[research] Thoughts after TE, part 2: Kristina Busse's keynote, gendered science, money in fandom

[unjapanologist]

Quick recap: Kristina Busse's keynote "Affect and the individual fan" was given at the Textual Echoes conference and can be viewed in its entirety online.

Comments

[cathexys]

I kinda agree with your caveat on the gift economy, but on the whole, i still think it's more true than not at least in Western fandoms. And even in Japan, i've had some passionate debates with folks who disagreed with DeKosnik's essay in Cinema Journal's In Focus Feminism and Fandom where she made a similar argument. The question to me is whether people are making "a living" or whether the monetary exchange has more of a pro forma gesture.

Plus, of course, gift economy and paying it forward is certainly not restricted to heavily-female Western media fandoms (though it is gendered in many ways nonetheless)

[unjapanologist]

The question to me is whether people are making "a living" or whether the monetary exchange has more of a pro forma gesture.

I certainly do believe it's a pro forma gesture in the vast majority of cases. In Japan, even the 'locust circles' who jump from fandom to newer and more popular fandom because they're following the money (rather than because they want to participate in a 'gift culture' based on shared likes) rarely earn huge amounts of money, though some do make a living. There's a tremendous and not unjustified fear of getting slapped with a lawsuit if a dojinshi becomes too popular. Several dojinshika have indeed gotten into legal trouble over making too much money. I often get the impression that Japanese creators are far more wary of potential trouble than creators in English-language fandom, and with reason. De Kosnik's argument probably wouldn't fly for a lot of people there, I can definitely imagine that.

That link seems to go elsewhere, but this is the article, right? I do agree with most of De Kosnik's points. I'm

[cathexys]

The link should be the open PDF (you know how I feel about locked contents :)

I just think it may not be as simple as huge profit vs gift culture, that the tywo might not be as easily separatable after all...

[unjapanologist]

Agreed. A total separation is just not what the situation on the ground is, and there never will be nor should be total separation. That's why the non-fannish people who go "See, you're exchanging money, now you must get off your high horse about the so-called value of fanworks" make me mad. That kind of attitude could be interpreted as silencing or devaluing by denying economic returns for labour.

The link takes me to a PDF that doesn't seem to contain anything by De Kosnik, or am I missing something totally obvious again? With you on locked contents, but I try to whine about them only once per post ;)