1st Edition
Mapping the Holistic Journey of Former Vegans The Polyphony within Veganism
This book explores veganism through the holistic journeys and lived experiences of former vegans, with a particular focus on the impact this has on their selfhood and identity. It delves into the complexities underpinning definitions of veganism and vegan identities.
Based on original qualitative research charting the experiences of ten former vegans, the text offers a theoretical lens for understanding evolving self-perception, identity, and experience, exploring what leads to initiating a transition in and out of veganism and how former vegans reconcile with losing their vegan identity. Applying a Bakhtinian model of selfhood, the book explores the tensions between ‘voices’ representing values within social discourse, such as veganism, and how individuals co-construct their identity and self-perception through said voices. Chapters explore the diverse experiences of former vegans and offer an insight into the interviewees’ embodied and experience with veganism, divided into three distinct moments of beginning, middle, and end.
Mapping the Holistic Journey of Former Vegans: The Polyphony within Veganism, is intended for scholars and postgraduate students interested in veganism, selfhood and identity, behaviour change and anyone looking to understand the context of veganism in practice.
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgements
01. Introduction
Situating Veganism
Defining Veganism Through a Dialogical Lens
From ‘Veganism’ to ‘Plant-Based’
Veganism and Identity
Chapter Overview
02. Positioning the Polyphony
Bakhtin: From Literature to the Social Sciences
Developing a Bakhtinian Onto-epistemology: as an analytical tool
Dialogism and Identity in Social Psychology: a concept for contextuality
Methods
Participant Pen Portraits
Chapter Overview
03. The Beginning, how it all began
The Primary Genre of Self-focus
The Primary Genre of External Influence
Conclusion
04. The Middle, how it all went?
Maintaining a Double-Voiced Speech Genre
Primary Genre: Intra-Conflict of the I-for-myself
The Primary Speech Genre of Denial
Conclusion
05. How it all ended, and how is it going?
The Primary Speech Genre of ‘Ex-vegan sobriety’
Rediscovering a Double-voiced Utterance
Chapter Overview
06. Moving Forward
Conceptualising Ideology
Centripetal Ideological Aesthetic Activity and Lived Experiences
Centrifugal Ideological Aesthetic Activity and Lived Experiences
Conclusion: (Un)Final Reflections
Glossary
Biography
Hannah Intezar is Assistant Professor at the University of Bradford. Her current areas of research include, but are not limited to, a critical approach to notions of self-identity, gender, public and private speech, digital societies, and enquires into lived cultural experiences.
Rarely, one encounters a book so startlingly original and insightful it not only captivates one's attention, but thereafter shapes the development of one's thought. Such is my experience after reading Hannah Intezar's book on vegan identities, which situates the journeys of individuals into and out of veganism within the extraordinarily illuminating theoretical framework of Bakhtinian dialogism. A model of clear and vivid exposition, the book is replete with arrestingly novel ideas and perceptions; compellingly readable, thought-provoking, and wholly fresh.”
- John Ackroyd, Assistant Professor in Philosophy and Intellectual History, University of Bradford, UK.
