Fan studies and/as feminist methodology

Briony Hannell

doi:10.3983/twc.2020.1689

Abstract

Feminist cultural studies and feminist theory in genealogies of fan studies are taken for granted. However, the implications of feminist methodological and epistemological frameworks within discussions of fan studies methodology are more often inferred than directly stated—or cited. Examining the parallel debates taking place around knowledge, power, and reflexivity within feminist theory, feminist cultural studies, and fan studies illustrates how key methodological approaches within fan studies are deeply grounded in feminist epistemology and ontology. Building on theorizations of the dual positionality of the acafan alongside feminist theorizations of self-reflexivity permits an exploration of how acafandom aligns with feminist methodological frameworks regarding researcher fragmentation and reflexivity. Emotion and affect are important concerns for acafan scholarship to address, as they align fan studies with feminist traditions of personal and autobiographical writing that privilege subjectivity as a legitimate source of knowledge. Explicitly reframing fan studies within this theoretical and methodological context augments the understanding of many of the fundamental beliefs and principles underpinning the production of knowledge within fan studies, and helps refine the critical language used to frame and describe scholarly methodologies.

Highlights

[0.3] Most of the academic work we see and read is the end product of a long process, but we rarely have any understanding of this process
Fan studies is itself characterized by a rather eclectic range of research methods, and yet our scholarship seems to be governed by a common sense understanding of a certain methodological orientation to the research process, often in line with the tradition established in Textual Poachers (Jenkins 1992)—a tradition which, I argue, was built upon feminist methodologies emerging from feminist cultural studies
I examine a number of parallel debates taking place within feminist cultural studies, feminist theory, and fan studies regarding questions of subjectivity, hierarchy, and reflexivity to reveal how fan studies is deeply grounded in feminist methodological frameworks and in feminist epistemology and ontology

Summary

Introduction

[1.1] While the feminist valences of fan culture have been widely explored by fan studies scholars over the past three decades, through examinations of fannish practice as a form of social and cultural critique (e.g., Bury 2005; Busse 2005; Coppa 2008, 2011, 2014; Derecho 2006; Hellekson and Busse 2006, 2014; Jenkins et al 2016; Lothian 2012; Lothian, Busse, and Reid 2007; Russo and Ng 2017; Warner 2015; Wills 2013), the feminist methodological and epistemological underpinnings of the methods used to examine these very cultures and practices are often inferred but not explicitly stated or cited. [2.6] What is most significant here is Jenkins's admission that, while highly influential, the work of feminist cultural studies scholars produced during the 1980s was often not explicitly cited by early fandom scholars in the 1990s What impact have these citational silences had on the stories we tell about the origins of fan studies and the development of our methodological frameworks? Jenkins's (1992) rejection of the object/subject binary, his insistence on situating himself within the research process, and his critical self-reflection align Textual Poachers, as a canonical text within fan studies, with feminist methodological frameworks regarding researcher reflexivity. The concept of acafandom, I argue, is deeply underpinned by feminist methodological frameworks regarding self-reflexivity, and the figure of the acafan exists in dialogue with that of the fragmented feminist researcher

Up close and personal

Conclusion