Vegetarianism in the pandemic era: Using digital media to assess the cultural politics of meat avoidance during COVID-19

Abstract

Historically, individuals' rationales for vegetarianism have fallen into one or more of five categories: personal health; empathy towards animals; identity and group belonging through foodways; long-term environmental concerns regarding animal agriculture; and economic reasons related to the expense of meat. With the advent of COVID-19 and its associated social and economic changes across the globe, a sixth rationale for vegetarianism has emerged: lessening meat consumption out of a concern for the immediate health impacts on other people. We examine this emergent discourse in the digital realm through the comments in online newspapers from four countries at different levels of economic development and with variable historical engagements with vegetarianism: Argentina, France, India, and the USA. While the new argument for vegetarianism augments historical rationales of meat avoidance, discourses on vegetarianism related to the spread of COVID-19 in slaughterhouses and meat-packing plants are interwoven with pre-existing worldviews on migrants, health politics, capitalism, and market systems.