posted on 2010-10-29, 14:18authored byRichard Carmichael
This thesis takes a discursive-rhetorical approach to becoming vegetarian and vegan.
Previous studies have pointed to complexity and variety in definitions, types and
criteria of vegetarianism, making `objective' studies difficult. Meat is also one of the
most highly prized but ambivalently valued foodstuffs. The cultural and social
meanings of diet in terms of `identities' are well established but the rhetorical
approach taken here explores identity as accomplished through social practices of
accounting. Rather than seeing variation and disagreement as problematic, analytic
focus is on the complex and varied construction of social categories/identities in
accounts and the practices of justification and criticism. Cultural ambivalences are
recast as dilemmas of identity and account-giving.
Diary and serial interview `case-material' was collected from 23 new and aspiring
vegetarians and vegans. Participants' accounts are shown to handle a number of
dilemmatic aspects of vegetarian/vegan identity; notably, a dilemma of moral
superiority and a dilemma of abstinence. These dilemmas are discussed in terms of
stereotype-avoidance, commitment, and the co-construction of self and Other. Such
identity-management is argued to fundamentally involve relationships. Seen as
contexts, texts and resources for account-giving, relationships highlight both local and
biographical elements in self-construction, the inter-dependence of selfnarratives/
identities and the need for managing them, especially when identities are
changed. A number of other rhetorical resources and practices used in the
management of identity are also drawn out, including the discourses of lapsing, desire
and temptation and accounts of suppression and repression. The management of
dilemmas of accounting through presenting the self as ambivalent, conflicted and
divided is underlined. Following recent work by Billig (e. g., 1999a), ambivalence and
repression are further considered as discursive activities as well as claims. This leads
to a discussion of identity, contradiction and repression in terms of prohibition, desire
and transgression.
It is suggested that becoming vegetarian or vegan may be characterised as a matter of
narrating autobiographical change and the continued negotiation of various dilemmas
of identity. Social psychological theories of identity and identity change are criticised
and the importance of argumentation, ambivalence and commitment are emphasised.
The value of a more `populated' case-study perspective within discursive psychology
is also stressed and the study of discursive avoidance and repression is illustrated and
recommended.