“Cosplay”: Imaginative Self and Performing Identity

Abstract

This study examines the emerging cosplay subculture in Hong Kong.. A quasi-ethnographic approach including participation, observation., photography, and in-depth interviews was employed to understand the underlying motives and experiences of those engaged in cosplay activities. Authenticity, affective attachment, the extended self, and the negotiation of boundaries are also discussed in this article. From this study, it is evident that cosplay can give participants pleasurable experiences, meaningful memories, self-gratification, and personal fulfillment. Through this participatory activity, cosplayers can momentarily 318 Osmud Rahman, üu Wing-sun and Brittany iHei-man Cheung escape from reality and enter into their imaginative world. It is a form of role/identity-transformation from an "ordinary person" to a "super hero," from a "game player" to a "performer," and from "adulthood" to "childhood."

Service brand and customer attire: a genetic algorithm approach

“…this symbolic dimension of material objects plays an important role for the owner's identity'. In other words, the role of clothing could play a significant part in forming and reflecting an individual's self (Rahman, Liu, & Cheung, 2012). Thus, it is reasonable to suggest that if *Corresponding author.…”

Dump it out! An enquiry into consumers’ everyday fashion discourses through handbag

“…artists) and consumers (i.e., passersby) through the display of public artefacts. Apart from studying mainstream culture, fashion researchers also pay attention to particular dressing styles and identity formation among subcultural groups such as lolita (Rahman et al 2011), hip hop style (Saucier 2011) and cosplay (Rahman et al 2012). …”

“…An interpretive perspective is one of the favourite approaches of researchers who are concerned about 'the social production process of the belief in fashion which exists in people's minds, and which begins to have a substance and life of its own' (Kawamura 2005: 1). As a domain of studying material culture, numerous of fruitful studies have borrowed theoretical and methodological tools from this trajectory, resulting in a substantial body of literature concerning fashion consumption or collection practices (Cwerner 2001;Jones 2012;Özlem and Ger 2010), identity projects within the field of fashion (Green 2009;Parmentier and Fischer 2011;Rocamora 2011), the appropriation of fashion ideology and meanings in everyday life (Grove-White 2001; Thompson and Haytko 1997;Saucier 2011), ethnic or subcultural groups with a particular fashion style (Margiotti 2013;Rahman et al 2011Rahman et al , 2012, the spread of fashion ideology through advertising and marketing practices (Balasescu 2005;Joy et al 2012;Phillips and McQuarrie 2010), and the relationship between the aesthetic body and fashion Venkatesh et al 2010;Wilson 1992).…”

Re-Fashioning Kimono: How to Make 'Traditional' Clothes for Postmodern Japan

“…Th e term 'cosplay' ('kosupure' in Japanese) is an amalgamation of 'costume' and 'play', and usually refers to the practice of dressing in the clothing of a manga, anime, video game or movie character, and role-playing that character (Daliot-Bul 2009, 367). But more recent defi nitions are wider, with the important characteristics of cosplay being temporary transformation; the display of attire to an audience that can include the general public; and the asobi, or "play" element, as opposed to wearing a uniform for work (Rahman et al 2012).…”