著者

松浦 李恵 岡部 大介

出版者

Japanese Cognitive Science Society

雑誌

認知科学 (ISSN:13417924)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.21, no.1, pp.141-154, 2014

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This paper analyzes the relationship between agencies and artifacts represented in<br> ethnographic case studies of ten female informants aged 20–25 participating in the cos-<br>play community. Cosplay is a female-dominated niche subculture of extreme fans and<br> mavens, who are devoted to dressing up as characters from manga, games, and anime.<br> "Cosplayers" are highly conscious of quality standards for costumes, makeup, and ac-<br>cessories. Cosplay events and dedicated SNSs for cosplayers are a valuable venue for<br> exchanging information about costume making. First we frame this work as an effort<br> to think about their agencies using the concept of hybrid collective and activity theory.<br> Then we share an overview of cosplay culture in Japan and our methodologies based on<br> interviews and fieldwork. Using SCAT (Otani, 2011) methodology, we group our find-<br>ings in two different categories: (1) Cosplayers' agencies and relationships with others<br> mediated by usage of particular artifacts, (2) Cosplayers agencies visualized through<br> socio-artificial scaffolding and collective achievement. We conclude that cosplayers are<br> producing and standardizing available artifacts for their cosplay objects, and in doing<br> so, they are designing their agencies. We consider that the activities like them are one<br> appearance we can observe in the other our mundane communities not apply only to<br> cosplay one. Not only to cosplay, however we consider that these kinds of activities<br> apply to other mundane communities.