Human* Being : On Otherkin Identity and Digital Community
Human* Being : On Otherkin Identity and Digital Community
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Author(s): Proctor, Devin
ISBN No.: 9781643151038
Pages: 275
Year: 202608
Format: Trade Paper
Price: $ 34.99
Dispatch delay: Dispatched between 7 to 15 days
Status: Available (Forthcoming)

Human* Being: On Otherkin Identity and Digital Community is an ethnographic exploration of the Otherkin--a technologically-mediated community of practice whose members identify as other-than-human--breaking down barriers of identity and calling into question assumptions about what it means to be a human. Based on a decade of ethnographic research, Human* Being examines Otherkin engagement with the techno-virtuality afforded by the internet--through chat forums, personal blogs, 3D virtual worlds, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, Discord, TikTok, and Reddit--troubling conventional notions about our relationships with the virtual and our understandings of the Self. The Otherkin represent a larger shift in body identity, shown by increasing numbers of people identifying as trans, nonbinary, fluid, and neurodiverse; bodies open to nuance, complication, and multiplicity. Devin Proctor closely examines internal community debates about the limits of non-human identity, avatar creation practices in virtual worlds to approximate inner realities, and the policing of identity constructs toward a stable definition of the phenomenon. However anomalistic, even fantastical they may seem, the Otherkin offer a window into our own complex notions of bodies, Selves, and technologies.


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