If the way we eat now is bad for our health, bad for animal welfare and bad for the planet, is veganism the answer? That’s the key question that Catherine Oliver of Lancaster University pursues in the latest addition to the What is it for? series. 

In this episode of the podcast, Catherine tells George Miller why she hopes 'What is Veganism For?' helps reframe the often-polarized debate around veganism by showing the role it plays in wider justice movements, talks about how veganism has gone from fringe to mainstream in the past decade, and describes how vegan eating (including banana blossom fritters) can be a joyful experience. 

Catherine Oliver is a lecturer in the Sociology of Climate Change at Lancaster University. A geographer interested in research beyond the human, she works on historical and contemporary veganism, the ethics and politics of interspecies friendship through human-chicken relationships, and multispecies ethnographic research, most recently with seabirds. Follow her on Twitter: @katiecmoliver.

Find out more about the book: https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/what-is-veganism-for

The full transcript of the podcast is available here: https://www.transformingsociety.co.uk/2024/06/25/podcast-veganism-imagining-a-world-beyond-contemporary-food-systems/

Timestamps:

01:10 - Why did the seemingly straightforward question, what is veganism for, appeal enough to write a book?

04:51 - Broadening the perspective on what led to contemporary veganism

07:00 - An invitation to take the idea of change on board in a serious way

09:51 - How do you see the aim of the book? 

13:05 - Looking outward into the ways in which veganism can be practised and the various other things with which veganism can fruitfully intersect

15:00 - Can you say something about your own particular trajectory that led to you writing this book? 

17:51 - Is it becoming easier to become vegan? 

21:48 - Should the emphasis be on eating a bit less meat and leaving veganism for later?  

26:00 - The complications of big corporations 

29:32 - Beyond the binary of vegan or not

33:30 - In what ways is vegan eating potentially joyous? 

Intro music:

Cold by yoitrax | @yoitrax

Music promoted by www.free-stock-music.com 

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creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US

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