We are pleased to share that Lolita Perez-Ayala successfully defended her dissertation proposal via Zoom on Oct. 24, 2025, officially advancing to ABD (All But Dissertation) status. Congratulations, Lolita!<\/p>\n
Topic: <\/strong>Veganism in Transnational Digital Spaces: How Content Creators’ Abstract:<\/strong> Committee Members:<\/strong> We are pleased to share that Lolita Perez-Ayala successfully defended her dissertation proposal via Zoom on Oct. 24, 2025, officially […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":4962,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4961","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-news-events","9":"post-with-thumbnail","10":"post-with-thumbnail-large"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/cis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/cis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/cis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/cis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/cis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4961"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/cis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4963,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/cis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4961\/revisions\/4963"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/cis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/cis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/cis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/cis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nLived Experiences Foster Cohesion in a Fragment Cultural Movement<\/p>\n
\nSocial media platforms have reshaped activism by enabling new forms of
\nparticipation and collective engagement that challenge traditional
\nmovement boundaries. Unlike conventional activism, which often relies on
\ncentralized leadership and hierarchical organization (Bimber, Flanagin,
\n& Stohl, 2012), digital environments support decentralized,
\npersonalized, and real time mobilization (Bennett, 2013). Veganism
\noperates within this evolving space, as individuals navigate the
\nintersection of activism and lifestyle branding to engage diverse
\naudiences. Veganism, both a lifestyle and an ethical stance focused on
\nminimizing harm to animals, has grown from a marginalized subculture
\ninto a mainstream movement (Gheihman, 2021), emerging as a global
\nphenomenon driven by ethical, environmental, and health motivations. Yet
\nwhat constitutes \u201cveganism\u201d remains contested, with definitions varying
\nacross cultural, political, and historical contexts. Despite its global
\nexpansion, the movement remains internally fragmented, marked by
\nideological divides and differing interpretations of core values and
\nactivist strategies. Transnational differences, particularly in foodways
\nand the legal context of animal rights, complicate how veganism is
\nunderstood and practiced across regions. In the Global North, veganism
\nis often framed through ethical, environmental, or health-based
\nmotivations, supported by long standing but fragmented animal welfare
\nlaws. In the Global South, veganism is more often tied to the
\nreclamation of ancestral plant-based traditions and resistance to
\npost-colonial, meat centered norms rooted in colonial food systems,
\nalongside a recent constitutional and judicial advancements in animal
\nprotection. These conflicting frameworks highlight the complexity of
\nveganism as a global movement. In this dissertation, I explore how
\nveganism as a fragmented cultural movement becomes cohesive within a
\ntransnational context. Of particular interest is how lived experiences
\nshape both digital and offline activism through inclusive framing. To
\nthis end, I examine vegan food establishment content creators to analyze
\nthe technical, social, and material dimensions of how ideological
\ntensions are negotiated and how these negotiations contribute to
\nmovement cohesion across fragmented digital and offline networks. To
\ninvestigate this phenomenon, the central research question I pose is:
\nHow does veganism become cohesive within a transnational context? Two
\nsub-questions further investigate this phenomenon: (1) How do
\nvegan-content creators\u2019 lived experiences shape their social media
\ncontent and (2) in what ways do they engage conflicting motivations to
\nfoster cohesion? To explore these questions in a transnational context,
\nI draw on the sociotechnical foundations of Connective Action framework
\n(Bennett & Segerberg, 2013) and New Social Movement theory (Melucci,
\n2009). Veganism serves as the primary case in this study, with Los
\nAngeles (Global North) and Ciudad de M\u00e9xico (Global South) as cases,
\nselected in part based on insights from an informal three-week field
\nstudy in M\u00e9xico. Methodologically, I use a digital ethnographic approach
\nthat combines platform walkthroughs, interviews, and contextual
\nattention to physical spaces, with engagement in Los Angeles and Ciudad
\nde M\u00e9xico to understand the transnational dynamics. By combining these
\nmethods, I will show how content creators navigate ideological tensions
\nand foster cohesion within regionally situated sociotechnical environments.<\/p>\n
\nJenifer Sunrise Winter, Chair
\nElizabeth Davidson
\nJingyi Gu
\nWayne Buente
\nJinan Banna, University Representative (CTAHR)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"