Veganism as anti-anthropocentrism the potential of vegan advocacy discourse

Proceeding from an identification of anthropocentrism as the ideological bedrock
of interconnected human to nonhuman animal and intra-human oppressions,
and the central role played by discourse in transmitting and normalising
anthropocentrism and its consequences, this article provides a critical exploration
of four ways in which vegan advocacy discourse can undermine
anthropocentrism in its various manifestations. These include: the centring of the
beyond-human interests of nonhuman animals through ethical vegan
argumentation and the simultaneous decentring and invalidating of the human
interests in exploiting them; the exposing of the oppressive reality of animal
products for the affected nonhuman animals, in opposition to the connected
industries’ efforts to manufacture the public’s understanding of animal product
production; the eroding of the discriminatory, otherising human/animal
dichotomy through the championing of shared animality between humans and
other animals and the decentring of human-supremacist judgements to the
contrary; and an intersectional analysis of nonhuman and human oppressions
which recognises their common ideological source under the inherently
oppressive system of capitalism. Several potential anthropocentric or otherwise
counterproductive pitfalls of each recommended discourse strategy are also
considered. In providing said critical exploration, the author hopes to have
supported the case for veganism’s indispensable contribution to opposing the
interconnected nonhuman and human oppressions of Western societies, and
elucidated some key ways in which vegan advocates can enact this potential.