Playing With the Autoethnographical

Abstract

My article is premised on seeking to 'show' rather than 'tell' (Denzin, 2010;Ellis, 2004Ellis, , 2009). In particular, my aim is to show fandom as performative, affective and varying in intensities, rather than tell through potentially reductive over-analysis and theoretical abstraction. My own traversing of the autoethnographic terrain has entailed a spectrum of affective registries; works have resonated, inspired, challenged, provoked, agitated, enlightened and frustrated me, often simultaneously within the same text. Holman Jones, Adams and Ellis (2013a) note that "autoethnography creates a space for a turn, a change, a reconsideration of how we think, how we do research and relationships" (p. 21), with a salient aspiration characteristic of autoethnography steering towards "creating a reciprocal relationship with audiences in order to compel a response" (p. 22). Moreover, Ellis and Bochner (2006) intimate that autoethnography aims to be "unruly, dangerous, vulnerable, rebellious, and creative" (p. 433) as a mode of inquiry, with these often explicitly 'messy' texts designed to provoke readers, to question, to (re)think, and potentially to act by being

Funko Hannibal in Florence: Fan Tourism, Participatory Culture, and Paratextual Play

“…Similarly, Andrew Sparkes (2003) notes the importance of the 'narrative turn' which acknowledges that 'writing is a method of inquiry, a way of knowing, a method of discovery and analysis ' (2003, 60). Autoethnography has often been employed within studies of fan identities and practices to explore 'the challenges and contradictions that shape the research experience as the individual moves within and between academic and, […] fan-audience modes of engagement' (Monaco 2010; see Driessen and Jones 2016, Fiske 1990, Garner 2018, Hills 2002, Sturm 2015.…”