:

In essence [eating pork and other Puerto Rican foods that contain meat] was really her way of preserving and maintaining her culture and really rejecting sort of the oppressor’s culture or European culture… And so of course when you’re young you don’t see that, you just see, your grandmother’s lost… and misguided, and of course, looking back on it she actually wasn’t. She actually, I felt anyways, this was her way of resisting. In other

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words, resisting European encroachment into her culture. Although it was somewhat misguided in a sense that in our obsession to hold on and maintain what our, what we think is our culture, it’s literally killing us. I mean she died of diabetes, and um, you know I even tell my students in my class, we were literally worked to death on sugar plantations, and now here we are today, dying from eating too much sugar… there’s a certain level of ugly irony there… So to get back to my grandmother, she just felt that it was me, distancing myself more and more from my culture. She felt that I was rejecting hers, which I felt that I wasn’t. Right. If anything, I felt in my mind, I was trying to preserve and maintain our culture because I still feel as I did back then, especially eating pork… that was a direct reflection of what the plantation owner had left….So if they would eat the best part of the hog [then] we would eat the scraps. And so today we see that as a cultural marker of pride, if we eat, you know, pigs feet and… chitins, and this other craziness, which is unfortunate because it doesn’t really matter how good we season it; at the end of the day it will literally kill you.

The process of strategic reframing that I refer to as vanguarding provides a conceptual bridge across the rigid divide embedded in frames between insiders and outsiders. By rhetorically positioning oneself at the forefront of a group by virtue of arcane knowledge, rather than as someone who has been ostracized from the group, vanguarding does not reject the worth of the collective. Rather, it rejects claims of omnivorous cultural authenticity and asserts that vegetarian / vegan practices are actually the authentic traditions.

Cecilia, an Indigenous Chicana woman who actively participates in a critical food organization states, “What… needs to be taught is that the majority of cultural ethnic groups’ original diets have always been plant based. A cultural food lens along with his and herstory has to be included in food studies and cultural and spiritual nutrition.” Later, she adds,

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Mexican/Indigenous foodways have been appropriated by White society and called vegetarianism and veganism, when in fact even before these terms these diets have always been plant based. So in reality, there needs to be a paradigm shift when talking about appropriating foodways. As of now, unhealthy foods are eaten which are not Mexican/Indigenous but a colonial European and Western foodway which is killing our people who do acculturate...

This reframing strategy may be critical for individuals who feel as though dietary changes are a source of isolation from otherwise supportive networks. Especially if the perception is that the new identity someone is cultivating is not seen as culturally authentic, coupled with the stereotype that the movement is a ‘White’ thing, ethno racial minorities may be positioned in multiple jeopardies by rigid moral boundary frames, or restated, as a minority within a minority. With boundary definitions hinging on cultural divides as well, individuals who don’t employ vanguarding strategies may display internalized racism to justify their changes.

The role of education was also a crucial explanatory factor in the story of negotiating the tenuous boundary between new and old identities involving behavioral change away from traditional cultural patterns. A critical reading and knowledge of history functioned as symbolic resource that individuals drew on to reframe the relationship between the self and the collective group with which they identify. Those who have a critical historical knowledge, often a product of higher education, had greater ability to rework the isolating moral boundaries embedded in particular frames. Those who lacked critical historical knowledge however, often because they didn’t have the same level of formal educational attainment, instead often were left to employ distancing strategies.

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Distancing Strategies

Distancing through use of identity talk (Hunt and Benford 1994; Snow and Anderson

1987) was common among interview respondents with less formal education and historical knowledge. While vanguarding identity work builds on the symbolic resource that cultural justice frames and /or historical knowledge can provide, lack of this knowledge means that such strategies for renegotiation are closed to the individual, potentially leaving movement participants feeling isolated and atomized as they create and accept the idea of a movement identity that is different from others. Individuals who lack the resources necessary to reframe problematic boundaries between self and others may resort to the uncomfortable position of distancing themselves from family and friends who do not participate. At the same time, this distancing does not reframe the position of the collective as bad or wrong to uninformed in the way that vanguarding does, so it forces mobilized individuals to make sense of their group’s nonparticipation in ways that can ironically undercut a major source of psychological resiliency—supportive networks.

One respondent, Tre, had mentioned that his family was now accepting of his dietary choices, but was not at first. His girlfriend and some of his other friends however still react negatively towards his vegetarianism. He comments that,

I think a lot of people, even my friends now, they kind of haven’t gotten out of the thing, kind of haven’t gotten out of the traditional thinking of like, I’m Black, I can’t do certain things, or I should only eat certain things, so I can fit in with everybody else. I think, when it comes to your personal decision, it transcends color and race. You kind of have to, you have to grow up and be who you want to be and make your own decisions and not think about what somebody else is gonna think of you. Because, for like a split second, when I was becoming a vegetarian, I was thinking “my momma aint gonna like this,” but then I was like “well, you know, my mom isn’t gonna be here forever, I gotta live the

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way I want to live to sustain my life.” And I don’t try to pass it on, I don’t try to force vegetarianism on anybody else—If they ask about it I’ll inform them as much as I can, and tell them to do their own research, don’t just believe me at my word. But being Black is—it affects a lot of people’s decisions, at least the people I affiliate myself with—and I can see it. They won’t even try—like some of the food that I eat—they won’t even try it or taste it because they’re so trapped. And they’re like “I can’t try that man, what do I look like doing that?” And I’m like “you look like yourself.”

When asked if his girlfriend ever ate vegetarian foods, Tre responded:

She’s tried some of the vegetarian stuff that I go to the store and buy, she’s tried some of that, but she won’t allow herself to—see I think it’s a Black thing—she won’t allow herself to just… and then her family. My girlfriend, she’s a people pleaser, so there’s things she won’t do because people will say stuff about her; man you gotta get outta that.

In these accounts, Tre suggests that Black omnivores are “trapped” into limiting roles that are self-imposed, but that he is free of because he “makes [his] own decisions.” The implication of this individualized way of thinking is of course that others don’t make their own decisions.

