I am currently undertaking a full-time PhD exploring from a criminological perspective the strategies that individuals employ to support and maintain their speciest views. My background spans both psychology and criminology and whilst speciesism has been well researched within the field of psychology, I felt that there was a lack of research within the field of criminology.
My journey into veganism began with adopting a plant-based diet for environmental and health reasons. This opened up a world of abuse and injustice that I simply had not opened my eyes to before. Culturally, consuming meat was part of my daily food intake, it was just what you did, what was expected. I engaged in this behaviour whilst proclaiming to be an animal lover, even a protector but realised that my choice of animals to save was selective and I had been missing the ones on my plate all along. They needed my help most of all. Armed with this new information I began telling everyone I knew thinking they would do the same and immediately give up meat and dairy. How wrong I was! Instead, I would hear the same reasons, excuses, and denial like a recorded message on repeat. Whilst eating animals is not illegal, I felt that they were the forgotten victims of an immoral act, something that I constructed as not only unjust but also criminal. This realisation is the backdrop and the driving force of my own research. I am at heart an abolitionist.
