A Case of Racialized Organizations: Black-Owned Vegan Restaurants in St. Louis, Missouri

• In Event: 20861 - Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 6: How do Movements Change Individuals, Relationships, and Organizations?

Abstract

How does functioning as a racialized organization impact its ability to advance the goals of a social movement? This paper highlights the role organizations play in the vegan social movement. In recent years, veganism has developed into a social movement with purported health and ethics benefits, though one in which Black members are not necessarily widely represented. The research that exists on Black veganism focuses on the ideological reasonings behind why some make the decision to adopt a plant-based diet, or spell out the fact that community and culture rank as top priorities when considering what foods to eat (Greenebaum 2018). The present research shifts the study of Black vegans to focus on the institutions in which African Americans might make decisions about the foods they consume, specifically Black-owned vegan restaurants.

Through a content analysis of Black-owned vegan restaurant websites and 29 in-depth interviews with respondents who identified as either owners or patrons of Black vegan businesses, this study examines whether and how Black-owned vegan restaurants utilize the processes of agency, credentialing, unequal resource allocation, and decoupled outcomes associated with racialized organizations (Ray 2019), and whether they do so in ways that upset racial hierarchies.

Preliminary findings show that Black owned vegan restaurants utilize the processes of enhancing agency, legitimizing unequal resource distribution when possible, and decoupling outcomes to function as racialized organizations and promote the goals of the vegan movement. Black owned vegan restaurants do not function as racialized organizations regarding the tenet of credentialing whiteness; however, they credential Blackness in their operations which in turn, functions to upset racial hierarchies. Overall, Black owned vegan restaurants functioning as racialized organizations allows them to advance the goals of the vegan movement for Black communities while persisting in the tumultuous industry of food service.

Author

• Antonia Monique Roach, Washington University in St. Louis