We are seeking submissions for a zine on being both working class and vegan, to decenter veganism away from the politics of privilege and consumerism.
For many of us, buying whatever we want, flying around to animal rights conferences, or going this or that vegan band’s reunion in another country or state is simply not an option. For many of us who struggle with poverty as a lived experience the middle class liberal politics of voting with your dollars and buying overpriced fancy over-packaged goods is alienating and unrealistic. For many of us the food bank is our grocery store and dumpster diving after a house show isn’t something you do to be cool, it is something you do simply cause you can’t afford to buy good food. Our hope is it will help to be a resource of lived experiences for those who can’t relate to the mainstream vegan middle class clique, and that it would be full of useful strategies for coping with poverty while maintaining a vegan way of living.
The term ‘working class’ is ambiguous and many people use it to mean different things. For the context of this zine the term working class will refer to people who work dead end jobs at near minimum wage, or live on welfare or disability, or who struggle to pay rent each month, or are living on the streets or in homeless shelters. We are not referring to people who work high paid union jobs or work as roughnecks in the oil patch or logging industries. The point is to share the experiences of those who have struggled economically just to meet their basic needs yet feel maintaining a plant based diet is important to them.
Submissions should be between 1/2 a page to 5 pages in length (single spaced). We are open to many formats, from personal stories, to personal essays, to critiques, poetry, recipes, cartoons, jokes, or rants and tips. You can write about your struggles with food, or with mainstream liberal vegans, working with animals, why a plant based diet is important to you, nutrition, activism, wild harvesting, dumpster diving, or about how you have navigated the various barriers to eating healthy on a low budget and useful skills or information you have learned along the way.
Deadline for submission September 30
send submissions to: workingclassvegan@hotmail.com
