An archive of whose own? White feminism and racial justice in fan fiction's digital infrastructure

Autor: Alexis Lothian, Mel Stanfill
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Zdroj: Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol 36 (2021)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 1941-2258
DOI: 10.3983/twc.2021.2119
Popis: In summer 2020, when the language of racial reckoning entered US and transnational public spheres following the murder of George Floyd, the contradictions of fandom's long-standing claims to progressive politics became sharply visible. An open letter with specific demands asking the fan fiction platform Archive of Our Own (AO3) to address the issue of racist content in the archive circulated widely. After offering a brief history of critiques of fannish racism, we turn to the specifics of AO3, the political commitments embedded in its systems, and how attention to racial justice could transform them. Drawing on fan fiction genres, we offer three potential models for thinking through these possibilities: a fix-it that would extend AO3's existing metadata structures; a canon divergence that would alter the makeup of the content on AO3; and an alternative universe that draws from abolitionist organizing to imagine the broadest structural changes of all.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals