Sociologists understand segregation to be one of the most potent and fundamental processes of oppression. Creating separation entails highlighting difference. This, in turn, justifies inequality. Segregation literally marginalizes vulnerable groups.
Segregation can happen by race, impacting housing. It can also happen by gender, impacting education. Vegan activists also recognize how segregation aggravates the human-animal divide. Since the industrial revolution, Nonhuman Animals have been increasingly segregated in remote agricultural spaces in feedlots, barns, and other intensive operations. This physical disconnect leads to a social disconnect. Even policies that ban dogs from public spaces or require the abandonment of companion animals during disasters help reinforce this physical othering.
Interestingly, social psychologists have noticed that segregation can also lead to the formation of negative attitudes about food. In a study of a restaurant’s menu design, reseachers discovered that lumping all plant-based options together in a separate section reduced their appeal. They were seen as marginal, out of the ordinary, and foreign. Alternatively, by integrating plant-based meals into the main menu space, nonvegan diners gave these dishes equal consideration. Diners were much more likely to choose vegan plates from the integrated menu than from the segregated menu.
Although lumping plant-based options together can make it easier for vegan diners to determine if the restaurant caters to their political and dietary needs, this is not a tactic that is likely to increase the popularity of veganism. After all, lots of nonvegans eat vegan meals regularly without thinking anything of it. It is only when these meals are labeled and segregated as “vegan” that nonvegan consumers disparage them as bland, unwholesome, or unfulfilling, claiming that they “could never be vegan.” This happens because the segregation elicits negative connotations of an otherized and stigmatized out-group.
For the Vegan Toolkit
- Avoid segregating vegan choices
- Integrate vegan choices with nonvegan choices if nonvegan choices are provided
References
Holzer, J. 2017. “Don’t Put Vegetables in the Corner.” World Resources Institute.
Readers can learn more about the social psychology of veganism in my 2016 publication, A Rational Approach to Animal Rights.
