Corey Wrenn. 2016. A Rational Approach to Animal Rights: Extensions in Abolitionist Theory. Palgrave Macmillan UK.
Applying critical sociological theory, this book explores the shortcomings of popular tactics in animal liberation efforts. Building a case for a scientifically-grounded grassroots approach, it is argued that professionalized advocacy that works in the service of theistic, capitalist, patriarchal institutions will find difficulty achieving success.
ISBN: 978-1-137-43464-7
eBook ISBN: 978-1-137-43465-4
DOI: 10.1057/9781137434654
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This title was reviewed by the Journal of Animal Ethics and Contemporary Sociology.
Corey Wrenn. 2019. Piecemeal Protest: Animal Rights in the Age of Nonprofits. The University of Michigan Press.
Given their tendency to splinter over tactics and goals, social movements are rarely unified. While most scholars agree factionalism can be a major hurdle for successful mobilization, existing research is limited. Following the modern Western animal rights movement over thirty years, Piecemeal Protest applies the sociological theory of Bourdieu, Goffman, Weber, and contemporary social movement researchers to examine structural conditions facilitating factionalism in today’s era of professionalized advocacy.
Modern social movements are dominated by bureaucratically-oriented nonprofits, a special arrangement which creates significant tension between activists and movement elites who compete for success in a corporate political arena. Piecemeal Protest examines the impact of nonprofitization on factionalism and a movement’s ability to mobilize, resonate, and succeed. Corey Lee Wrenn’s exhaustive content analysis of archival movement literature and exclusive interviews with movement leaders illustrate how entities with greater symbolic capital are positioned to monopolize claimsmaking, disempower competitors, and replicate hegemonic power, eroding democratic access to dialogue and decision-making essential for movement health.
Piecemeal Protest examines social movement behavior shaped by capitalist ideologies and state interests. Heavy factional boundary maintenance may prevent critical discourse within the movement, and may provoke the symbolic appropriation of radical claimsmaking for bureaucratic ends and radical suppression. As power concentrates to the disadvantage of marginalized factions in the modern social movement arena, Piecemeal Protest shines light on processes of factionalism and considers how, in the age of nonprofits, intra-movement inequality could stifle social progress.
ISBN: 978-0-472-13167-9
eBook ISBN: B0822JH4YR
DOI: 10.3998/mpub.11301441
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Cover art by Lynda Bell. Click here to purchase prints from the artist’s website.
Corey Wrenn. 2021. Animals in Irish Society: Interspecies Oppression and Vegan Liberation in Britain’s First Colony. State University of New York Press.
The first exploration of vegan Irish epistemology, one that can be traced along its history of animism, agrarianism, ascendency, adaptation, and activism.
Irish vegan studies are poised for increasing relevance as climate change threatens the legitimacy and longevity of animal agriculture and widespread health problems related to animal product consumption disrupt long held nutritional ideologies. Already a top producer of greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union, Ireland has committed to expanding animal agriculture despite impending crisis. The nexus of climate change, public health, and animal welfare present a challenge to the hegemony of the Irish state and neoliberal European governance. Efforts to resist animal rights and environmentalism highlight the struggle to sustain economic structures of inequality in a society caught between a colonialist past and a globalized future. Animals in Irish Society explores the vegan Irish epistemology, one that can be traced along its history of animism, agrarianism, ascendency, adaptation, and activism. From its zoomorphic pagan roots to its legacy of vegetarianism, Ireland has been more receptive to the interests of other animals than is currently acknowledged. More than a land of “meat” and potatoes, Ireland is a relevant, if overlooked, contributor to Western vegan thought.
ISBN: 978-1-4384-8435-8
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