Graduation Year
2017
Document Type
Thesis
Degree
M.A.
Degree Name
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Degree Granting Department
Sociology
Major Professor
Graham, Laurel Ph.D.
Committee Member
Cecil Greek, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Kim Golombisky, Ph.D.
Keywords
cultural capital, conventions, performance, race, gender, popular culture
Abstract
In investigating the ways social actors experience and interact with mass media texts, I examine how cosplay, as a performative practice of identity in relation to popular culture, enables social actors to subvert and reproduce marginalization towards minority status groups. Theoretical arguments apply a constructionist framework in order to examine the participants’ meaning making processes. The study addresses the following research questions: (1) what social function does cosplay serve for participants; (2) how do cosplayers perform race and gender; (3) how do cosplayers resist, negotiate, or reinforce race and gender-based marginalization? Drawing upon qualitative data gathered from observing two large metropolitan comic book conventions and from conducting nine in-depth interviews, the author forms two arguments. First, cosplayers are capable of both subverting and reinforcing marginalization. Second, the processes of identity-making, social capital, and social cohesion that promote cultural capital in cosplay are stratified along race and gender.
Scholar Commons Citation
Ramirez, Manuel Andres, "From the Panels to the Margins: Identity, Marginalization, and Subversion in Cosplay" (2017). USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/6749
