Debating Veganism

Abstract

The article aims to understand the controversial process of categorization at work in debates about the meaning of “veganism” by focusing on one of the key sites for building contemporary public knowledge: Wikipedia. First, we suggest how the contested definition of “veganism” is the result of the interweaving of two orders of frames which support and reinforce each other in the process of identity work underlying this particular social category. Particularly, we show how the framing of vegan identity as a food practice is, in fact, inseparable from its framing as a journalistic and scientific category in the media field. Second, drawing on the concept of “identity refusal”, we suggest how the particular categorization of veganism can be understood through the analysis of the argumentative procedures at work in debates about it focused on describing something that is not done.