While helpful for allowing Tre to justify and legitimize different choices and hence his vegetarian identity, he also sees his choices as better versus arbitrary, thereby degrading other

African Americans who are then making bad choices. This attitude is expressed again towards the end of the interview, where Tre talked about having a lifelong love of reading. When asked about being read to as a child, he responded with an anecdote that employed distancing strategies again from himself from other young Black people that he knows. Tre said his step-father was a positive influence in his life and pushed him to read and imagine beyond the neighborhood he lived in. Tre recounts asking for wise advice:

And there’s this quote he told me. A very simplistic quote. And uh, he was Cuban and Black. And I asked him one day, I said, “what’s the wisest thing someone ever told you?”

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And I’m thinking he’s gonna say something that’s like complex and profound. And he looks at me, and he was like, “you know what somebody told me?” And I was like, “what?” And he goes, “Black people don’t read.” And he just kind of walked off. And I was just sitting there like, “that’s not deep!” I was looking for something that was like inspirational, something that would take me into another world. But as I grew up and even now, he’s exactly right. ‘Cause most Black people I know don’t read. At all. But they read—they read like on Twitter, they’ll like read people’s comments, but they’re not reading anything substantial.

Another interviewed activist—Cassie—went so far with her distancing work that it bordered on expressing internalized racism. While discussing her vegetarianism, she said:

I think that a lot of Black people are just very envious. They are very envious people and if one person starts doing better for themselves then everybody else is gonna look for ways to tear them down. Because they don’t want anyone doing better than them. I don’t know where the mentality comes from, but I grew up around it. It’s like crabs in a bucket—once one person starts doing well for themselves then everybody else starts talking.

The ability to talk about “Black people” in negative ways but then not impute such characteristics onto herself as an African American woman shows that she has distanced her identity strongly. Her discussion is suggestive of internalized racism (Jones 2000), where she believes negative stereotypes about her own racial group. This is underscored when later, Cassie volunteers that she refuses to date Black men whatsoever because they are “disrespectful,” in her eyes. She went on to discuss how Black men are irresponsible and shirk their responsibility as fathers, favoring “playing around.” Because of her views about Black men, she said she was only open to dating Whites, who she believed were “respectful.” When talking about her involvement with her church, she took offense to comments about one of her boyfriends:

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[An older woman at church] asked me if I was interested in going to another church with her because there were more Black people at that church. And I just thought that was really racist. Like, just because I’m Black I need to go to a Black church? I thought we were free, I thought we were equals—why would I want to go to that church instead of this one--just because there are Black people there? And I had come with my boyfriend at the time, who was White, and she just looked at him with this look. This look of disapproval that said “why don’t you date a Black boy instead of a White boy?”

Conclusion

Activists’ narratives demonstrated a range of perceptions about the identities involved in the vegetarian / vegan movement. Many activists of color expressed various identity attacks from others who suggested that vegetarianism / veganism was culturally inauthentic and that activists were “acting white.” While some White activists also experienced identity attacks along class or other lines, these tended to be fewer in number and did not challenge a core racial or ethnic identity. Activists of color on the other hand had to navigate these attacks far more often, which also potentially created problems when trying to explain and validate their movement identity.

One strategy used by participants of all backgrounds (but especially activists of color), was to engage in amoral diagnostic framings to explain vegetarianism / veganism. Health especially represented a common amoral frame that activists used which did not necessarily cast others in negative positions. This was helpful for activists as it did not distance them from support networks who may not have been vegetarian / vegan, but it did not strengthen their movement identities much and often produced weak commitments where activists discussed cheating frequently.

On the other hand activists who engaged in moral diagnostic framing of their movement involvement did distinguish themselves from omnivore support networks, which helped solidify

122 their movement identity and commitment. While this was helpful for building a strong vegetarian

/ vegan identity, it created divisions between activists and networks that had to be carefully navigated. Two navigation strategies emerged in the identity talk of activists of color who used moral diagnostic boundaries: vanguarding and distancing.

Activists who engaged in vanguarding identity talk positioned themselves as knowledgeable visionaries leading the way to change. They reframed the position of the collective as valuable but misinformed due to legacies of oppression, shifting blame onto processes rather than locating it in the bad choices of people who were omnivores. They further reframed cultural authenticity as vegetarian / vegan to escape attacks of inauthenticity.

Activists of color who did not have the same symbolic resources however engaged in distancing strategies to explain their behavioral identity which was distinct from the collective.

Yet as vegetarian / vegan movement identities were justified as superior to former omnivore identities (hence affirming dietary change), these distancing strategies produced an ideological matrix that affirmed racist ideologies and made activists who employed them vulnerable to internalized racism.

Ultimately the diagnostic boundaries creating categories of ‘us’ and ‘them’ form an intersecting boundary matrix when overlaid with varying social locations. Traversing this matrix entailed differential risks and rewards depending on one’s social identity and led to distinct pathways in frame alignment and specific identity talk strategies.

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CHAPTER 8

CONCLUSION

This dissertation has explored the ways social identities influence frame alignment and identity talk among activists in the U.S. vegetarian / vegan movement. There is currently insufficient research that examines the ways that individual activists with varying social identities engage in framing processes, where they fashion micro narratives that thematically overlap with the contents of macro collective action frames to produce frame alignment, or an interpretive schema congruent with a social movement (Ladd 2011; Steinberg 1998).

Additionally, there is little available framing research that clearly differentiates between individual, social, and collective identities as they may differentially matter for frame alignment and collectivization (Noakes and Johnston 2005).

In this dissertation I examined both points and specifically questioned how the identities of claims makers as evidenced by identity cues perform a dialogic dance with the identities of movement recruits when engaged in micro mobilization framing alignment and identity talk.

In chapter 5 I find that some messages are statistically connected to particular identity cues. Specifically, animal rights frames are inversely associated with explicit racial / ethnic identity cues, while cultural justice and spiritual development frames are positively associated with such as well as with femininity. In chapter 6 I document how activists’ narrative framings of their participation trended towards either animal rights or health themes, with cultural justice, spiritual development, and environmental concerns occurring less often. Expectations regarding

White activists engaging in more framings of animal rights and activists of color employing cultural justice framings were supported; the other expectations based on identity cues were not.

