This thesis takes a discursive-rhetorical approach to becoming vegetarian and vegan. Previous studies have pointed to complexity and variety in definitions, types and criteria of vegetarianism, making `objective' studies difficult. Meat is also one of the most highly prized but ambivalently valued foodstuffs. The cultural and social meanings of diet in terms of `identities' are well established but the rhetorical approach taken here explores identity as accomplished through social practices of accounting. Rather than seeing variation and disagreement as problematic, analytic focus is on the complex and varied construction of social categories/identities in accounts and the practices of justification and criticism. Cultural ambivalences are recast as dilemmas of identity and account-giving. Diary and serial interview `case-material' was collected from 23 new and aspiring vegetarians and vegans. Participants' accounts are shown to handle a number of dilemmatic aspects of vegetarian/vegan identity; notably, a dilemma of moral superiority and a dilemma of abstinence. These dilemmas are discussed in terms of stereotype-avoidance, commitment, and the co-construction of self and Other. Such identity-management is argued to fundamentally involve relationships. Seen as contexts, texts and resources for account-giving, relationships highlight both local and biographical elements in self-construction, the inter-dependence of selfnarratives/ identities and the need for managing them, especially when identities are changed. A number of other rhetorical resources and practices used in the management of identity are also drawn out, including the discourses of lapsing, desire and temptation and accounts of suppression and repression. The management of dilemmas of accounting through presenting the self as ambivalent, conflicted and divided is underlined. Following recent work by Billig (e. g., 1999a), ambivalence and repression are further considered as discursive activities as well as claims. This leads to a discussion of identity, contradiction and repression in terms of prohibition, desire and transgression. It is suggested that becoming vegetarian or vegan may be characterised as a matter of narrating autobiographical change and the continued negotiation of various dilemmas of identity. Social psychological theories of identity and identity change are criticised and the importance of argumentation, ambivalence and commitment are emphasised. The value of a more `populated' case-study perspective within discursive psychology is also stressed and the study of discursive avoidance and repression is illustrated and recommended.

Hållbarhetsfrågan har blivit allt viktigare. Intresset för hållbarhet ökar och får större inverkan på människors val (Ottosson &Parment, 2016, s. 13). Dessvärre förekommer det att företag utnyttjar detta genom användning av vilseledande grön kommunikation,vilket äventyrar hållbarhetsrörelsens kraft på marknaden (TerraChoice, 2009). Den här rapporten lyfter begreppen hållbarhet ochgreenwashing. Syftet är att undersöka den visuella kommunikationen för veganska produkter och hur det budskapet speglar ett urvaldokumenterade miljöstörningar. Detta i och med att allt fler svenskar väljer en vegansk kost av miljömässiga skäl (Novus, 2018).Rapporten fokuserar på att undersöka livsmedelsföretaget Oatly som utvecklar, producerar och marknadsför bland annathavrebaserade drycker. Oatly har under 2018 haft en total tillväxt på 65 %, samtidigt som företaget fått kritik gällande gällande derasfaktiska klimatnytta (Sörbring, 2019). Rapporten undersöker Oatlys visuella kommunikation och dokumenterade miljöstörningar föratt kartlägga differensen mellan dessa. För att besvara frågeställningarna gjordes semiotiska bildanalyser på delar av Oatlyskommunikation, samt en kvalitativ textanalys på deras hållbarhetsrapport från 2018.Resultatet i rapporten visar att Oatly genomgående kommunicerar hållbarhet, men att deras faktiska hållbarhetsarbete är bristandebåde ekonomiskt, miljömässigt och socialt. Vidare framhåller företagets kommunikation noga sin avhållsamhet från djurriket, vilketfaktiskt är kritiskt ur ett hållbarhetsperspektiv då det krockar med miljömålet om biologisk mångfald (Extrakt, 2019; Rundgrens,2019). Slutsatsen är att det förekommer en viss grad av greenwashing i Oatlys visuella kommunikation.

In recent years there has been an increase in the number of vegans in the world. The main goal of my research is to understand the vegan struggles in their daily life and study how Facebook might help them solve these difficulties. This master's thesis focuses on the user perspective and how they perceive barriers to follow a vegetarian lifestyle in Spain. The research questions are about finding those barriers and knowing how they could be solved by using Facebook groups. For this purpose, an ethnographic approach has been used. The target group of this study are vegans who have gone through the time of change and may have had some problems in making that decision. Fifteen vegans have been interviewed to find challenges that have arisen when they have changed their lifestyles. After that, an online ethnography study has been performed by observing the content of a Facebook group, called "Vegetarianos y Veganos – España", focusing on publications where group members were asking for advice, information or solutions. The results indicate that the investigated group of Facebook is essential for the exchange of information, knowledge and experience. The members also contribute to increased knowledge through publications and comments. But most importantly, the members receive solutions to the problems they share with the group.

