WHAT IS VEGANISM? SOCIOCULTURAL RESISTANCE TO STRUCTURAL SPECIESISM AND SPATIAL RECONFIGURATION

Abstract

Veganism is a sociocultural-identity, ethical-political, and spatial movement that confronts structural speciesism and the colonial continuities of the Plantationocene. Being vegan goes beyond renouncing what one eats or wears; it is a coherent and conscious choice about how one lives and with whom one chooses to share the world. This phenomenon is understood through a theoretical-conceptual anthropological approach, which examines three planes of spatialization: everyday practices that reorganize lived space and consumption circuits; intentional actions, such as occupations and activism, that establish zones of contestation; and digital territorialities that dispute narratives and reconfigure symbolic space. The articulation of these planes produces vegan places, non-places of animal exploitation, Foucault's heterotopias, and Bey's Temporary Autonomous Zones, connected by counter-cartographies that reveal human peripheries and spaces of animal exploitation. The synthesis of Harvey and Lefebvre's spatial theories demonstrates that such zones reterritorialize flows of food, labor, and affection, expanding socio-environmental and interspecies justice. Four ethical axes are proposed: justice for sentient beings; rejection of animal exploitation; recognition of ecological interdependence; and moralization of consumption and habitus. The conclusion is that veganism acts as a transformative cultural force, reorganizing sociocultural and spatial dynamics and inspiring new ethnographic investigations into the impacts of different spatialization plans on the local economy and sociability.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.56238/edimpacto2025.020-004