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Frames in Standpoints/ Embraced Social Frame Alignment and Identity Talk Media Social Locations Identity

RACIAL / ETHNIC IDENTITY VANGUARDING; VEG IDENTITY EMBRACEMENT (Moral Boundary)

COLLECTIVE RACIAL / ETHNIC IDENTITY DISTANCING; RACE / ETHNIC VEG. IDENTITY EMBRACEMENT IDENTITY (We) (Moral Boundary)

RACIAL ETHNIC IDENTITY EMBRACEMENT; VEG. IDENTITY DISTANCING (Amoral Boundary) FRAMES SOCIAL IDENTITY / IN MEDIA STANDPOINT

NON COLLECTIVE GENERIC IDENTITY DISTANCING; RACE / ETHNIC VEG. IDENTITY EMBRACEMENT IDENTITY (I) (Moral Boundary)

GENERIC IDENTITY EMBRACEMENT; VEG. IDENTITY DISTANCING (Amoral Boundary)

Figure 2: Identity Mediated Frame Alignment Identity Talk Model

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This suggests that identity cues may matter somewhat in frame alignment micro mobilization processes, especially along race / ethnic lines.

Lastly in chapter 7, I find that identity talk fissured into multiple pathways depending on the social identities of activists. I propose this is because diagnostic frame boundaries which either locate blame along moral or amoral axes carry hidden risks for people occupying different social locations. Amoral frame boundaries prove difficult to build strong collective movement identities on, but do not position collective identities as at-odds with embraced, meaningful social identities, producing healthy support networks but weak movement engagement. Moral frames foment superior boundaries for creating durable collective movement identities (Morris

1992; Polletta and Jasper 2001), but carry problematic blame attributions inherent in their usage.

Ultimately the matrix of structural power, social identities, movement insider / outsider boundaries, and identity cues within frames create boundary matrices which produce different pathways to frame alignment among activists, outlined in Figure 2 (page 125).

Figure 2 outlines a partial model of how social identities are believed to interact with frames and their embedded boundaries, leading to different identity talk processes. These are represented on the left side of the figure as “frames.” Frames carry persuasive messages to audiences to prompt movement engagement and diagnose problems along moral or amoral lines.

Frames also carry embedded identity cues in their construction. Frames, along with their entrenched boundaries and identity cues, are then assessed and evaluated by audiences.

All individuals have categorical social identities that serve to locate them as social objects. If these social identities are salient and meaningful for individuals, they are subjective experienced as a feeling of “we.” If however a social identity is not seen as important or meaningful for an individual, then a sense of ‘shared fate’ may not exist. People without a salient

126 collective sense of their social identity experience an individual feeling of “I.” These experiences are argued to break along lines of power (Harding 1991; Hartsock 1993; hooks 1984; Hill-

Collins 1990). In Figure 2 (page 125), these differences are represented by arrows separating two types of identities as collective or personal.

Individuals with their salient or non-salient social identities then negotiate moral or amoral boundaries embedded in frames, challenging or undermine their sense of connection to the collectivity if moral, or intersecting neutrally if amoral. Frames that carry amoral diagnostic boundaries demarcating activists from others are not challenging to a collective social identity, and therefore may have a greater chance of producing alignment. This lack of challenge however functions as a double edged sword. While facilitating frame alignment for individuals with a salient collective social identity, the weak divisions between ‘us’ and ‘them’ end up also providing a flimsy rationale for change and produce activists who are prone to ‘cheating’ or exiting the movement easily. In Figure 2, this pathway is represented by the third arrow from the bottom under frame alignment and identity talk, whereby activists social identities are embraced but their movement identities may be distanced.

For individuals who do not have a salient collective social identification, connections between others in similar social categories are not experienced as meaningful, therefore undermined connections are not perceived as a threat. People in dominant social identity categories who perceive of themselves as individuals are may feel no penalty for openly criticizing the behaviors of others who share their social locations, because it is not perceived as a reflection on the self. Further, as blame justifications are typically offered in society for why certain social categories have lesser power (Bonilla-Silva 2004), people with powerful social locations are not affected by such criticisms. Thus, frame adoption may lead to distancing

127 identity work, but this work is not perceived as injurious to the self in the same way that it is for a person with a salient collective social identity. These alignment and identity talk pathways are positioned in Figure 2 as both on the bottom right hand side of the figure where individuals either distance themselves with blame or distance their movement identity with amoral boundaries. While these are similar to the processes for activists with salient collective identities, the consequences of such for the self are not the same.

For activists with collective social identities, frame adoption necessitates not only behavioral change, but a careful identity renegotiations of their position relative to the group that are fraught with contestations and challenges. When frames provide the symbolic resources

(historical information, cultural reframing strategies with the use of precolonial narratives) for activists to bolster their movement identities, then they create a bridge by which a mobilized person can cross the ‘us’ ‘them’ divide without psychologically harming the self. In Figure 2, this pathway is represented by the arrow towards the top right hand corner of the diagram indicating vanguarding processes are at work.

Frames that create moral boundaries for movement engagement but do not provide the symbolic resources for individuals to negotiate such chasms may leave activists ‘out in the cold,’ distancing themselves in ways that may be harmful to the self. At the extreme, mobilized activists may resort to espousing internalized racism (as happened in this case study by some interview respondents) or other internalized degradations depending on the social identity category that is meaningful but constructed as ‘wrong.’ This pathway is represented by the second arrow from the top under alignments and identity talk.

