Veganized: How Cultural Entrepreneurs Mainstreamed a Movement The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Gheihman, Nina. 2020. Veganized: How Cultural Entrepreneurs Mainstreamed a Movement. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Citable link https://nrs.harvard.edu/URN-3:HUL.INSTREPOS:37365705 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Veganized How Cultural Entrepreneurs Mainstreamed a Movement A dissertation presented by Nina Gheihman to The Department of Sociology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of Sociology Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts April 2020 © 2020 – Nina Gheihman All rights reserved. Dissertation Advisor: Michèle Lamont Author: Nina Gheihman Veganized: How Cultural Entrepreneurs Mainstreamed a Movement Abstract In the last few years, veganism transformed from a marginalized animal rights movement into a mainstream lifestyle. This shift occurred through the promotional work of change agents called cultural entrepreneurs. Drawing on over 150 interviews with these movement leaders, I describe three archetypes that emerged inductively from the analysis: Icons (image entrepreneurs), Informers (knowledge entrepreneurs), and Innovators (market entrepreneurs). Collectively, cultural entrepreneurs sacrifice ideological purity in pursuit of popularity. However, they are both enabled and constrained by the national contexts in which they are embedded. I compare the United States with two “shadow cases” that represent barriers to (France) and openings for (Israel) cultural diffusion. In both cases, veganism is tightly coupled with animal rights, which paradoxically stalls the movement in France, but fuels it in Israel. These divergent outcomes are explained by how the national contexts mediate veganism via the sociohistorical, cultural, and movement-specific conditions in each country. While mainstreaming broadens appeal, the process involves tradeoffs, specifically between boundary expansion versus porousness, cultural legitimation versus elitism, and incumbent allies versus cooptation. The dissertation brings together theoretical insights from classic literature on social movements and status, emerging literature on lifestyle movements and consumption, and organizational literature on cultural entrepreneurship to explain how an ideology- based social movement transforms into a consumption-based lifestyle movement. The tradeoffs cultural entrepreneurs make compromise the movement’s ideological core, but ultimately represent their attempts to broaden the societal acceptance of veganism both nationally and beyond. iii Table of Contents Title Page ............................................................................................................................................................. i Copyright ............................................................................................................................................................ ii Abstract .............................................................................................................................................................. iii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................................ iv List of Tables & Figures .................................................................................................................................. v Acknowledgments .............................................................................................................................. vi Dedication ............................................................................................................................................ x Epigraph .............................................................................................................................................. xi Chapter I: Veganism as a Lifestyle Movement ............................................................................................. 1 Chapter II: Icons: Image Entrepreneurs ..................................................................................................... 44 Chapter III: Informers: Knowledge Entrepreneurs .................................................................................. 89 Chapter IV: Innovators: Market Entrepreneurs ....................................................................................... 132 Chapter V: Purity Paradox: Comparing Veganism in France and Israel .............................................. 172 Chapter VI: The Tradeoffs of Mainstreaming .......................................................................................... 227 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................................... 258 Appendix A: General Interview Guide ........................................................................................ 288 Appendix B: Key Codes ................................................................................................................. 290 iv List of Tables & Figures Table 1.1 Comparing Social vs. Lifestyle Movements ..................................................................... 11 Table 1.2 Three Archetypes of Cultural Entrepreneurs .................................................................. 23 Table 1.3 Count of Cultural Entrepreneurs Across Three National Cases .................................. 33 Table 2.1 “Vegan” vs. “Plant-Based” Associations ......................................................................... 60 Table 5.1 Veganism in the Three Comparative Cases ................................................................... 220 Figure 1.1 The Three “Isms” ..................................................................................................................... 13 Figure 2.1 Raw Zucchini Lasagna at Plant Food + Wine, May 2018 ..................................................... 67 Figure 2.2 Seafood Tower at Crossroads Kitchen, June 2018 ..................................................................... 69 Figure 4.1 Conventional vs. Cell Ag Meat Production, Aleph Farms, September 2019 ........................... 150 Figure 5.1 The Three “Isms” in France & Israel .................................................................................... 179 Figure 5.2 “La terreur vegan” in Valeurs actuelles, December 2019 ........................................................ 189 Figure 5.3 Veganism in the IDF Poster, July 2015 ................................................................................ 209 Figure 5.4 Vegan High Tea at the Shangri-La Hotel in Paris, July 2016 .............................................. 223 Figure 6.1 Mainstreaming Tradeoffs ........................................................................................................ 243 Figure 6.2 Cultural Entrepreneurs Embedded in National Contexts ....................................................... 256 v Acknowledgments I would like to begin by thanking those who have shaped my intellectual journey. Michèle Lamont has been an outstanding mentor, always offering detailed feedback and suggestions, helping me to go “upward and onward,” and supporting an unusual research topic. Graduate school is a long haul, and I consider myself lucky to be among the many students for whom you are an ever- present and energetic cheerleader. I extend my fond appreciation to Bart Bonikowski, who has always been a champion at every turn, even when I strayed off the beaten path. Every time I came into your office, I left feeling immensely better about everything. Both of us will forever be California Dreamin’. I can still sense the intellectual imprint of Vanina Leschziner’s undergraduate course on Culture & Cognition at the University of Toronto in my work today. You taught me to think deeply and critically, and also carefully, a skill in a world of information overload. I always quip that I chose my Committee based on their Canadian politeness and their fashion sense, but the truth is you all challenge and inspire me. I wish to thank my research participants for letting me into their world, which turned out to be even more fruitful than I imagined. This is a community enveloped by a common vision, one which I personally share. It has been challenging at times to turn a critical lens on this worldview (my committee ensured I did not “drink the Kool-Aid” too much), but it has been immensely rewarding, since it has allowed me to see not only its limitations but also its opportunities. I am grateful to all of you for your time, insights, connections, and for allowing me to share your personal stories in a public forum. I hope this project will serve as a useful record of a moment in the trajectory of veganism, for who knows what the future brings. I wonder how we will look back on this time several decades from now. If we miraculously find ourselves living in a healthier, happier, and more just world, I will know that you have all contributed in your own way to that new reality. vi This project would certainly not