Virtual Communities and Imaginary Worlds a Panel Discussion at SfAA 2022

This is a livestream/recorded panel discussion at the Society for Applied Anthropology in March of 2022

Below is the information about the session. Time Stamps of when the speakers presented are next to their names.

BRESEE, Nichole (USU) Inside Online Mega Fanbases: Who’s Responsible For the #Trends That Shape Our World? 00:00 - 28:50

WYNDHAM-WEST, Michelle (OCAD U) Arts-Based Techniques, Future-Making and the Potential for Material Agency: Methodological Reflections upon Co-Design Research Addressing Older Adults and Housing Instability/Homelessness 28:50 - 57:15

KILMAN, Michael (UC Denver) Anthropology for Writers and Creatives: Why Building Better Fictional Worlds Using Social Science Can Transform the Classroom and the World 57:15 - 1:30:00

Panel Q&A 1:30:00 to End

Panel Abstracts (From the SfAA Program)

BRESEE, Nichole (USU) Inside Online Mega Fanbases: Who’s Responsible For the #Trends That Shape Our World? Recent observations suggest that large online fanbase communities, like Stan Twitters, play a role in spreading information through social media. But who joins stan (devoted fan) communities and why? What motivates their continued participation? How are members persuaded to repost the trending hashtags that shape what we hear and know in the world? Finally, how does online participation in reposting trending hashtags affect offline activism? Through participant observation within the Minecraft YouTuber Stan Twitter and interviews with members exploring these questions, this research will look into the culture and background of a stan community from an ethnographic view. [email protected]

KILMAN, Michael (UC Denver) Anthropology for Writers and Creatives: Why Building Better Fictional Worlds Using Social Science Can Transform the Classroom and the World. How we use our imagination matters. How people are represented matters. In February of 2021, Michael Kilman and Kyra Wellstrom published a commercial book and textbook version of a book called Build Better Worlds: An Introduction to Anthropology for Game Designers, Fiction Writers, and Filmmakers, in an attempt to address the numerous issues that are created by eurocentric approaches to fictional worlds. By using anthropology and fictional worldbuilding in the classroom and giving the public the tools of the anthropological lens, we can transform the way we imagine the world, and hopefully, build a better world. [email protected]

WYNDHAM-WEST, Michelle (OCAD U) Arts-Based Techniques, Future-Making and the Potential for Material Agency: Methodological Reflections upon Co-Design Research Addressing Older Adults and Housing Instability/Homelessness. Increasing housing instability/homelessness among low-income older adults in Canada underscores the need for the co-design of existing housing support models to create a preventative systems framework. Reporting upon findings of an ethnographic study using digital arts-based techniques I explore how technologies represent new forms of materialities, attending to how digital materiality and material agency allow us to see how participants imagine the futures they want through participant-created data (photos, videos, diary entries, screenshots of Pinterest posts and blogs). These data bring “recognizability” (Butler 2009: ii) to participant experiences and can inform systems re-designs, thereby acknowledging material agency’s affective capabilities.