In this case study, White racial privilege enters the process by way of perceiving or failing to perceive connections to others in the same ethno-racial categories and then traversing

128 moral boundaries, common in vegetarian / vegan frames, more easily than minorities with fewer challenges to the self. More broadly however, this process can potentially be applied to many social justice movements where behavioral change is required and moral boundaries are embedded within frames. Applied to feminist, environmentalist, or other social justice movements that are commonly criticized as White dominated, this model may yield insights into why particular demographics end up more mobilized than others beyond arguments about resources and networks. This connection has been identified by other researchers in non- sociological fields, and is expressed by Harper (2010) who writes, “predominantly white, liberal, social-justice initiatives—from community food organizing and antiglobalization protests, to veganism, to dismantling the prison-industrial complex—are often entrenched in covert whiteness and white privilege that are collectively unacknowledged by white-identified people engaged in them” (2010:35). This subtext also speaks to the divide and problematic relationship between second and third wave feminisms—that movements that do not account for people’s multifaceted backgrounds, identities, practices, and beliefs end up reifying the privilege of dominant groups within them as microcosms unless the movements are specifically about the particular identity being mobilized around.

Further, I believe this model can potentially be applied to Fordham and Ogbu’s (1986)

“acting White” hypothesis in the sociology of education literature. While messages about who does well in school within embedded peer networks are not synonymous with social movement collective action frames, they both convey powerful symbolic ideas about identities, boundaries, and behaviors that individuals with different social identities with different relative amounts of power and privilege must contend with.

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Limitations of Research

One limitation of this research is the small sample size of activists as well as a relatively small content analysis dataset. Increasing the number of data points and activist interviews would enhance the empirical credibility of all conclusions.

Another limitation is related to my own race / ethnic identity as a White / Anglo graduate student. While interview safeguards were put in place to protect interview respondents, answers still could have been potentially hedged or altered as all parties engaged in impression management (Goffman 1959; McCall and Simmons 1978) with each other. While there is no way to always know whether responses would be different with another researcher, this is one limitation that could be potentially addressed in future research by having colleagues of other race / ethnic backgrounds also conduct interviews.

A third limitation of this dissertation is that some claims, especially those in chapter 7, are theoretical in nature and remain untested. These are noted as such for clarity in readership.

Additionally interpretive lenses for data analysis were guided by insights from feminist epistemologies like standpoint theory, which incorporates structurally rooted identity concerns.

Social constructionism in general suggests that such lenses may reify such conceptualizations of identities rather than positioning them as contextual and dynamic interactional accomplishments.

This tension is of course not isolated to standpoint theory, as other sociological treatments of identities including social identity theory and structural social identity theory may also position identities as ‘something we have’ rather than ‘something we do’ yielding some theoretical fragmentation. Ultimately, while this reading offers one explanation for observed patterns and trends, others are possible.

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A fourth limitation of this research is that frame alignment was not experimental in design. Because of the differential design, frames identified in media represent a proxy for frames that are available within the culture at large.

Possibilities for Future Research

This research suggests that while collective action frames are generally studied for their manifest functionalities (accomplishing specific tasks, mobilizing new recruits, providing discourses which movement actors can draw on and use to signify themselves in movements and the broader culture), there may be undocumented latent functionalities accomplished by collective action frames. The coding of implicit identity cues as guided by standpoint and postmodern theories of subjectivity speaks to one potential latent function, whereby frames convey more information than is intended by omission. The possibility for latent functionality of frames is a concept which needs more elaboration and empirical examination. Social, political, and physical scientists as well as communications scholars today are increasingly aware of the capabilities of frames or messages to prompt disengagement among particular population demographics when not aligned with their political or other worldview. Devising more strategies by which to measure and empirically examine the potential latent capacities and / or functionalities of messages beyond identity concerns may prove useful for researchers, social movements, and public sociology.

A second research study could be conducted using an experimental method where frames and messages could be exposed to movement recruits, mobilized activists, or disengaged bystanders to better understand frame alignments and triangulate some of the reasons why particular frames may succeed or fail to resonate.

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Implications for Movements

Findings identified in this research are symbolically instructive for social movements that are seeking to diversify their membership and reach. First, claims makers must be cognizant that a variety of embedded boundaries exist within messages which may be interpreted divergently.

Identity boundaries and cues that convey information about the identities of mobilized activists are one consideration. Identifying how attributions of blame may rhetorically position recruits with differing social locations into more or less favorable facilitative contexts for movement engagement is another. Crafting messages that have additional symbolic resources for people is a third.

Ultimately interviews with many activists of color who had embraced socio cultural identities revealed vegetarian / vegan movement identities were often seen as directly at odds, such that strengthening one identity weakened the other and could be experienced as cultural loss. To help potential recruits who may be struggling to reconcile these countervailing identities, messages that include symbolic resources that audiences can use to rework problematic identities into alignment with each other would be beneficial.

Offered frames must validate an individual’s social identities as important, rather than discount them or treat them as divisive elements to be eliminated. Frames that discount important social identities risk being read as oppressive, foreign, and elitist, and leave potential activists open to criticisms of being inauthentic.

Second, frames must provide the symbolic resources necessary to reframe the desired, movement related behavior or identity as consistent with the social identity that is valued. By reframing vegetarianism / veganism as a culturally authentic practice, the moral boundaries embedded within some frames that ask activists to recast particular behaviors as problematic

132 may be crossed while not simultaneously isolating the activist. Frames that offer these symbolic resources to mitigate the risks associated with network loss appear to have a greater chance of succeeding. Further, as newly mobilized activists draw on these frames in their identity talk, they can use the resources to maintain networks that may be weakened or sacrificed upon movement entry.

If frames fail to provide symbolic resources (historical knowledge, cultural authentication arguments), or remain unknown to potential activists, means by which new recruits negotiate movement identities will be strained. These negotiations may lead to distancing strategies, which are highly problematic within a hierarchical social structure where negative imputed group characteristics are used as justifications by dominant groups for resultant oppression. Ultimately, frames that embed moral boundaries potentially ask participants with an embraced but marginalized social identity to inflict psychic harm onto themselves. Frames that lacked symbolic resources for targeted audiences whose identities were marginalized left activists to navigate boundaries of difference on their own while potentially sacrificing their collective identity and support networks upon the altar of individualism.

