Vegan foodscapes. An exploratory investigation into the relationship between places, people, and food in Turin

Journal title RIVISTA GEOGRAFICA ITALIANA
Author/s Alessia Toldo, Carlo Genova
Publishing Year 2025 Issue 2025/2
Language Italian Pages 17 P. 24-40 File size 0 KB
DOI 10.3280/rgioa2-2025oa20567
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

View article Download Open Access article

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

The article explores vegan foodscapes in Turin, analyzing the relationships between vegan subjectivities, food practices, and space. Different configurations of foodscapes emerge from the research, ranging from those resisting the dominant food system to those fully integrated into large-scale retail, with intermediate hybrid forms. The analysis highlights how food spaces influence the maintenance of vegan practices and how these practices, in turn, redefine urban foodscapes.

Keywords: ; veganism, practices, foodscapes, Turin.

  1. Aavik K. (2021). Institutional resistance to veganism: Constructing vegan bodies as deviant in medical encounters in Estonia. Health, 25(2): 159-176.
  2. Adams C.J. (2006). An animal manifesto gender, identity, and vegan-feminism in the twenty-first century. Parallax, 12(1): 120-128.
  3. Bertella G. (2020). The vegan food experience: Searching for happiness in the Norwegian foodscape. Societies, 10(4).
  4. Bignante E., Pettenati G. (in corso di pubblicazione). Mappare il foodscape: Riflessioni teoriche e metodologiche. Bollettino dell’Associazione Italiana di Cartografia.
  5. Cherry E. (2006). Veganism as a cultural movement: A relational approach. Social Movement Studies, 5(2): 155-170.
  6. Cummins S., Curtis S., Diez-Roux A.V., Macintyre S. (2007). Understanding and representing ‘place’ in health research: A relational approach. Social Science & Medicine, 65(9): 1825-1838.
  7. Dansero E., Pettenati G., Toldo A., Bonavero P. (2019). Verso politiche locali del cibo a Torino: attori, progetti, processi. In: Dansero E., Marino D., Mazzocchi G., Nicolarea Y., a cura di, Lo spazio delle politiche locali del cibo: temi, esperienze e prospettive. Torino: Celid.
  8. DaSilva G., Hecquet J., King K. (2020). Exploring veganism through serious leisure and liquid modernity. Annals of Leisure Research, 23(5): 627-644.
  9. dell’Agnese E. (2020). If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian: i confini invisibili del carnismo, fra negazione e ostentazione. In: Zilli S., Modaffari G., a cura di, Confin(At)I/Bound(Aries). Firenze: Società di Studi Geografici, 527-533.
  10. Dolphijn R., Amilien V. (2020). FOOD2GATHER – Negotiating Foodscapes: An Introduction. https://oda.oslomet.no/oda-xmlui/handle/10642/9067.
  11. Dutkiewicz J., Dickstein J. (2021). The ism in veganism: The case for a minimal practicebased definition. Food Ethics, 6: 1-19.
  12. Eurispes (2024). Rapporto Italia 2024. Roma: Rubbettino.
  13. Francione G.L. (2008). Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation. New York: Columbia University Press.
  14. Fuentes C., Fuentes M. (2017). Making a market for alternatives: Marketing devices and the qualification of a vegan milk substitute. Journal of Marketing Management, 33(7-8): 529-555.
  15. Fuste-Forne F. (2021). Vegan food tourism: Experiences and implications. In: Wright L., a cura di, The Routledge Handbook of Vegan. London: Routledge.
  16. Genova C., Toldo A. (submitted). Essere vegani: Lifestyles emergenti tra pratiche, significati e posizionamento sociale. Sociologia Italiana.
  17. Giraud E. (2021). Veganism: Politics, Practice and Theory. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
  18. Gheihman N. (2021). Veganism as a lifestyle movement. Sociology Compass, 15(5), e12877.
  19. Goodman M.K., Jaworska S. (2020). Mapping digital foodscapes: Digital food influencers and the grammars of good food. Geoforum, 117: 183-193.
  20. Greenebaum J. (2012). Veganism, identity and the quest for authenticity. Food, Culture & Society, 15(1): 129-144.
  21. Greenebaum J. (2017). Questioning the concept of vegan privilege: A commentary. Humanity & Society, 41(3): 355-372.
  22. Hirth S. (2021). Food that matters: Boundary work and the case for vegan food practices. Sociologia Ruralis, 61(1): 234-254.