Through the use of corpus linguistics, this paper examines the representation of veganism in four of the British newspapers with higher circulation. The method used is Corpus linguistics analysis, which is a useful tool to isolate sentences in which specific words are mentioned and therefore facilitates further analysis and comparison of these. The specific aim of the paper is comparing the use of vegan* between 2010 and 2015 in the aforementioned newspapers and spot any differences and similarities, as well as analysing whether the political stance of each newspaper also affects their views on the subject. The analysis uncovered an increase in popularity of veganism between both years, as well as a reduction of negative connotation when referring to the words under scrutiny. Veganism was also treated more neutrally. The most common way of representing veganism in a negative way was by mockery. Finally, more conservative newspapers were shown to represent veganism more negatively than the more liberal ones.

Thesis advisor: Stephen J. Pfohl / Using qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with vegans of diverse backgrounds and body types, this study aims to investigate how vegans understand their own bodies and the bodies of others in relation to their consumptive practices and habits. The context of fatphobia in vegan activist spaces and communities surrounds this research as a tension within veganism that helps to elucidate the ways vegans use and engage with their bodies, further helping to understand not only vegan embodiment but also how fat vegans navigate these tensions with their own bodies. Vegans often engage with veganism as a tool for better understanding their own bodies and the social identities their bodies are associated with. This reflexivity causes them to not only concern themselves with how they relate to their own bodies but also with how others view and perceive their bodies. Thus, vegans respond to anxieties and fears about these perceptions by constructing their bodies in opposition to the stereotypes others apply to them (unhealthiness, preachiness, militancy, etc.). This may result in the exclusion of some bodies which are socially understood as fitting these roles (such as fat bodies as unhealthy) and, further, the ethical nature of vegan practices also causes these bodies to be seen as immoral or especially indulgent. This research helps to understand more precisely how vegans act as bodies in promoting their veganism and how they sometimes exclude other bodies in their attempts to defend vegan bodies. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2023. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

Syftet med studien var att utifrån Victor Turners teori om riter och övergångsritualer undersöka övergången från köttnorm till veganism och hur det påverkar och strukturerar individernas sociala identitet. Semistrukturerade intervjuer genomfördes med fem veganer och analyserades genom tematisk innehållsanalys. Detta gav tre teman; Uppbrott, Konflikt och Tillhörighet. Utifrån de temana redogör rapporten för individernas övergång från köttnormen till veganism, samt hur upplevelsen av tillhörighet och uteslutning påverkade individernas sociala identitet i övergångsprocessen. Studien visar att Turners teori om riter och övergångsritualer är applicerbar även på övergången från köttnormen till veganismen. Vidare visar studien att konflikt och tillhörighet kan ses som primära drivkrafter i individens övergång samt starkt påverkar dennes sociala identitet under processens gång. Konsekvenserna av detta, sett i ett bredare sammanhang, kan även tänkas innebära effekter på samhällsstrukturen i stort.

Jag definierar mig som mode - och textildesigner och som aktivist. Som examensprojekt har jag designat en vegansk modekollektion där jag har använt mig av tyger som jag målat och färgat själv. Jag lyfter hantverket i en modekontext och vill visa styrkan i det handgjorda. Att skapa veganskt mode betyder att jag inte använder mig av djurs kroppar, hud eller päls. Jag avstår alltså helt från att använda skinn, siden, ull, päls, dun och fjädrar. Jag vill visa att det går att skapa mode utan att utnyttja och döda djur i processen. Kollektionen presenteras dels som en konceptuell konstfilm men också i form av modefoton. Jag ser uppsatsen som ett sätt att upplysa, utbilda och skapa debatt kring vilka djur vi äter och vilka vi bär på kroppen. Uppsatsen är också en del av gestaltningen. Konstfilmen är inspirerad av surrealism och är en utopi och dystopi på samma gång, med flera världar i en. Den är ett experiment i hur en kan kombinera mode, koncept, konst och djurrättsaktivism i ett och samma projekt.