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APPENDIX A

PRO VEGETARIAN / VEGAN BOOKS USED IN CONTENT ANALYSIS

Author, Title, and Year of Summary Publication Llaila Afrika’s Nutricide: The Nutricide discusses the importance of eating correctly and Nutritional Destruction of the suggests that traditional nutritional practices that people Black Race, 1994 commonly follow are not only incorrect, but racist as well. Afrika suggests that diets that are marketed as ‘good for all people’ are often detrimental for “Africans” from a nutritional standpoint. Thus, people of African heritage are advised on how to eat properly for optimal health and reject the standard American, pro-Caucasian diet. Queen Afua’s Sacred Woman: A Sacred Woman is a book is designed specifically for Guide to Healing the Feminine women of African heritage to improve their overall health Body, Mind, and Spirit, 2000 through holistic healing practices that acknowledge both racial and gender identities as essential components to healing and locating radiant health. This text goes far beyond nutrition to discuss many areas of social life and historical context that have created unique emotional scars and physical experiences that Black women confront due to intersecting racial and gender identities. Campbell and Campbell’s The The China Study is an epidemiological text that advocates China Study: Startling the health benefits of a vegetarian diet using longitudinal Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, data on cancer, heart disease, and other ‘lifestyle’ morbidity and Long Term Health, 2006 and mortality factors. While a more technical text than many of the others selected, The China Study is accessibly written for a general audience in easy to understand language with thorough explanations of technical jargon. This text does not emphasize that vegetarian diet may bring more health benefits to some racial, ethnic, or class groups versus others; instead it promotes vegetarianism for all people as a route to improve health and reduce illness. Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Eating Animals is an auto-biographical account of one Animals, 2009 authors attempt to understand the modern factory food system as he transitions into parenthood. The author explores many dimensions of the factory farming system, speaking with ranchers and food producers of various philosophies as he attempts to decide clearly on what dietary lifestyle his family should adopt now that he and his wife will soon have a new baby. Rory Freedman and Kim Skinny Bitch is a dietary how-to manual instructing women Barnouin’s Skinny Bitch: A No- on how to become, appropriately enough, ‘skinny bitches.’ Nonsense, Tough-Love Guide for This text expressly advocates a vegan lifestyle and Savvy Girls Who Want to Stop highlights how veganism can help women to lose their

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Eating Crap and Start Looking excess weight and more closely approximate the western Fabulous!, 2005 beauty ideal of thinness. The authors also tie in the idea that besides simply transforming the shape of the body, women can also achieve better health by following a vegan diet. Breeze Harper’s Sistah Vegan: Sistah Vegan: Black Female Vegans Speak on Food, Food, Identity, Health, and Identity, Health, and Society is a compilation of essays, Society: Black Female Vegans poems, and free-style expositions on the experience of Speak on Food, Identity, Health, being a “sistah” vegan in the U.S. today. This text critically and Society, 2010 examines the nexus of identity and foodways for ‘sistahs’ and offers a broad variety of expression. Specifically, ‘sistahs’ talk about becoming vegan, what veganism means to them, hardships that they’ve encountered, and triumphs and accomplishments. Francis Moore Lappe’s Diet for a Diet for a Small Planet is a seminal text for the Small Planet: High Protein environmental and food-justice movements and draws Meatless Cooking, 1971 attention to the ways in which vegetarian diets are more sustainable and desirable for the planet and the planet’s people. This is the first text to outline the (now outdated) idea of food-combining, where eating the right foods together can lead to increased nutritional gains which will help sustain a planet full of more and more hungry people. The book encourages vegetarianism not for ethical reasons regarding animal suffering, but to reduce human suffering in the form of starvation. Tracye McQuirter’s By Any By Any Greens Necessary is part cookbook, part nutritional Greens Necessary: A text, and part motivational encouragement. The author Revolutionary Guide for Black discusses each recipe as filling a particular need for Black Women Who Want to Eat Great, women, who suffer disproportionately with diet-related Get Healthy, Lose Weight, and illnesses and offers healthful alternatives that will help Look Phat, 2010 African American women achieve their goals and create a true revolution through society at large. Alicia Silverstone’s The Kind Kind Diet: A Simple Guide to Feeling Great, Losing Diet: A Simple Guide to Feeling Weight, and Saving the Planet is a cookbook that weaves a Great, Losing Weight, and Saving synergy between animal rights, personal health, and the the Planet, 2009 environment. This text is general in nature, rather than racially or ethnically specific, and promotes a vegan diet for readers of all backgrounds. Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation, Animal Liberation is popularly considered the text that 2002 (originally 1975) launched the modern day animal rights movement in popular discourse (see Meyer and Rohlinger 2012 for related criticisms). Singer uses logic and reasoned argument to highlight the ethical standing of nonhuman animals and focuses attention on their suffering in ways that had not been seriously considered in the mainstream before the publication of this work. Bryant Terry’s Vegan Soul Vegan Soul Kitchen is a cookbook that ties in traditional

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Kitchen: Fresh, Healthy, and concepts of soul food that are culturally familiar staples for Creative African-American many Black American families, but then puts vegan twists Cuisine, 2009 on them in order to improve their nutritional content. Terry’s cookbook is not gendered in the same way that McQuirter’s is, but instead focuses on the Black family and how improving the health of families is sorely needed, but achievable while still staying true to cultural roots.

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APPENDIX B

PRO VEGETARIAN / VEGAN PAMPHLETS USED IN CONTENT ANALYSIS

Name of Organization Title(s) of Coded Pamphlets Christian Vegetarians Association 1. Are We Good Stewards of God’s Creation? We Are What We Eat Compassion over Killing 1. Eating Sustainably: Fight Global Warming with Your Fork Farm Sanctuary 1. Vegetarian Diets for Kids 2. Sanctuary Quarterly Humane Society 1. Guide to Vegetarian Eating Mercy for Animals 1. Vegetarian Starter Kit People for the Ethical Treatment of 1. A Case for Jewish Vegetarianism Animals (PETA) 2. You Wouldn’t Eat Your Dog… Physicians Committee for Responsible 1. Nutrition for Kids: A Dietary Approach to Medicine Lifelong Health United Poultry Concerns 1. Life Can Be Beautiful: Go Vegan! Vegan Outreach. 1. Try Vegetarian! 2. Even If You Like Meat… You Can Help End This Cruelty 3. Why Vegan? Boycott Cruelty! 4. Guide to Cruelty Free Eating

