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!

Topic: Veganism in Transnational Digital Spaces: How Content Creators’
Lived Experiences Foster Cohesion in a Fragment Cultural Movement

Abstract:
Social media platforms have reshaped activism by enabling new forms of
participation and collective engagement that challenge traditional
movement boundaries. Unlike conventional activism, which often relies on
centralized leadership and hierarchical organization (Bimber, Flanagin,
& Stohl, 2012), digital environments support decentralized,
personalized, and real time mobilization (Bennett, 2013). Veganism
operates within this evolving space, as individuals navigate the
intersection of activism and lifestyle branding to engage diverse
audiences. Veganism, both a lifestyle and an ethical stance focused on
minimizing harm to animals, has grown from a marginalized subculture
into a mainstream movement (Gheihman, 2021), emerging as a global
phenomenon driven by ethical, environmental, and health motivations. Yet
what constitutes “veganism” remains contested, with definitions varying
across cultural, political, and historical contexts. Despite its global
expansion, the movement remains internally fragmented, marked by
ideological divides and differing interpretations of core values and
activist strategies. Transnational differences, particularly in foodways
and the legal context of animal rights, complicate how veganism is
understood and practiced across regions. In the Global North, veganism
is often framed through ethical, environmental, or health-based
motivations, supported by long standing but fragmented animal welfare
laws. In the Global South, veganism is more often tied to the
reclamation of ancestral plant-based traditions and resistance to
post-colonial, meat centered norms rooted in colonial food systems,
alongside a recent constitutional and judicial advancements in animal
protection. These conflicting frameworks highlight the complexity of
veganism as a global movement. In this dissertation, I explore how
veganism as a fragmented cultural movement becomes cohesive within a
transnational context. Of particular interest is how lived experiences
shape both digital and offline activism through inclusive framing. To
this end, I examine vegan food establishment content creators to analyze
the technical, social, and material dimensions of how ideological
tensions are negotiated and how these negotiations contribute to
movement cohesion across fragmented digital and offline networks. To
investigate this phenomenon, the central research question I pose is:
How does veganism become cohesive within a transnational context? Two
sub-questions further investigate this phenomenon: (1) How do
vegan-content creators’ lived experiences shape their social media
content and (2) in what ways do they engage conflicting motivations to
foster cohesion? To explore these questions in a transnational context,
I draw on the sociotechnical foundations of Connective Action framework
(Bennett & Segerberg, 2013) and New Social Movement theory (Melucci,
2009). Veganism serves as the primary case in this study, with Los
Angeles (Global North) and Ciudad de México (Global South) as cases,
selected in part based on insights from an informal three-week field
study in México. Methodologically, I use a digital ethnographic approach
that combines platform walkthroughs, interviews, and contextual
attention to physical spaces, with engagement in Los Angeles and Ciudad
de México to understand the transnational dynamics. By combining these
methods, I will show how content creators navigate ideological tensions
and foster cohesion within regionally situated sociotechnical environments.

Committee Members:
Jenifer Sunrise Winter, Chair
Elizabeth Davidson
Jingyi Gu
Wayne Buente
Jinan Banna, University Representative (CTAHR)