Becoming hegemony: The case for the (Italian) animal advocacy and veganwashing operations

Abstract

Organized forms of animal advocacy date back to the final decades of the 20th century. Born in progressive political milieus, animal advocacy and especially the more radical positions of vegan and animal rights activists originally assumed anticapitalist and counter-hegemonic perspectives. More recently, however, the spreading of veganism among civil society has very often related to reasons of health or fashion, sometimes far from ethical or political motivations. In this article, this shift is analysed, based on an empirical study conducted among Italian animal advocates. Interest in non-human animals was originally located among more generic counter-hegemonic frames, but this recent shift gives more and more space to an a-political consumerist approach to veganism. In particular, adapting a Gramscian vocabulary, two different perspectives among Italian animal advocates are identified and described: passive revolution and war of position. They are presented both referring to general frames and in relation to a specific event, Expo2015 in Milan, which carried the caption ‘Feeding the planet, energy for life’, and was very much related to animal questions. In a similar way to greenwashing and pinkwashing operations, also veganwashing is assuming a central role within a capitalist hegemonic discourse.

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