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APPENDIX C

PRO VEGETARIAN / VEGAN SONGS USED IN CONTENT ANALYSIS

Artist or Band Song Title and Genre Dead Prez “Be Healthy” (hip hop)

MDC “Real Food, Real People, Real Bullets” (punk rock)

Propagandhi “Nailing Descartes to the Wall” (punk rock)

Ruffmic and Freedom Writer “FDA” (hip hop)

The Smiths “Meat is Murder” (indie rock)

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APPENDIX D

PRO VEGETARIAN / VEGAN WEBSITES USED IN CONTENT ANALYSIS

Organization or Website Title Web Address Black Vegetarian Society of Georgia www.bvsga.org

Tracye McQuirter’s By Any Greens Necessary www.byanygreensnecessary.com

Happy Cow www.happycow.net

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals www.peta.org

Vegans of Color www.vegansofcolor.wordpress.com

Vegetarian Resource Group www.vrg.org

Vegetarian Times www.vegetariantimes.com

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APPENDIX E

PRO VEGETARIAN / VEGAN FILMS OR SHOWS USED IN CONTENT ANALYSIS

Title and Year of Summary Release Fast Food Nation, A dramatized interpretation of Schlosser’s (2001) Fast Food Nation, this 2006 film examines the health risks, and environmental, and social consequences rendered by the American fast food industry. Fat, Sick, and The story of Joe Cross, a man who is obese and suffering from a rare Nearly Dead, 2010 autoimmune disorder is depicted in this documentary. Joe radically changes his lifestyle to become a raw vegan juicer and improves his health in an inspiring story format. Food Fight, 2008 A documentary tracing the rise of agribusinesses in the U.S. and the ways in which California farmers fought to create a local organic food movement. Food, Inc., 2008 A popular documentary that depicts the behind the scenes elements of the U.S. food system in its modern form. Food Matters, 2008 Naturopaths, holistic health practitioners, AMA physicians, and others present ways in which individuals can use food to heal conditions and prevent future disease. Forks Over Knives, Based heavily on the work found in Campbell and Campbell’s (2006) The 2011 China Study, this documentary presents epidemiological evidence advocating vegetarianism to improve health and reverse disease. Holistic Wellness This home-produced documentary emphasizes the importance of a fresh for a Hip Hop foods, vegan diet for Black viewers. Improving both health and healing Generation, 2008 spiritually are both discussed by musicians like Common, Erykah Badu, and Supa Nova Slom. Hungry for Change, Presents the ways that marketing and advertisers deliberately manipulate 2012 consumers to sell more products in the food and dieting industries. Supersize Me, 2004 This Oscar winning documentary reveals what happens when the director and film protagonist proceeds to eat nothing but McDonald’s for thirty days. The Future of Food, A critical gaze is cast on GMO’s, bio-engineering, and US patent law in 2004 this dystopic documentary. Vegucated, 2011 A documentary that follows three individuals who transition from omnivorousness to vegans and shows their explorations of animal rights and environmental sustainability over a month. Vegan-Hood T.V. A home-produced mini-series where show hosts Mental Sun and Safari Black discuss the benefits of becoming vegan for Black Americans, coupled with some of the hardships that people experience transitioning into a vegan lifestyle in a segregated “hood” community.

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APPENDIX F

RESPONDENT LIST WITH DEMOGRAPHICS AND FRAMES

N Respondent Race / Gender Class Class Age Job / Cited Media First Pseudonym Ethnic Identity as a as an Profession during Frame Identity Child Adult Interview Discussed 1 Don Black M Poor Middle 59 Teacher Indirect Health Holistic health texts alluded to. 2 Alvaro Black Puerto M Poor Middle 38 Current Yes Cultural Rican Professor Nutricide Injustice 3 Cassie Black F Poor Working 26 Customer Yes Animal Rights Service Rep. China Study 4 Tre Black M Poor Poor 22 Student & Yes Health Café Worker China Study 5 Maya West Indian F Working Middle 36 Psychologist No Animal Rights 6 Alicia Black F Poor Working 56 Educational No Health Talent Scout 7 Pat Black F Poor Middle 63 Current Yes Health Professor Food, Inc. 8 Kwame Black M Poor Working 66 City Council No Cultural Member Injustice 9 Brandon Black M Poor Poor 22 Aspiring Hip No Cultural Hop Injustice Recording Artist 10 Nate Black M Poor Poor 45 Custodial No Health Worker 11 Ryan White M Working Working 35 Night Shift No Spirituality Security 12 Ella White F Working Upper 52 Attorney Yes Animal Rights Spanish & Middle PETA videos; Hungarian Mercy for Animals lit. 13 Anthony White Italian M Working Middle 48 Vegan Hot Yes Animal Rights Dog Stand PETA videos; Proprietor Mercy for Animals lit. 14 Jane White F Middle Middle 36 Unstated Yes Animal Rights PETA videos from website 15 Josh White M Lower Lower 23 Student & Yes Health Middle Middle Website Food, Inc., Fast Designer Food Nation,

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other documentaries 16 Karen White F Poor Middle 21 Full time Yes Animal Rights Bachelor’s PETA videos Student from website 17 Alexandra White F Poor Lower 26 Graduate No Animal Rights Middle Student 18 Julie White F Working Lower 25 Doctor’s No Animal Rights Middle Office Worker 19 Carl White M Well Off Well Off 62 Philanthropist Yes Animal Rights and Former Eating Animals Professor 20 Suzy White F Middle Middle 35 Raw Vegan Indirect Environmental Café Owner Listened to Injustice animal rights lecture 21 Chloe White F Working Middle 37 Psychologist Yes Health China Study 22 Ivan Cuban M Poor Lower 33 Temp. Yes Animal Rights Middle Worker Supersize Me 23 Cecilia Chicana F Working Middle 34 Doctoral Indirect Cultural Indigenous Candidate Learned about Injustice environment and history of indigenous food 24 Lydia Chicana F Lower Middle 41 Non Profit No Animal Rights Middle Worker 25 Esperanza Colombian F Upper Upper 65 Artist Yes Health China Study 26 Alonso Filipino M Middle Upper 26 Tech Firm Indirect Health Middle Worker Talked about learning about the factory farming system

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APPENDIX G

IINTERVIEW SCHEDULE

Demographic Information

How old are you?

