Fan Studies Network Statement on FSN2019 and the Whiteness of Fan Studies

The Fan Studies Network statement on #FSN2019 and the whiteness of fan studies was a statement published on February 11, 2019 by the Fan Studies Network board in response to conversations which had unfolded on Twitter in the days previous. It concerned issues of structural whiteness in the field of fan studies, which had been thrown into sharp relief by a Twitter thread by fan studies scholar Rukmini Pande, and the response to it by Nicolle Lamerichs, who was at that time slated to give a keynote speech at Fan Studies Network Conference 2019.
==Background==
On February 8, 2019, scholar Rukmini Pande tweeted a thread on the whiteness of fan studies:Tweets by Rukmini Pande. Posted on February 8, 2019. Accessed on February 12, 2019.
Nicolle Lamerichs, an academic and senior lecturer at Utrecht University of Applied Sciences, replied to Pande's tweets on February 8:Tweet by Nicolle Lamerichs. Posted on February 8, 2019. Accessed on February 12, 2019.Tweet by Nicolle Lamerichs. Posted on February 8, 2019. Accessed on February 12, 2019.
Lamerichs was slated to keynote the upcoming 2019 Fan Studies Network conference. Lamerichs' response to Pande's tweets was criticized by other fan studies scholars on Twitter:
Lamerichs tweeted a response on February 10, 2019:Tweets by Nicolle Lamerichs. Posted on February 10, 2019. Accessed on February 12, 2019.
Pande retweeted Lamerichs' February 10 tweets, adding:
==Other Responses==
Additional responses stemmed from Pande's initial thread on Twitter.
==Fan Studies Network Statement==
The Fan Studies Network board's statement begins with the acknowledgement "Fan studies is a discipline overrun with whiteness."
The board also announced that Lori Morimoto would be the sole keynote speaker of the 2019 conference, and that the other keynote slot would be filled with a roundtable discussion on representation and diversity.
The statement detailed the Fan Studies Network's commitment to critically reconsidering their role within the field and as conference organizers with respect to diversity, inclusion, and the whiteness of fan studies:
===Responses to the statement===
Rukmini Pande retweeted Fan Studies Network's statement, adding:Tweets by Rukmini Pande. Posted on February 12, 2019. Accessed on February 12, 2019.
Other scholars also responded with suggestions:
====Blog Post by Samira Nadkarni on Stitch's Media Mix====
In response to the statement made by Fan Studies Network, Samira Nadkarni published a guest blog to Stitch's Media Mix entitled “A discipline overrun with whiteness”: #FSN2019 and Making a Statement. In this post, she recounted her experiences of being part of a roundtable on Race and Racism in Fandom and Fan Studies at PCA/ACA 2019 in Washington DC, at which she unpacked the statement given by Fan Studies Network and illustrated its shortcomings. She also highlighted many of the other persistent problems with the responses by white academics to academics of colour who highlight issues of racism in their field, and with the way that those issues are addressed (or not).
==See Also==
*Race and Fandom
*Decolonising Fan Studies: A Bibliography-In-Progress
==References==
Category:2019 Events
Category:2019 Academic Commentary
Category:Academia
Category:Race & Fandom