C/A fandom ethnography project summary
Full project summary:
This project is an ethnographic study of the Callie_Arizona LiveJournal community. It builds on two decades of research in the subfield of fan studies, which generally consists of investigations of fans themselves, fan culture, and the artifacts fans create (which include fan fiction, fan videos, and other forms of fan art). Fan studies has emerged predominantly over the last two decades at the intersections of such fields as media, film, and television studies, English and communication, psychology and law, and has drawn on ethnographic methods. Most recently the field has been primarily concerned with advancing a general theory of media fandom, and thus has moved away from the specificity and particularity of ethnography. In this process, the fan as an actual, living person has been subsumed by a discourse that has produced much discussion on “fandom” without paying much attention to the significance of fandom and the cultural artifacts of fandom (those around which fandom congeals and those which fandom itself produces) to real people and their lived experiences.
The central goal of this project, then, is to investigate the significance of being a fan, and of fandom and its related activities, to the way in which individuals construct meaning, come to understand themselves and others, conduct relationships, and live their lives. Further, this study brings into view a population within media fandom that has largely been largely ignored by fan scholars: female slash (femslash) fandom, or fan communities dedicated to romantic and/or sexual relationships between fictional female characters. Thus, this project explores the significance of LGBTQ media representation, asking how people make sense of these characters and what role-if any-these representations play in how individuals and communities construct identities and come to terms with themselves, others, and the world more broadly.
The objective of this research is to: explore the contours and particularities of an online fan community (i.e., produce an ethnography of this particular fan culture); investigate the influence/impact of LGBTQ media representation on fans of various gender and sexual identities; and examine the significance of continued engagement with “fandom” to the lives of individual fans. This project will culminate in the production of a senior honors thesis in anthropology.
To return to the announcement on the Callie_Arizona LiveJournal Community, click here.