"I Love It, I Love It So Much": Intensities, Learning, and Power in Cosplaying Interactions

• In Event: Learning From Arts-Centered Communities: Possibilities for Educational Justice and Organizational Transformation

Abstract

Many have noted the unique collective affective intensities and materialities that emerge as cosplayers—those who embody characters through costuming—converge at conventions: “The desire for community makes cosplaying an embodied form of social networking, where likes and desires are inscribed onto the body itself (rather than a virtual space) making the cosplayers themselves a medium” (Norris & Bainbridge, 2013, p. 15). Cosplaying groups are often lauded for exemplifying inclusive communities of practice (Hale, 2014), and researchers encourage educators to look to cosplaying communities for models of positive engagement in learning (Bender, 2017).
However, though the ontogenetic and sociogenetic process of cosplayers participating in communities of practice have gathered growing interest, there has been less research on microgenetic processes, or the “history of moment-to-moment lived experience” (Cole & Engeström, 1997, p. 21) of specific cosplay interactions and how learning happens within these affectively charged moments. As Saxe and Esmonde (2005) argue, coupling sociogenetic and ontogenetic with microgenetic models provides a better framework for understanding shifts in collective activities over time. To recommend ways educational institutions could foster these embodied experiences, we must examine individual and community practices in conjunction with local activity negotiation.
This study will examine particular place-events where learning occurs in practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991), intertwined with concurrently developed goals and identities (Nasir, 2002). These moments are situated in larger individual trajectories and sociohistorical practices, aligning with Pink’s (2011) theory of emplacement, which “recognize[s] both the specificity and intensity of the place event and its contingencies, but also the historicity of processes and their entanglements” (Pink, 2011, p. 354).
The study focuses on one queer young woman’s experiences within a group of amateur cosplayers, following the group’s interactions with other fans during a day of New York Comic Con (NYCC) 2018. GoPro (1st person) and hand-held (3rd person) video data was collected throughout cosplaying experience at the convention center. Using multimodal interaction (Goodwin, 2010) and sociopolitical (Nasir, 2013) analysis, video data was annotated for moments of affective intensity, with attention to how the focal group’s dynamic goals and identities were co-constructed within and across micro-interactions and how power was negotiated across group interactions.
Drawing from and furthering Nasir’s (2002) framework, learning was evidenced by the ongoing negotiations of practice-linked and literary goals, such as communal efforts to travel in a way that maximized interactions around fan texts (TV shows, cartoons, podcasts) with other attendees, and imaginative play, like creating spontaneous fandom crossovers based on cosplays or considering alternate configurations of group costumes. Micro-interactions also evidenced learning through shifts in affective engagement and fandom alignment based on embodied positioning with other fans during photo-ops, including micro-shifts between fan and character embodiment. These microgenetic negotiations and shifts were inextricably shaped by the larger political (sociogenetic) and personal (ontogenetic) fan practices and identities around particulate texts, including fan discourses around LGBTQIA+ identities. Negotiating power among cosplaying groups during these micro-interactions emerged as a key concern, especially regarding the bonding and bridging capital (Putnam, 2000) afforded by participants’ experiences with canonical and fandom texts.

Author

• Karis Michelle Jones, Hobart and William Smith Colleges