Where are you from?

What race or ethnicity do you consider yourself to be?

How long did you go to school or what’s the highest degree you received?

Would you describe the way you grew up as being working class? Middle class? Well-off? Can you describe some of the things your parents bought for you growing up? What kinds of chores did you have to do? What did you do in your free time as a child?

What are your parent’s occupations, if applicable?

What do you do in your leisure time?

What are some of your hobbies?

Cuisine Selection

How did you become a vegetarian?

What foods did you eat growing up? Did you eat meat? What foods were common for you to eat?

When did you change to eating a vegetarian diet? What happened that made you want to change?

Did you have any friends that are/were vegetarian?

Did you see something that made you change your diet?

Who did the cooking when you were a child? Did anyone else ever cook? Why did ______do the cooking? How did they learn to cook? Did your family celebrate occasions or holidays with food? Did you eat differently on holidays than on other, ‘normal’ days? Was it just more of the same sorts of foods that you already ate?

Please tell me about what sorts of foods you eat now.

What are your favorite foods today? What do you really like about them?

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Who cooks most of your food? How did you/they learn to do this?

Would you ever go back to eating meat?

How does your family eat compared to you? Similar? Different? In what ways?

Opinion Questions

Do you think that everybody has to decide what’s best for them, even if they don’t choose vegetarianism, or do you think that everyone should become a vegetarian?

Does food help maintain people’s culture?

What do you think is more important—for people to eat a healthy diet, even if it’s not their own cultures, or for people to eat food that connects them to their culture, even if it’s ‘unhealthy?’ Why? Explain.

Do you participate in any larger vegetarian groups? Is vegetarianism a social movement to you? Why?

(Answer if you do feel like vegetarianism/veganism IS a social movement): If someone never participates in any vegetarian/vegan groups or even interacts with even one other vegetarian (they simply are a vegetarian or vegan), are they still part of a social movement?

Do you feel like you are part of a larger community of vegetarians? Who would you include in your community?

Are there any (other) social issues that are important to you? What are they? Do you participate in any groups that work on these issues? How? What do you do?

Are these groups part of a larger movement? How so? Do you pay dues? Have you ever participated in a local, state, or national rally?

Do you think there are any connections between human rights and animal rights?

Would improving animal rights also help improve the rights of minorities, or would this take the focus off of minority rights?

Do you think that it’s ok to use animals to meet human needs if it is necessary for human survival?

Are there other people in your family who are vegetarian? Who? Do they agree with your choice? Does your family make fun of you because of your choice?

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Do you have any friends that you convinced to be vegetarian with you? What did you say to them? Did they argue with you about it? Are they still vegetarians?

Do you think that vegetarianism is stereotyped as being something that only white people do? Why or why not?

Do you think that more minorities are becoming vegetarian now? Why do you think that?

Do you know of any famous African American vegetarians? Latino/a vegetarians? Asian vegetarians?

Day to Day

Can you give me a typical breakdown of your day? How much time do you spend doing all your activities? Can you please list them for me?

Who do you interact with most during your activities? Family members? Co-workers? Friends?

Who are they? Do you like them? Are they very similar to you or pretty different? Why?

Imagine that I had to present a list of characteristics to someone who had never met you so that they would get to know you better. What are five things that I should tell them so they know more about you and who you are?

Can you put these in order from most important in defining you to least important in defining you?

Do you think your race or ethnicity is important in defining who you are?

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APPENDIX H

INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD STUDY APPROVAL

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APPENDIX I

INFORMED CONSENT FORMS PER INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Sarrah G. Conn

Education 2009 Prospectus Defense: Soul Food Vs. “Soul Veg:” Identity Work, Framing, and Dietary Decisions Among African American Vegetarians and Omnivores. Committee: Dr. Deana Rohlinger, Dr. Verna Keith, Dr. Doug Schrock, Dr. Andy Opel

2008 A.B.D. Spring 2008, Florida State University Qualifying Area Exam in “Politics and the State” Committee: Dr. Deana Rohlinger, Dr. Marc Dixon, Dr. Daniel Tope

2006 M.S. Fall 2006, Sociology, Florida State University “Selling Masculinities: Changing Representations of Men in Media.” Committee: Dr. Deana Rohlinger, Dr. Koji Ueno, Dr. Brian Starks

2004 B.S. Sociology, Florida State University Graduated Magna Cum Laude

2004 B.S. Women’s Studies, Florida State University, Graduated Magna Cum Laude.

2002 A.A. Human Services, Saint Petersburg College Graduated Summa Cum Laude.

Honors and Awards

2014 Awarded “Tutor of the Year” for adult literacy volunteer work. 2014 Awarded tenure, spring 2014. 2012 Accepted as honors faculty member. One of two new faculty members accepted. 2011 National Society of Leadership and Success: “Excellence in Teaching Award.” There is only one winner of this award annually for the entire college. 2007 Alan-Klar Best Graduate Student Paper Award, $400.00 2005 Florida State University Graduate Grant, $500.00 2004 Florida Commission on the Status of Women Internship Recipient 2003 Phi Theta Kappa Academic Scholarship, $2000.00 2000 Bright Futures Scholarship Recipient 2000 St. Petersburg College President’s Full-Tuition Scholarship

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Professional Presentations

2015 College Black History Month Invited Guest Panelist. Discussion entitled “Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority.” Feb. 23rd, 2015.

2013 Partners In the Parks National Conference: Everglades National Park. “Contentious Food Politics.” Dec. 27th, 2013.

2013 National Collegiate Honors Council Annual Conference. “Transforming Leaders: Key Elements to a Successful Leadership Course.” Co-presented with Kathleen King and Dustin Lemke. November 9th, 2013.

2013 All College Day: “You Are What You Eat: Food Considerations in the 21st Century.” Co-presented with Dr. Andrea Vicente. October 18th, 2013.

