Approximately 7.5 million people in the U.S. subscribe to a vegan diet and thus don't consume any animal products such as meat, fish, dairy, or eggs. Despite the considerable growth of veganism in the last decade, little is known about how people communicate about such a seemingly restrictive diet and what implications this might have for communication theory and the growing field of food studies. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore how vegans communicatively negotiate their identity through the lens of Hecht's (1993) communication theory of identity (CTI).
I conducted phone interviews with forty vegans residing across the U.S. and completed thematic analysis to qualitatively analyze interviews. Four themes emerged to describe the ways vegans enact their identity (Facilitating Smooth Interactions, Wearing Symbols of Veganism, Vegan Food Preparation and Consumption, Education and Community Engagement), and three themes emerged to illustrate the relational identities that vegans co-construct with members of their social network (Accepted and Supported, Inconvenience to the Family, Happiest with a Vegan (Friendly) Partner). Vegans explained that they engage in a variety of communication strategies (e.g., focusing on the positive) to thoughtfully craft an identity that will be well-received by others. Additionally, participants explained that they are not only supported by members of their social network, but that this support is an integral part of their relational identity. Lastly, I analyzed participant accounts to see if any discrepancies (i.e., identity gaps; Jung & Hecht, 2004) emerged between the ways vegans negotiate their identity. Results indicate that some vegans experience or create up to four different identity gaps between different layers of identity (Personal-Enacted Gap, Relational-Enacted Gap, Enacted-Enacted Gap, Community-Personal Gap). Implications and directions for future research are discussed.