Episode 14: Sociologist Dr. Corey Lee Wrenn discusses the impact of professionalization within the animal rights movement

For AFAR’s first episode of 2020, I am pleased to present Part One of my recent interview with Dr. Corey Lee Wrenn, Lecturer of Sociology at the University of Kent. As a sociologist, Corey studies the animal rights movement and the status of nonhuman animals in human society. She is the author of A Rational Approach to Animal Rights: Extensions in Abolitionist Theory (published in 2016) and Piecemeal Protest: Animal Rights in the Age of Nonprofits (published in December 2019). She has written more than thirty academic peer-reviewed journal articles (all of which are available to read for free online here) about the effectiveness of social movement tactics, and she is also the founder of the Vegan Feminist Network.

In Part One of our interview, Corey explains how professionalized animal advocacy nonprofits ignore and suppress the radical, abolitionist vegan message, and how this “watering down” of the vegan message is harmful to our movement. Corey also tells me what form of activism she believes will be the most effective, based on her research.

I believe it’s crucial for us, as activists, to understand how the vegan and animal rights movements are “selling out” to mainstream interests so that we can resist the pressure to soften our message. Instead, we must make the conscious decision to keep our messaging honest, abolitionist, and radical.

How to listen to this episode

There are two ways to listen to the episode.

1. Listen to the episode on CKCU FM's website at https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/553/46458.html.
2.  Listen to the episode on Archive.org or download the MP3 file at https://archive.org/details/afarjanuary82020.

You can also find Always for Animal Rights on Facebook and Instagram!

The next episode of Always for Animal Rights will be broadcast on CKCU 93.1 FM in Ottawa on Wednesday, January 22nd, 2019-- and, of course, it will be available to listen to afterwards, as well.