**1. Introduction**

Coinciding with the arrival of the twenty-first century, the entry of veganism into cultural mainstream has been announced—mainly on the Internet—with a "Revolution" label. For some critics, veganism tries to settle some debts regarding the exploitation of animals that remained pending in the agenda of the countercultural movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Just as the *hippies* and the *beatniks* rose against the Vietnam War and social inequalities, modern *hipsters* and vegans demand for a change denouncing ecological deterioration and mistreatment of animals. Headlines such as "The 'boom' of veganism and vegetarian diet reveal the new ecological awareness of the world" associate vegan practices with a transformation of consciousness that is expressed more in a lifestyle than with traditional revolutionary actions.

Even so, the "revolution" tag remains (it is sticky). Social and political revolution traditionally refers to the exertion of violence which aims to overthrow—or at least radically change—a certain order or system of oppression. Historically, since the eighteenth century, the term has been linked to nationalist processes, where peoples or nations rise up in arms to defeat a government whose dictatorship or tyranny is necessary to dismiss. In his Communist Manifesto, Marx wrote that the class struggle "each time ended either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes" [1]. But in the twenty-first century, political and social conditions have reduced the ideological conflict to its minimum expression. However, the decay of ideology does not mean that it has completely disappeared, nor does the restlessness or longing for revolution. Instead, a shift is taking place from ideological discourse to pulsing affects which posthegemony theory tries to acknowledge.

**101**

tions on the Internet.

*Revolutionary Veganism*

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.83691*

unity to become the "multitude."

**2. Methodology**

Nowadays, if we can speak of a vegan revolution, it does not necessarily must come from an ideological substratum (which does not imply the absence of ideology). Ideology becomes the "color" or "flavor" that acquires the movement, the covering for a base that is primarily habitual and affective. Therefore, current revolutions, deprived of an effective representation system, are rather posthegemonic, or as I want to propose in the case of vegans, inserted in a biopolitical frame. If we substitute the Marxist equation with posthegemonic terms, we will find that the revolutionary subject ceases to be the "proletariat," the "people," or any kind of

According to Hardt and Negri, the traits of community and diversity are central to understand the plurality of vegans as a multitude, since "the multitude cannot be reduced to a single unit and does not submit to the rule of one" (330) [2], or as Beasley-Murray puts it, "posthegemony means the change from a persuasive rhetoric to a regime in which what counts are the effects produced and orchestrated by affective investment in the social, if by affect we mean the order of bodies rather than the order of meaning" (120) [3]. I agree with Beasley-Murray that the power of ideology has declined, but I question his assertion that "nobody is too persuaded by ideologies that once seemed fundamental to ensure social order" (ix). I believe that the ideological function should not be completely ruled out, since the vegan movement, in some of its manifestations, revives a fundamentalist tendency toward ideology, although it may be promoted from the grassroots and not by the State. It is precisely the relationship between culture and politics, the tension between the ideological and the corporal, and the role of domination and social consensus through the concepts of habit, affection, and multitude that Beasley-Murray man-

The community of vegans constitutes a multitude of bodies whose diversity and mobility make it difficult to locate their contours and borders. Veganism is a conglomerate of worlds, with different economic, social, and territorial contexts. To approach it, I carried out a three-year multi-situated ethnography of the community of vegans who live in the metropolitan area of Puebla, including the analysis of their social networks. I selected the Facebook group "Vegans and Vegetarians of Puebla," a virtual community representative of local veganism where most of its members live in the cities of Puebla, Cholula, and Atlixco. The case of Puebla is relevant for the following reasons: (1) it is an average city in Mexico that, not being the capital of the country, serves to exemplify the case of many other Latin American cities with similar situations. (2) Rapid urban and economic development has led Puebla to become an aspiring global city. (3) The rich cultural life of Puebla has favored the proliferation of groups with global tendencies with different

I conceive the corpus of study based on a rhizomatic model or multiple networks, inspired by Deleuze and Guattari. The center or starting point is the multisituated critical ethnography of the Facebook group to follow from there its ramifications that arise both virtually (online) and face-to-face (offline). Research has been structured and reoriented by the various paths that the movement undertakes, recording its evolution and manifestations, the spaces it appropriates, the practices it inaugurates, and the connections it establishes. My ethnography pursues a logic of encounters and affects which become evident in "critical events," like fairs or *tianguis* days in which the vegans congregate, as well as their interac-

ages, which may explain the vegan endeavor for a revolution.

philosophies and projects like the vegan movement.

#### *Revolutionary Veganism DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.83691*

Nowadays, if we can speak of a vegan revolution, it does not necessarily must come from an ideological substratum (which does not imply the absence of ideology). Ideology becomes the "color" or "flavor" that acquires the movement, the covering for a base that is primarily habitual and affective. Therefore, current revolutions, deprived of an effective representation system, are rather posthegemonic, or as I want to propose in the case of vegans, inserted in a biopolitical frame. If we substitute the Marxist equation with posthegemonic terms, we will find that the revolutionary subject ceases to be the "proletariat," the "people," or any kind of unity to become the "multitude."

According to Hardt and Negri, the traits of community and diversity are central to understand the plurality of vegans as a multitude, since "the multitude cannot be reduced to a single unit and does not submit to the rule of one" (330) [2], or as Beasley-Murray puts it, "posthegemony means the change from a persuasive rhetoric to a regime in which what counts are the effects produced and orchestrated by affective investment in the social, if by affect we mean the order of bodies rather than the order of meaning" (120) [3]. I agree with Beasley-Murray that the power of ideology has declined, but I question his assertion that "nobody is too persuaded by ideologies that once seemed fundamental to ensure social order" (ix). I believe that the ideological function should not be completely ruled out, since the vegan movement, in some of its manifestations, revives a fundamentalist tendency toward ideology, although it may be promoted from the grassroots and not by the State. It is precisely the relationship between culture and politics, the tension between the ideological and the corporal, and the role of domination and social consensus through the concepts of habit, affection, and multitude that Beasley-Murray manages, which may explain the vegan endeavor for a revolution.
