Veganism and Religion: Interviews, diaries, and field notes exploring the understandings and experiences of faith vegans in the UK during 2021

This archive contains files containing data and documentation from the ESRC funded studentship “Faith Veganism: How the Ethics, Values, and Principles of UK-Based Muslim, Jewish, and Christian Vegans Reshape Veganism and Religiosity” (Ref: ES/P000673/1).
1.	Data Files
Data files are divided into three folders representing each of the data collection methods:
•	Interview_Transcripts.zip
•	Diary_Transcripts.zip
•	VPO_Field_Notes.zip
Information about each data file within each of these folders is documented in Data_List.xlsx.
Interview Transcripts
The data files contained within the ‘Interview_Transcripts.zip’ folder include 36 interview transcripts conducted with all of the faith vegan participants in this study. Additionally, there is an extra document entitled ‘Religious_Identity_Follow_Up_Question_Muslims.rtf’ which lists the answers to a follow-up question that I emailed to Muslim participants after the interviews. The same question was posed to Jewish and Christian participants during their interviews. The interviews were semi-structured and exploratory, drawing on the interview guides listed below and conducted online via Microsoft Teams or Zoom. Pseudonyms are applied to all participants and identifying information has been redacted.
Related Files:
•	InterviewGuide_Christians.rtf
•	InterviewGuide_Jews.rtf
•	InterviewGuide_Muslims.rtf
Diary Transcripts
The data files contained within the ‘Diary_Transcripts.zip’ folder include the transcripts of the social media-based diary groups set up for data collection purposes. There are eight such files representing the Facebook group for Muslim participants (1x .rtf file), the WhatsApp group for Muslim participants (1x .docx file and 1x .pdf file, both of which are the same), the WhatsApp group for Jewish participants (1x .docx file and 1x .pdf file, both of which are the same), and the WhatsApp group for Christian participants which is split across three documents representing two separate timeframes, the first covering the initial diary period which ran over the summer (1x .docx file and 1x .pdf file, both of which are the same), and the second covering the second diary period which ran over the Christmas period (1x .rtf file). Three of the WhatsApp diary transcripts had such a large file size that it was not possible to convert them to .rtf files so I have instead offered two options: the original .docx file and a PDF/A compliant file. Additionally in this folder, there are some documents that participants sent to me privately, including a private diary, a series of reflections providing additional context, and four meal diaries. The diary groups were conducted via social media. In the pilot study with Muslim participants, I trialled a closed Facebook group and a private WhatsApp group, but in the second study with Jewish and Christian participants, I only set up private WhatsApp groups. I gave all participants guidelines before launching the groups, see the related files below. Pseudonyms are applied to all participants and identifying information has been redacted.
Related Files:
•	DiaryGuidelines_Muslims.rtf
•	GroupGuidelines_Muslims.rtf
•	Meal_Diary_Template.rtf
•	OnlineGroupandDiaryGuidelines_Christians.rtf
•	OnlineGroupandDiaryGuidelines_Jews.rtf
Virtual Participant Observation Field Notes
The data files contained within the ‘VPO_Field_Notes.zip’ folder include six sets of field notes relating to six separate virtual participant observation calls which were conducted with two Muslim participants, two Jewish participants, and two Christian participants. Calls were conducted online via Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or WhatsApp video call and participants were briefed both via the respective Participant Information Sheet and in the diary groups what they could do. Calls included either a cooking demonstration, a tour of the kitchen, or in some cases both. Pseudonyms are applied to all participants and identifying information has been redacted.
2.	Documentation Files
The documentation files are organised as follows:
•	Documentation_Data_Collection.zip
•	Documentation_Ethical_Consent.zip
Data Collection
DiaryGuidelines_Muslims.rtf
These guidelines were shared with Muslim participants before they joined the diary groups in order to give them an understanding of the types of diary entries and content they should share in the diary groups.
GroupGuidelines_Muslims.rtf
These guidelines were shared with Muslim participants before they joined the diary groups in order to set their expectations of what participation involved and to establish some housekeeping rules.
InterviewGuide_Christians.rtf
This guide was used by the researcher when conducting semi-structured interviews with the Christian participants.
InterviewGuide_Jews.rtf
This guide was used by the researcher when conducting semi-structured interviews with the Jewish participants.
InterviewGuide_Muslims.rtf
This guide was used by the researcher when conducting semi-structured interviews with the Muslims participants.
Meal_Diary_Template.rtf
This meal diary template was shared with all participants when they joined their respective diary group, should they wish to complete it as part of their diary keeping.
OnlineGroupandDiaryGuidelines_Christians.rtf
These guidelines were shared with Christian participants before they joined the diary group in order to give them an understanding of the types of diary entries and content they should share in the diary group, as well as set their expectations of what participation involved and to establish some housekeeping rules.
OnlineGroupandDiaryGuidelines_Jews.rtf
These guidelines were shared with Jewish participants before they joined the diary group in order to give them an understanding of the types of diary entries and content they should share in the diary group, as well as set their expectations of what participation involved and to establish some housekeeping rules.
Ethical Consent
ParticipantInformationSheet_Christians.rtf
This sheet (26 May 2021 version 1) provided information to Christian participants about the research project and accompanied the consent form (below).
ParticipantInformationSheet_Jews.rtf
This sheet (26 May 2021 version 1) provided information to Jewish participants about the research project and accompanied the consent form (below).
ConsentForm_JewsandChristians.rtf
This form (26 May 2021 version 1) accompanied the participant information sheets (above) and was completed by both Jewish and Christian participants before participating in any form of data collection.
ParticipantInformationSheet_Muslims.rtf
This sheet (16 March 2021 version 3) provided information to Muslim participants about the research project and accompanied the consent form (below).
ConsentForm_Muslims.rtf
This form (16 March 2021 version 3) accompanied the participant information sheet (above) and was completed by Muslim participants before participating in any form of data collection.
ParticipantInformationSheet_Muslims_AdditionofVirtualParticipantObservation.rtf
This sheet (22 June 2021 version 2) provided information to Muslim participants about the virtual participant observation element of the research project and accompanied the consent form (below). The reason this is separate to the above participant information sheet for Muslims is because I decided to add a third data collection method (virtual participant observation) later in the study and after the pilot study with Muslims had begun.
ConsentForm_Muslims_AdditionofVirtualParticipantObservation.rtf
This form (22 June 2021 version 2) accompanied the participant information sheet (above) and was completed by the two Muslim participants who engaged in virtual participant observation before such data collection took place.