Stockfree's Short Shadow: Shifting Food Systems Towards Sustainability by Re-Thinking Veganism as a Performative Practice of Production

Academic, policy, and public debates have increasingly led to calls for the adoption of plant rich diets. Livestock’s ‘long shadow’—its high environmental footprint—and the need to transform food systems towards sustainable practices are widely recognized. However, despite their incremental normalization, vegan and vegetarian diets can still lead to fierce debates between people with different dietary identities. Arguing that identity-based understandings of who or what is ‘vegan’ obfuscate necessary changes in production and provisioning practices, this contribution develops a wider understanding of vegan food practices by shedding light on stockfree organic agriculture’s organization, biomateriality, and its ‘short’ shadow. The chapter makes a contribution to food system organizing with a practice approach.