2012 All College Day: “Energy, Stress, and Holistic Health for Beginners.” October 19th, 2012.

2012 Q.E.P Spring In-Service: “Active Learning Strategies by Discipline.” April 12, 2012.

2012 Southern Sociological Society Annual Meeting: “Making the Lesson Applicable: Experiential and Active Learning Among First Generation and Non-Traditional College Students.” March 24th, 2012.

2011 All College Day. “Tips and Tricks for Surviving Your First Year as Faculty.” Co- presented with Andrea Vicente.

2010 Black, Brown, and College Bound Conference: “Changing Depictions of African American Masculinities in Advertising.” Updated with Additional Longitudinal Data for 2010.

2009 Southern Sociological Society Annual Meeting. “Changing Depictions of African American Masculinities in Advertising.” April 2nd, 2009.

2007 American Sociological Association Annual Meeting. “Media Outcomes in the Abortion Debate.” August 14th, 2007.

2007 Southern Sociological Society Annual Meeting. “Selling Masculinities: Changing Representations of Masculinities in Advertising.” April 12th, 2007.

2006 FSU Museum of Fine Arts Public Lecture Series Exhibition: “The Family Experience.” Invited Guest Lecture entitled “Family Violence.” Assisted by Carolyn Sloan-Sawtell. June 1st, 2006.

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Publications

2011 Rohlinger, Deana, Ben Kail, Miles Taylor, and Sarrah Conn. 2011. “Outside the Mainstream: Media Coverage of the U.S. Abortion Debate, 1980-2000.” Research on Social Movements, Conflict & Change 33: 51-80.

Professional Development and Certifications

2014-2013 National Collegiate Honors Council Annual Conference, New Orleans, LA: Sessions Attended for Professional Development: 8 hours.

2013-2012 Word Up! Microsoft Word Training. 1 hour. Teaching at a Community College: Spring Course offered by Dr. Karen Griffin for faculty training. 5hours. Constructing Better Multiple Choice and Essay Tests: 2 hours. ADA Modifications for Online Courses: 2 hours. Facilitating Group Discussions: 2 hours.

2012-2011 Southern Sociological Society Annual Conference, Atlanta GA: Sessions Attended for Professional Development: 8 hours. Teaching at a Community College: Summer Course for faculty training. 7.5hours. Blackboard 9.1 Tier 2 Professional Development Training. 20 hours. Blackboard 9.1 Tier 1 Professional Development Training. 20 hours. “Waiting for Superman:” Film Viewing and Panel Discussion: Sept. 12th, 2011. 2:15 hours. Active Learning Strategies, Fall In-Service Day. 1 hour.

2011-2010 Southern Sociological Society Annual Conference, Jacksonville FL: Sessions Attended for Professional Development: 8 hours. Online Professional Development Training. 12 hours. Teaching at a Community College: Summer Course for faculty training. 15 hours. Blackboard 9.1: 1 hour. Camtasia Capture and Relay Software. 1 hour. Best of the Web: A Survey of Interesting, Cool, and Useful Sites to Make Your Life Easier, More Productive, and Just Plain Better. 1 hour. Creating an Online Class that Simulates an In-Person Class. 1 hour.

2006 Program for Instructional Excellence Teaching Certificate

Community Service

2015-2014 Adult Literacy Tutor. Volunteer once a week on Monday nights anywhere from one to two hours teaching students who are functionally illiterate (30+ hours).

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2014-2013 Adult Literacy Tutor. I volunteer once a week with a functionally illiterate student to help her reach her goal of learning how to read (50+ hours).

The Spring. I volunteered to organize the holiday decorations in the warehouse area on Dec. 7th 2013 (3 hours).

Domestic Violence Awareness Club Advisor. I advise the DVAC and help organize events and donation drives. The club held multiple activities through the month of October for Domestic Violence Awareness Month, including a clothesline project, sidewalk chalk campaign, and donation drive to benefit The Spring (20 hours).

2013-2012 OFA: Organizing for America Volunteer. I registered people to vote as well as canvassed door to door to persuade individuals to vote for the Obama campaign in the fall 2012 presidential election (15 hours).

Food Pantry Volunteer. I worked in the kitchen creating and serving meals for homeless residents living at the shelter (12 hours).

Adult Literacy Tutor. I volunteer once a week with a functionally illiterate student to help her reach her goal of learning how to read. (15+ hours).

2012-2011 Nursing Home Facility Volunteer. I visited with the residents for several hours (usually two to two and a half) once a week. I read mail to residents, put together puzzles, showed one resident how to use the internet, and generally spend chatting (10 hours).

Child Abuse Council Holiday Store Volunteer. I assisted needy families in choosing age appropriate toys for their child’s developmental level at Christmastime (4 hours).

2011-2010 Homeless Shelter Volunteer. I spent time with the children living in the facility and helped them to complete their homework, read books, and supervised play time on the playground with other volunteers (4 hours).

Lake Cleanup Day Volunteer. I wore waders out into the lake and cleaned out debris and garbage, non-native vegetation, and helped build a platform to house native flora in the center of the lake and provide a nesting area for endangered grackles, a type of bird (4 hours).

Pridefest. I volunteered with the Pridefest organization through my church (U.U.) and handed out beads, sunscreen, and staffed an information table along the parade route (6 hours).

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Research Experience

2015-2009 Independent Dissertation Research 2008 Research Assistant to Dr. Anne Barrett 2006 Red Hat Society Study: Project Manager 2006-2004 Research Assistant to Dr. Deana Rohlinger

Professional Organizations and Affiliations

2015-2010 United Faculty of Florida (UFF), Member 2015-2010 National Education Association (NEA), Member 2015-2013 Literacy Council Tutor 2015-2013 National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC), Member 2013, 2008-2005 Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS), Member 2013-2005 Southern Sociological Society (SSS), Member 2012-2005 American Sociological Association (ASA), Member 2008-2007 Sociology Graduate Student Union Secretary, FSU 2007-2006 Inequality Working Group, FSU, Member 2007-2006 Qualitative Working Group, FSU, Member

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