Overcoming (vegan) burnout: Mass-gatherings can provide respite and rekindle shared identity and social action efforts in moralised minority groups

Moralised minority actors can play important roles in social change processes by rejecting majority social norms and modelling alternative societal pathways. However, being a minority actor can be difficult, often resulting in stigma, derogation and hostility from the majority group. For actions intrinsically linked with daily life (e.g. eating), such obstacles might become so great that individuals acting alone experience ‘activist burnout’ and social isolation, and may stop pursuing social change altogether. Event-based interventions are a promising avenue for ameliorating these negative consequences and maintaining minority-driven social change, yet have not been thoroughly examined. Through on-site field interviews (N=20), we explore how an identity-centring event (‘The Vegan Campout’), acts to validate and empower a minority group (vegans) seeking social change. We show how the event functioned as a space where vegan identity, food and action was centred and celebrated, in stark contrast to vegans’ experiences of a majority-meat eating society, where they often experienced negativity. Experiencing a “temporary social majority” context provided important respite for vegans to gain strength, ‘rekindle’ their vegan identities and (re)affirm their commitment to activism. Our findings provide insight into the benefits of identity-centring events for sustaining social change efforts among moralised minority groups.