(Being a fan in a globalized world: The case of the Harry Potter fandom in Argentina)

Abstract

The existence of fan communities or fandoms dates back several decades, but since the late 1990s, a series of transformations in their emergence and dynamics have occurred. Nowadays, being a fan is an increasingly frequent way of connecting with cultural products and with other people in relation to that consumption. This work intends to describe the practices of the fans, show their changes from the late 1990s and early 2000s on, and analyze these changes in relation to the transformations in the sociocultural context. To do this, I focused on foreign fantasy literature fandoms through a case study of the fandom of the Harry Potter saga in Argentina. This fandom is one of the most massive and has the greatest media impact in Argentina and the world. Its example is representative of current fandoms. To carry out the objectives, an anthropological methodology focused on classical and digital ethnographic fieldwork was mainly used. I argue that the changes that fandoms went through can be understood in terms of the transformations in the sociohistorical context: economic and cultural globalization, accelerated technological changes, and identity conflicts typical of postmodernity, among others.