Browsing by Author "Alfaro, Juan"

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    Becoming vegan: A study of career and habitus
    (SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD, 2021) Giacoman, Claudia; Alfaro, Juan; Aguilera Bornand, Isabel Margarita; Torres, Rodrigo
    This article aims to understand the stages of adopting veganism in young people. To achieve this objective, we analyze 30 biographical interviews with young vegans in Santiago, Chile. The participant's stories allow us to identify that the transition to this new lifestyle implies acquiring a secondary habitus, that is, a gradual shift in understanding and acting in the world, which entails progressive identity changes until becoming vegan. This transition consists of five steps: personal questioning, vegetarianism attempt, vegetarianism, veganism, and activism. This path constitutes a career process but presents nuances according to the young people's social class of origin and individual characteristics. The main contribution of this article is to delve into the career stages that lead to the consolidation of a vegan identity, based on two classical sociological concepts (career and habitus).
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    Memes and Veganism: Representations of Vegan Identity and Its Alterity
    (2023) Joustra Bartholomaus, Camila Antonia; Alfaro, Juan; Giacoman Hernández, Claudia
    This research aims to identify the underlying discourses in the representation of vegan identity and its alterity in memes. We made a structural analysis of 276 memes published in two Chilean vegan accounts on Instagram. The results reveal that the discursive structures of the memes studied consist of two evaluation axis (one practical and one ethical-political) that generate a typology of representations about vegan identity (authentic vegan) and its alterity (impostor nonvegan, authentic nonvegan, impostor vegan). We also found two interactions that deepen the definition of the authentic vegan identity. In these interactions, conflict and ridicule toward the nonvegan prevail. We conclude that online contexts and the use of memes as the analysis unit allow an emerging conflictive side of veganism that had been hidden in previous works. This article invites others to delve into the study of vegan identities and existing negotiation strategies in both online and offline spaces.
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    Vegan on a low budget: enacting identity through cuisine in an internet community
    (ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2023) Giacoman, Claudia; Alfaro, Juan; Joustra, Camila; Aguilera, Isabel M.
    The adoption of veganism implies a change in food practices. This study investigates how low-budget people lead a vegan lifestyle. Using Bourdieu's habitus and food sociology concepts, we analyze 884 posts on a Chilean Facebook group, in which members share low-budget vegan recipes. Our results show that low-income people enact veganism mainly by constructing cuisine based on their social class and avoiding animal consumption products. The definition of this cuisine continues to be a battleground in terms of practices considered legitimately vegan, regardless of poverty. This article contributes sociologically by deepening our understanding of everyday practices that help enact veganism in non-hegemonic positions, how individuals forge their social identity, and the role of cuisine in adopting a vegan lifestyle.