The burden of neurocognitive diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, is of global concern and points to an urgent need for accurate detection and prevention strategies. This thesis investigated dietary components, in particular those that affect vitamin B levels, such as white fish consumption and veganism, which have the potential to alter cognitive outcomes in the population. Also investigated were external factors, significantly caffeine consumption, time of day, and quantity of sleep, not associated with age-related impairment, that can alter neuropsychological test performance. The literature reveals that short, multi-domain cognitive tests are commonly used for dementia screening; this study has focused exclusively on cognitive domains associated with the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Cognitively healthy adults were assessed using a cognitive test battery that focused on memory and processing speed. Memory test scores improved by 0.03 points for every gram of white fish consumed, whilst participants following a vegan diet scored significantly worse on tests of composite memory than their omnivorous counterparts. Interaction tests showed that prior caffeine consumption improved short-term memory test scores up to age 70. Participants of all ages performed best at their age-optimal times and further improved for immediate word recall tests with prior caffeine consumption. Processing speed scores increased linearly with hours of sleep. The results of this thesis suggest that nutrition and external factors have a significant impact on cognitive test performance. These novel findings have implications for research, diagnosis and prevention of chronic neurological disease, and public health guidance relating to cognitive function, for all ages.

Solidaritet med djur är en av hörnstenarna i Miljöpartiets gröna ideologi och partiet uppfattas ofta som mer djurvänligt än andra riksdagspartier. Den här uppsatsen analyserar hur partiets djursyn artikuleras utifrån tre diskurser: djurskydd, ekologism och djurrätt. Uppsatsen har också ett kritiskt djurrättsligt perspektiv och intresserar sig för vilka möjligheter och hinder för djurens frigörelse som finns i partiets djurpolitik. Slutsatsen är att djurskyddsdiskursen är dominerande i Miljöpartiet men att partiet problematiserar dagens djurskyddslagstiftning och vill se ett ”verkligt djurskydd”. Det finns också en tendens till att djurskyddsdiskursen i kombination med den ekologiska diskursen håller tillbaka djurrättsdiskursen som är i det närmaste osynlig. I en avslutande reflektion föreslås att djurrättsrörelsen ska bli tydligare i sin kritik mot Miljöpartiets och samtidens intresse för närproducerat, kravmärkt och ekologiskt kött, samt att ekologismens djursyn behöver utmanas i högre grad. / Animal solidarity constitutes one of the cornerstones of the Green Party's ideology, and the party is often perceived as more animal friendly than other parties in the Swedish parliament. This thesis analyzes how the Green Party's perspective on animals are articulated through three discourses: animal welfare, ecology, and animal rights. Furthermore, the thesis utilizes a critical perspective and tries to discern opportunities and obstacles for animal liberation within the party's animal politics. The conclusion is that the animal welfare discourse is the dominating perspective within the Green Party, but also that the party problematizes the current animal welfare in their strive for "real animal welfare". There is also a tendency for the animal welfare discourse, combined with the ecology discourse, to obscure the animal rights discourse, the latter being more or less invisible. In a final reflection it is suggested that the animal rights movement should be more explicit regarding its criticism against the Green Party's and the contemporary's interest in local produce, KRAV-labeling, and organic meat, as well as the need to challenge the animal views of ecology to a greater extent.

Within the area of animal ethics, there has been ongoing discussion around whether people in developed countries are justified in consuming animal based products or not, some argue that we are, and some argue that we aren't. In this paper I present a kind of middle-way position in response to the ongoing discussion, in which I argue that a decent chunk of a population in developed countries are justified in consuming certain animal products, but only so far as the exclusion of these animal based products would cause harm to the boycotter. Many of the arguments that are raised in order to defend the consumption of animal products, often rely on controversial assumptions or stances in order to make their claim. In this paper I attempt to distance myself from these types of arguments, by giving an argument that only relies on already commonly held moral beliefs that we all already take to be true, and the argument I make is therefore just an extension of a moral belief that we already have, which is that it is morally justifiable to consume animal products in order to avoid a personal harm. The claim very simply put is the following: We already believe that a person is morally justified to consume animal products from animals that yield relatively low amounts of food in order to survive, if we take this to be true, then we should also believe that a person is morally justified to consume animal products from animals that have a much greater yield of food, but where the food is used not to survive, but to avoid personal harms that stem from boycotting animal products. To give a more precise description on why the former (to survive) entails the latter (to avoid harms from boycotting) is because firstly, the amount of harm that's being done to the animal to avoid both cases is the same, and secondly, the level of harm that's being prevented by consuming the products that come from that animal are also the same. I conclude therefore, that if we want to remain morally consistent, we should accept the latter case to also be justified, which is that we are justified in consuming animal products in order to reduce a personal harm, but only so far as those harms would be prevalent if the person where to exclude animal based products from their diet.