Space, performativity and neotribes in Australian cosplay

Cosplayers construct ornate costumes inspired by popular media narratives and perform alternate personas in populated spaces including pop culture conventions and social media. Cosplay is a global youth phenomenon which is relatively underexplored in current academic literature given the sizable number of people who engage with it. This paper looks at both performative youth identity and neo-tribe formation within Australian cosplay scenes, emphasising the importance of cosplay spaces in facilitating this movement. The nature of cosplay culture is found in the capacity for cosplayers to generate and embody new performative identities, foster affective tribes and inhabit spaces using customised material practices. This was a mixed methods study including qualitative interviews and a survey. It consisted of 9 interviews involving 17 participants, and a quasi-panel survey with 78 completed responses. This was supplemented by a twenty-day focussed period of participant observation as an amateur cosplayer, and a period of volunteering as convention staff. Empirical research was conducted online and at four large events in three major Australian cities: Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. This project focused on the social relationships and material practices that makeup Australian cosplay, specifically how these relationships and practices support youth identity and community formation. The thesis theorises cosplay as a set of neo-tribal communities that facilitate unique forms of performativity for young people. It shows that cosplay is an actively negotiated material practice observable within multiple interconnected social contexts and provides a process where abject youth can undergo a refinement of their performative self. Spatiality, embodied performances of self and youth-cultural shifts towards tribal aesthetic present a series of theoretical frames through which cosplay can be analysed.