”Let´s Party!” : Harry Potter fan fiction sites as social settings for narrative gender constructions

• Online communication is often presented in research as offering ways for youngpeople to explore various forms of masculinity and femininity, which, in turn,could extend the notions of gendered identity. This paper explores how a HarryPotter fan fiction website can function as an online setting for gender identityconstruction among young fans. A positioning analysis of a small story told inan Internet Relay Chat (IRC) shows that although traditional gendered subjectpositions are explored and troubled in the story and its telling, heteronormativityprevails through the interpretative repertoires made available by the textualuniverse of Harry Potter. On the other hand, the positioning analysis of the smallstory activates an understanding of the interplay between the relational orderamong story characters and among the storytellers that can be seen as openingup a space between what is the told and the telling that allows the fans to experimentwith aspects of gender identities that are related to power and controlwithin an interpretative repertoire of heteronormativity.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Genusstudier (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Gender Studies (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

fan fiction; gender construction; narrative; subject position

Pedagogik

Education

Genusvetenskap

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)