{"id":17383,"date":"2013-10-24T23:28:45","date_gmt":"2013-10-25T03:28:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/?p=17383"},"modified":"2013-10-24T23:30:37","modified_gmt":"2013-10-25T03:30:37","slug":"resistance-appropriation-more-appropriation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/2013\/10\/24\/resistance-appropriation-more-appropriation\/","title":{"rendered":"Resistance + Appropriation, + More Appropriation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The words you use to reference that fish matter.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This is just a very, very quick post, as I am presently in the thick of #ir14<\/a>\u2014the 14th<\/sup> Annual Conference<\/a> of the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR<\/a>). It\u2019s my first time at IR, and so far I\u2019m really enjoying it. The keynote, preconference workshops, plenaries, and sessions I\u2019ve attended have been great, and the hashtag-stream quality is high (there are some talented livetweeters here, and plenty of hashtag socialization too). Since it\u2019s not a disciplinary conference, everyone is here because they really want<\/i> to be here\u2014which you can feel in the general atmosphere, and which makes such a difference. From my barely-informed new member perspective, it really does seem as though AoIR has managed to roll a thought-provoking academic conference and a fun reunion party into one four-day long event (which, as a Theorizing the Web<\/a> committee member, is obviously a project near and dear to my heart).<\/p>\n

TL;DR: #ir14, I love you. And I\u2019m bringing attention to the following critique not to be a jerk, but because I think you\u2019re great and I know you\u2014we\u2014can do better.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When I picked up my conference badge yesterday during the break between preconference workshops, there were two things I noticed about it. The first was that it came pre-printed with my Twitter handle\u2014yay! I love when conferences do that (even if I had to edit mine, because I registered for #ir14 before I changed my Twitter username<\/a>). The second was that there was a sticker on it, a little cartoon fish. \u201cWhat\u2019s the sticker for?\u201d I asked the volunteers at the registration table. One of them speculated that it had something to do with meal preferences for the closing banquet (perhaps the fish\u2019s greenness indicated that I\u2019m vegetarian?), and the other said the meaning of the stickers would be explained later. Okay, that\u2019s cool\u2014I like fish.<\/p>\n

That afternoon, someone in my second preconference workshop (who is not a first-time attendee) speculated that the stickers would have something to do with some kind of \u201cforced socialization\u201d\u2014though she wasn\u2019t sure what. Some of us joked about different ways to hack the exercise, whatever it might turn out to be.<\/p>\n

\"That's<\/a>
That’s (one of) my fish.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We got our answers in the announcements before Gabriella Coleman\u2019s<\/a> (awesome) keynote. Somewhere in the crowd at #ir14, each of us would find three others with identical creature stickers on their nametags. In order to encourage conference attendees to mix, mingle, and meet each other, the first set of four to find each other and present themselves to the organizers would be awarded drink tickets as a prize. I\u2019m sure to some people, this was unbearably cheesy and dorky\u2014but as a brand new member, I appreciated the effort to encourage contact between veteran members having a long-awaited reunion moment and less senior members hoping to make new connections. I also appreciated what a silly sticker game signaled (to me) about the overall culture of #ir14: that we are here to be smart, but not to take ourselves Too Seriously; that I should relax, because this is supposed to be fun. Don\u2019t worry about keeping up your perfect professional fa\u00e7ade, kid; look! Researchers you admire are marked with cartoon creatures and hunting for drink tickets. (It seemed perfectly in character for a conference that, as it turns out, has a tradition of post-reception karaoke. No, really.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

If I was into the idea of the game, though, why was I feeling so uneasy in the moments after the stickers\u2019 purpose had been revealed? It wasn\u2019t the game, but how the game was explained\u2014specifically, the moment in which we were told to look at our nametags and find the stickers:<\/p>\n

\u201cThat animal is your spirit animal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Screeeeeeeeeeeech<\/i>, went the vinyl record in my head.<\/p>\n

A lot of the room was laughing, but I felt distinctly uncomfortable; I\u2019d been under the impression that \u201cspirit animal\u201d isn\u2019t a term to toss around lightly. Sure, I\u2019ve long seen it used in dumb Internet quizzes and on sarcastic bumper stickers and in flippant everyday speech, but the \u201cspirit animal\u201d concept also holds significant meaning for some Native American cultures and for shamanic religions.\u00a0 The theme of #ir14 is \u201cResistance + Appropriation\u201d; shouldn\u2019t we maybe not<\/i> further the appropriation of marginalized groups\u2019 cultures by appropriating parts of those cultures ourselves?<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/beeblefish\/statuses\/393171350636199936<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the vast majority of attendees tweeting on the #ir14 hashtag\u00a0took up the term uncritically<\/a>. \u201cMy spirit animal is ________, anyone else?\u201d tweets filled my conference timeline, even throughout the keynote speech. Full disclosure: my own response wasn\u2019t much better; rather than speak up about why using \u201cspirit animal\u201d for this game wasn\u2019t a great idea, I simply used different language to ask around for other green cartoon fishes. I saw exactly one tweet that contested these uses of “spirit animal,” which I\u2019ve pasted in above. (Note: there may have been other tweets highlighting this issue that I missed while livetweeting the keynote; I ran a few searches, but I know Twitter\u2019s search functionality isn\u2019t perfect.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/DA_Banks\/statuses\/393424760748535808<\/p>\n

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wonder what all the academics tweeting about "omg fun spirit animals!" at #ir14<\/a> think of D.C.'s football team name? honest Q<\/p>\n

— nathanjurgenson (@nathanjurgenson) October 24, 2013<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n