Veganism as anti-anthropocentrism the potential of vegan advocacy discourse

Proceeding from an identification of anthropocentrism as the ideological bedrockof interconnected human to nonhuman animal and intra-human oppressions,and the central role played by discourse in transmitting and normalisinganthropocentrism and its consequences, this article provides a critical explorationof four ways in which vegan advocacy discourse can undermineanthropocentrism in its various manifestations. These include: the centring of thebeyond-human interests of nonhuman animals through ethical veganargumentation and the simultaneous decentring and invalidating of the humaninterests in exploiting them; the exposing of the oppressive reality of animalproducts for the affected nonhuman animals, in opposition to the connectedindustries’ efforts to manufacture the public’s understanding of animal productproduction; the eroding of the discriminatory, otherising human/animaldichotomy through the championing of shared animality between humans andother animals and the decentring of human-supremacist judgements to thecontrary; and an intersectional analysis of nonhuman and human oppressionswhich recognises their common ideological source under the inherentlyoppressive system of capitalism. Several potential anthropocentric or otherwisecounterproductive pitfalls of each recommended discourse strategy are alsoconsidered. In providing said critical exploration, the author hopes to havesupported the case for veganism’s indispensable contribution to opposing theinterconnected nonhuman and human oppressions of Western societies, andelucidated some key ways in which vegan advocates can enact this potential.