  23. Herman A., O’Neill K. (2025). The geographies of veganism: Exploring the complex entanglements of places, plants, peoples, and profits through vegan food practices. Progress in Environmental Geography, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/27539687241307954.
  24. Hodge P., McGregor A., Springer S., Veron O., White R.J. (2022). Vegan Geographies: Spaces Beyond Violence, Ethics Beyond Speciesism. New York: Lantern Publishing & Media.
  25. Johnston J., Biro J., MacKendrick N. (2009). Lost in the supermarket: The corporateorganic foodscape and the struggle for food democracy. Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography, 41: 509-532.
  26. Johnston J., Goodman M.K. (2015). Spectacular foodscapes: Food celebrities and the politics of lifestyle mediation in an age of inequality. Food, Culture & Society, 18(2): 205-222.
  27. Lawo D., Esau M., Engelbutzeder P., Stevens G. (2020). Going vegan: The role (s) of ICT in vegan practice transformation. Sustainability, 12(12), 5184.
  28. MacKendrick N. (2014). Foodscape. Contexts, 13(3): 16-18.
  29. McGregor A., Houston D., Dilworth T.L., Bojovic M. (2024). Plant-based food politics: Veganism, quiet activism and small businesses in Sydney’s foodscapes. Social & Cultural Geography, 25(6): 891-908.
  30. Miewald C., McCann E. (2014). Foodscapes and the geographies of poverty: Sustenance, strategy, and politics in an urban neighborhood. Antipode, 46(2): 537-556.
  31. Nocco S. (2023). Etica, ambiente e salute. Il dissenso vegano nel contesto pandemico. In: De Donno D., Petracca L., Annacontini G., Dis-sentire. Spazi, linguaggi, forme, espressioni. Atti del Workshop (Lecce, 13-14 gennaio 2022).
  32. Oliver C. (2021). Veganism, Archives and Animals. New York: Routledge.
  33. Oliver C. (2023). Vegan world-making in meat-centric society: The embodied geographies of veganism. Social and Cultural Geography, 24: 831-850.
  34. Oliver C. (2024). What is Veganism For. Bristol: Bristol University Press.
  35. Oliver C., Turnbull J., Richardson M. (2024). Claiming veganism and vegan geographies. The Geographical Journal, 190(1), e12546.
  36. Radnitz C., Beezhold B., DiMatteo J. (2015). Investigation of lifestyle choices of individuals following a vegan diet for health and ethical reasons. Appetite, 90: 31-36.
  37. Schmidt di Friedberg M., dell’Agnese E. (2023). Oltre la carne?: insostenibilità alimentari, (possibili) transizioni proteiche e paesaggi del futuro. Rivista geografica italiana, 53(4), 2023, 73-90.
  38. Sedelmeier T., Kühne O., Jenal C. (2022). Foodscapes. Berlin: Springer Nature.
  39. Sexton A.E., Garnett T., Lorimer J. (2022). Vegan food geographies and the rise of Big Veganism. Progress in Human Geography, 46(2): 605-628.
  40. Simonsen R.R. (2012). A queer vegan manifesto. Journal for Critical Animal Studies, 10(3): 51-81.
  41. Twine R. (2018). Materially constituting a sustainable food transition: The case of vegan eating practice. Sociology, 52(1): 166-181.
  42. Vanolo A. (2015). The image of the creative city, eight years later: Turin, urban branding and the economic crisis taboo. Cities, 46: 1-7.
  43. Vonthron S., Perrin C., Soulard C.T. (2020). Foodscape: A scoping review and a research agenda for food security-related studies. PloS one, 15(5), e0233218.
  44. Yasmeen G. (1996). “Plastic-bag housewives” and postmodern restaurants?: Public and private in Bangkok’s foodscape. Urban Geography, 17(6): 526-544.
  45. White R.J. (2015). Animal geographies, anarchist praxis, and critical animal studies. In Gillespie K., Collard R.-C., a cura di, Critical Animal Geographies. London: Routledge.
  46. White R.J. (2018). Looking backward/moving forward: Articulating a “Yes, BUT…!” response to lifestyle veganism, and outlining post-capitalist futures in critical veganic agriculture. EuropeNow (20).
  47. White R.J. (2021). Advancing trans-species social and spatial justice through critical animal geographies. In: Hovorka A., McCubbin S., Van Patter L., a cura di, A Research Agenda for Animal Geographies. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
  48. Wrenn C.L. (2019). Black veganism and the animality politic. Society & Animals, 27(1): 127-131.
  49. Wright L., a cura di (2021). The Routledge Handbook of Vegan Studies. New York: Routledge.

Alessia Toldo, Carlo Genova, Foodscape vegani. Un’indagine esplorativa sul rapporto fra luoghi, persone e cibo a Torino in "RIVISTA GEOGRAFICA ITALIANA" 2/2025, pp 24-40, DOI: 10.3280/rgioa2-2025oa20567