Vegans and Their Relationship with Veganism

Veganism has recently become very popular as a social movement, diet, and lifestyle. Due to this rise in popularity, it appears to have developed an unclear definition for the general public and then also differing meanings for each individual who practices. Furthermore, there are still liberal amounts of information missing about what veganism entails. There are still misconceptions about veganism as a value system and there are harmful stereotypes that define the vegan image, and this study aims to address and evaluate these issues before offering insight about veganism from the vegan perspective. Through the data collected from three semi-structured qualitative interviews with vegans, this study compares overarching themes present within each interview and then analyzes what exactly it means to be vegan. It assesses what the motivations for veganism and to become vegan are, and how that translates into their lived experiences. This study examines the values, motivations, practices, and the experiences of the vegan participants to help offer some understanding concerning veganism and the aforementioned relative lack of information. Values such as “anti-speciesism” and “animal personhood” are the essential key factors that drive their motivations, such as minimizing suffering for animals, humans, and the earth. Their practices of abstaining from animal products and places of animal exploitation are a direct reflection of their values and motivations—and their experiences, both negative and positive, display how they interact with their practices and society’s views of vegans and veganism. While the findings present within this study point to a clearer picture about what veganism means to the participants, it could also offer further clarity about the broader vegan community. What the participants expressed about their value systems and experiences of being a vegan answers the question pertaining to understanding veganism as a value system. Their identities of being vegan steer their definition of veganism into more of a social movement, as opposed to just a diet or a lifestyle. However, this study reveals that there is more research that must be conducted to grasp the aspects of this movement. Overall, despite that, this study ultimately describes how vegans navigate their individual veganism.