ANGLIA RUSKIN UNIVERSITY IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION IN THE FURRY FANDOM JESSICA RUTH AUSTIN A dissertation in fulfilment of the requirements of Anglia Ruskin University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Submitted: September 2018 Acknowledgments I would like to begin this acknowledgment by thanking my primary supervisor Prof. Patricia MacCormack for her constant help over the course of this PhD. She encouraged me with my studies and supported me emotionally along the process as well. I would like to thank Prof. Farah Mendlesohn for being my secondary supervisor for the first year of my study and Dr. Marieke Jenner for supervising me in the final stages of my PhD. Thank you both for helping me get this thesis finished! I would like to thank the Norwich French Church for providing me with an educational grant in my first year of study. I would also like to thank Anglia Ruskin University for providing me with two separate grants over the course of my studies. I would like to thank the Anglia Ruskin student body for electing me as their postgraduate research representative in 2015/16 and also for the 2017/2018 year. I would like to extend my gratitude to Julie Scott, Michael McMillian and all the other members of the Research Ethics Sub-Committee. Serving on the board this year has helped bolster the ethical framework in this thesis and also helped improve my academic CV. I would like to thank my friends, in no particular order, Paolo Albertella, Jackie Braithwaite, Liam Davison, Rebecca Herod, Chris Hayward, Abi Miller, Leo Rogers, Holly Chatburn, Natasha Banks, Dr. Charles Seger, Victoria Rawlins, Laura Webster, Kerri Notman, Charlotte Jackson, Hayley Boyden, Laura Mitchell, Ryan Hase, Stuart Fallas, Jane Fallas, Teresa Martin, Henryk Haniewicz, James Higgins, Will Turner. You have all been amazing in supporting me over the last three years and I could not have done it without you. I would like to specifically thank friends who have helped me with the academic side of this journey. Thank you to Dr. William Proctor, thank you for giving me advice over the last three years, for sending me academic articles you find interesting, putting me forward for academic work which has improved my CV exponentially, and playing devil’s advocate with i me when I have needed it! Thank you to Dr. Tom Phillips and Dr. Richard McCulloch for organising the Fan Studies Network Conference where I have been lucky enough to present twice. Without this conference and the community I found within I would have found this project much more difficult. I would also like to extend a special thanks to one of my best friends, Dr. Darren Burns. Thank you for helping me understand statistics which I was able to put to good use in this essay, and thanks for never hanging up on me when I would ring you with banal academic questions! To my family, words can never express how much I owe to you all. I hope acknowledgement here will suffice! Thank you to the Nash side of the family - Yvette Nash, Sam Cooper, Jack Nash, Declan Nash and Breda Nash. I am so happy that you came into my life and although we are bonded through marriage it feels more like kin. Pleased to also have Leo Nash in my life, can’t wait to watch him grow up and get his own PhD! Thank you to the Brooks side of the family – Alicia Austin-Brooks, Barb Brooks, Steve Brooks, Aiden Austin- Brooks and Adelaide Austin-Brooks. Thank you for providing support from across the ocean! To the Day family, Christine Day, Michael Day and Harry Day, although we have only known each other for two years I consider you as family; thank you for providing support and regular Sunday dinners! And to the Sharman’s, Shelley and Paul, I am so excited for how that side of the family is growing, thank you both for including me and always being on the other side of the phone when I needed it. Also, thank you Theo Austin for all the emotional support and love over the last 12 years. To Edward Day, thank you for supporting me through this process, you have kept me smiling and always been there to calm me down when I get too stressed. Thank you for being happy to listen to me ranting about whatever academic issue I have had. I’m looking forward to celebrating the completion of this PhD with you, and many more accomplishments to come. ii To Ellie Nash, thank you for being an incredible sister and always being there for me. The countless times you have listened to my nonsense either over the phone or in person, the countless gifts and surprises not just over the last three years but over my life has been greatly appreciated! To Robert Austin, thank you for being an amazing brother who I can talk about all things ‘nerdy’ with. Being able to talk to you about all the topics within this thesis certainly helped the clarity in the next 200 or so pages! To Ian Nash, you are more than my brother in law, you are my family. Thank you for constantly making me laugh, pushing me to do better, and helping me with work experience. I hope to continue to make you proud of the woman I have become. I would like to finish by acknowledging the most instrumental people, not just in this PhD journey, but also in my life, my parents David and Stephanie Austin. Dad, thank for always being on call to be my plumber, my car mechanic, my private driver, my life guru and all the other jobs you don’t have to do for me but do anyway. You inspired me to do better, even if sometimes it was just to beat you in arguments over the Sunday lunch dinner table! Mum, without your constant unwavering support I would not have even got to applying for a PhD. You have never ever given up on me and although I know you have always been proud of me, I hope this makes you even prouder! This thesis is dedicated to you, my incredible mother. iii ANGLIA RUSKIN UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF ARTS, LAW AND SOCIAL SCIENCES ABSTRACT IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION IN THE FURRY FANDOM JESSICA AUSTIN September 2018 Furries are a fandom that has been developing away from the public eye and yet has appeared in a negative way in many media representations. So private are many Furry communities that many people would not know what a furry was if you were to ask them. Although definition can vary, to be a Furry, a person identifies with an animal as part of their personality; this can be on a mystical/religious level or a psychological level. Some Furries see themselves as being something other than wholly human with a personality which encompasses both animal and human traits. This is not entirely a new concept as many cultures such as Indigenous Australians and Native Americans and others engage some form of animal identity, and in both English and Japanese folklore, there are tales of people who really are animals. However, in modern Western society having a spirit animal or animal identity can sometimes be framed by others as social deviance rather than religious or totemic diversity. This thesis investigates how Furries use the online space to create a ‘Furry identity’. This thesis argues that for highly identified Furries, posthumanism is an appropriate framework to use. For less identified Furries, who are more akin to fans, fan studies literature is used to conceptualise their identity construction. This thesis addresses how stigmatization has affected their identity construction and how intra-fandom stigmatization has caused tension within the fandom between different members. The data for this thesis was collected using mixed methods via a questionnaire online which received over a thousand responses from Furries in the online Reddit community. The data was evaluated using posthuman philosophy using theorists such as Deleuze, Guattari and Haraway. This project argues that the Furries are not a homogenous group and with varying levels of identification within the fandom. The purpose of this project is to show that negative media representations of the Furry Fandom have wrongly pathologized the Furries as deviants as opposed to fans. Key words: fandom, Furry Fandom, fan studies, posthuman, online communities iv Table of Contents ANGLIA RUSKIN UNIVERSITY ...................................................................... 1 Acknowledgments .................................................................................................. i ABSTRACT ......................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents .................................................................................................. v Copyright Declaration ....................................................................................... viii List of Figures ...................................................................................................... ix Glossary............................................................................................................. xiii Anthropomorphics ......................................................................................................................................... xiii Fursona ........................................................................................................................................................... xiii Fursuits ........................................................................................................................................................... xiii Fur Meets ....................................................................................................................................................... xiv Yiff .................................................................................................................................................................