Assembling veganism: domestication, depoliticisation and disconnection in online spaces

Abstract Social media are a key terrain for constructing and contesting contemporary vegan identities. While previous research has explored representations of veganism in print media, online spaces remain under-examined. We analyse how contemporary veganism is assembled by 16 vegan digital food influencers (vDFIs) on Instagram and the ways in which an emergent neoliberal-self-lifestyle assemblage connects into, and challenges, the other contemporary vegan assemblages, which we identify as radical activism and environmental policy. Through an analysis of the visual and textual representations of veganism by these vDFIs, we argue that the (visual) narratives of these vDFIs are domesticating the places and practices of veganism, towards a depoliticised food practice grounded in the private ‘here-and-now’ and focused on individualised self-care. Their eye-catching images serve to capture attention and generate momentum around their interpretations of veganism. Such representations of what we term ‘domesticated veganism’ work to disconnect from broader issues of justice, animal liberation, climate change and environmental crises foregrounded by other vegan assemblages, which are suppressed in favour of health, comfort, accessibility and ease. Nonetheless, lines of flight triggered by corporate engagements or vDFIs emphasize that all assemblages are ephemeral, with their constant state of becoming requiring repeated performance and practice. The emergent effects of these vDFI narratives constitutes representations of veganism as easy, ordinary, healthy and gentle through their focus on health, family, and delicious, eye-catching recipes. We conceptualise this as gentle care, separated from an externalised drive for justice, which characterises our domesticated vegan assemblage as ‘(in)activist’, in which practices with ostensibly activist outcomes have limited engagement with the issues and politics within which they are seemingly nested.