Episode 95: Interview with Roger Yates about the need to reclaim the radical vision of veganism and destroy cultural speciesism

This week, I am pleased to present my sixth interview with the vegan sociologist Roger Yates, PhD, who has been a vegan for more than four decades. Roger’s 2005 PhD dissertation focused on the social construction of speciesism. In the 1980's, he was a Press Officer for the Animal Liberation Front, and he is currently the organizing volunteer for the Vegan Information Project, a group which he co-founded in Ireland in 2013. He also has a blog, social media, and YouTube channel, where he advocates for veganism and animal rights from an abolitionist perspective. I previously interviewed Roger for Episode 19, Episode 21, Episode 29, Episode 50, Episode 79, and Episode 88 of my show.

In this interview, Roger and I discuss how we can use anti-speciesist language in our advocacy and everyday lives. Roger also speaks about the challenges confronting the modern-day vegan movement, including welfarism, reducetarianism, the cooptation of the movement by right-wing activists, and the de-radicalization of advocacy groups, and he provides a sociological perspective on why some people become “ex-vegans”. He speaks about the revolutionary potential of the vegan ethic, the incompatibility of capitalism and veganism, and the insights we might glean from the McLibel trial of the 1990’s. Finally, Roger gives his advice for people who are interested in getting involved in vegan animal rights activism, emphasizing the need to challenge cultural speciesism as we work towards a vegan world.

Thanks very much to Roger for being a guest on the show again!

Here are some additional links, based on what we discussed in this episode:

• Roger's Vegan Time Tunnel series
• Steve Best's "Total Liberation" speech
  
• Article by Joan Dunayer about anti-speciesist language
  
• Unlearning Speciesist Language Facebook Group
• Roger Yates's and Ronnie Lee's top ten activism ideas (video)
• David Nibert's books (Animal Rights/Human Rights, Animal Oppression and Human Violence, and Animal Oppression and Capitalism)
• The Vegan Society's blog post about the "vegan coronation quiche", which we critiqued in this episode

How to listen to this episode

There are two ways you can listen to this episode.

1. Listen to the episode on CKCU FM's website at https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/553/60723.html.
   
2. Listen to or download the podcast from Archive.org at https://archive.org/details/afar-may-28-2023.
   

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Go vegan, stay vegan, and let's remember to stand up and speak up for animal rights today and every day. Thanks for listening to the show!