Academic article mistakenly says otherkin originated in Tumblr

[frameacloud]

Content warnings: None, although it's annoying.

An article published in The Montag journal mistakenly says otherkin originated in Tumblr. Sterling Hall also argues that otherkin are based in "appropriat[ing] the struggles of transgendered [sic] people" (p. 85-88). Hall's claim appears to be based on the Gawker article that drew some of the same connections, but Hall doesn't cite it.

Hall offers no support for the claim that otherkin started on Tumblr. The otherkin community, by the strictest definition (such as the adoption of the term "otherkin"), originated in the year 1990. In the loosest definition, the community started in the 1970s. The otherkin community has always been significantly made up of people who are transgender. For more information, please see the history book that I wrote about the otherkin community.

Source

Sterling Hall, "Beyond critique: An essay on the need for a new discourse." The Montag vol 1 or 2 (March or April 2013). http://www.unr.edu/cla/ch/docs/The-Montag-Volume2.pdf

(Some parts of the volume say that it's Vol 1 from March, while other parts say it's Vol 2 from April. I'm not certain whether The Montag is technically an academic journal. It says that it is, but it doesn't look right.)

Comments

[rax.livejournal.com]

It's a collection of research by undergraduates at a specific university. So it's an academic publication of sorts, but it's kind of like a Fisher-Price My First Publication --- sometimes you'll find something truly exciting in one of those, but often it works out to a practice run for learning how to submit, revise for, and edit academic journals.

(It's also funny that while the author doesn't cite people who have done actual interesting work on disability and "transabled" bodies, they do cite Liz Grosz, who is explicitly transphobic. Well, "funny.")

[frameacloud]

Re: the type of publication. So that's what it is. Huh. I'm surprised that I haven't stumbled across one before. They didn't mention this nuance of "academic publication" in the classes that were all "here's how to judge what type of source you're looking at and whether it's reputable."

Re: Hall's sources. That explains and further complicates Hall's unfortunate phrasing that otherkin "appropriate the struggles of transgendered [sic] people." Some transgender and ally authors use the word "transgendered," with the "-ed" ending, but these days it's more often a red flag that the author's sympathies are not with transgender people.

[greenreaper.livejournal.com]

Well, if they're doing research, that's entirely appropriate. They're there to be studied, not sympathized with

[rax.livejournal.com]

Hi! This comment upset me, and I want to explain why.

On one level, research seeks to discover knowledge, and it makes sense that the primary goal of a research study would not be sympathy. However:

• When research is done on people, they are not just subjects of a study, but people allowing researchers to work with them as they live their lives entangled with the study, whether briefly or for an extended time.


• When research is done by people, they bring their perspectives and opinions to the work, even (and in some ways especially) when they try not to.


• When research is done for people, those people have ideas and preferences that guide the structure and results of the work.

I don't think all research involving trans people (or otherkin, or whatever) should be unrelentingly positive or sympathetic. As someone who's both done such research and been a subject of it, I want research to cast light on my identity and community, and sometimes the things that light will expose are not pretty. However, I also want research to recognize me and all people as living entities with agency and feelings and responses to things, and not treat anyone as solely a rhetorical tool for making some point. I think Hall mobilizes transness this way --- as a socially acceptable category of oppressed person against which to compare socially unacceptable or "fake" categories such as otherkin --- without thinking through what this means for trans people as we live our lives, let alone what it means to trans otherkin. People are not anywhere solely to be studied; sometimes being studied is a thing that happens to us as people. Disregarding that, I think, is perilous, whether you have a research philosophy like mine of "be a part of the research and acknowledge that imbrication in the work" or whether you're trying to be as close to objective as possible.

[greenreaper.livejournal.com]

Those are all fair points. Honestly, I was a little.tired and grouchy when I wrote the comment above. :-)

I'm on the advisory board for the Anthropomorphic Research Project (https://sites.google.com/site/anthropomorphicresearch/), so I know what you're getting at - they take great concern over how/whether their research will impact their subjects (although their IRB cares about quite different things than the furries do).

And certainly, there can be a personal motivation - one of the members of the research team (a PhD candidate) is also a furry, and I'm sure he cares quite deeply about whether the various stereotypes being bandied about are true or not.

Science is in large part about making a thesis and trying to prove or disprove it. It can be tricky to do this without appearing to "use" research subjects to prove a point. But the best scientists manage it; and it's always possible to present your research in a compassionate manner without affecting the validity of the underlying findings.

[rax.livejournal.com]

Makes sense to me. I would add that not all research is science, as science is not the only and not always the best method of knowledge production available to us. :)