Hyperrhiz 28
Uncovering Fan Voices: Disability and Fandom
María Razcón Echeagaray
University of Maryland Baltimore County
Citation: Razcón Echeagaray, María. “Uncovering Fan Voices: Disability and Fandom.” Hyperrhiz: New Media Cultures, no. 28, 2025. doi:10.20415/hyp/028.r02
Keywords: disability, fandom, platforms, pop culture, fan fiction.
Anderson Howell, K. Disability and Fandom. University of Iowa Press, 2025. 232pp.
In Disability and Fandom, Katherine Anderson Howell explores the intersection of disability and fan practices, exposing both exclusionary and liberating experiences of fans with disabilities in different contexts, online and in person. Howell applies an interdisciplinary approach from fan studies and disability studies to explore US and English-based fandoms, particularly fan conventions, fanfiction platforms, and social media spaces such as Tumblr, Reddit, Instagram, and TikTok. Focusing exclusively on anglophone and US-centric fan works, the scope of analysis excludes representation of disability in international fandoms that use English as ‘lingua franca’ or multilingual fan practices. Through drawing on Disability Studies, Howell is able to situate disabled fans as experiencing a ‘normalized embodied experience of the world’ calling out the previous pathologization of conditions such as queerness, womanhood, blackness, neurodivergence, and other disabilities as something that needed to be fixed to fit a normal, drawing from key concepts in fan and disability studies. Howell recognizes disabled fans as creators of knowledge and producers of new media interaction with unique perspectives that enrich mainstream fandoms, which tend to conceal individuals outside normative boundaries. Each chapter portrays the participatory culture of disabled fans and how their voices are constructed and validated through their storytelling, fan objects, and fan play.
Chapters 1 and 2 define fans through a lens of healing and support within their affinity spaces. Howell asserts that fan spaces provide opportunities for certain voices to be amplified and for fans to portray their intended identities. Howell also addresses the complexities that emerge when some disabilities are more visible, accepted, and more ‘fetishized’ than others, framing the book’s main thesis, stating that fan scholars need to consider disability as key to subverting and transforming media that reflects disabled fans’ particular experiences, which shape fan identity and their work.
To theorize fandom interaction in spaces that are somewhat inaccessible for those with mental and physical disabilities, Howell develops the concept of ‘Kairotic space’ to provide a framework to explore the marginalizing nature of fan spaces and the uneven accessibility found at mainstream US-based fan conventions, such as Comic-Con, and Science Fiction Cons. In Chapter 2, Howell evaluates the accessibility policies in fan conventions, highlighting issues that hindered disabled fans' participation, such as the lack of enforcement of accessibility policies, negative attitudes towards disabled fans that reinforce the ‘kairotic’ space, and the limited representation for the disabled fan community. International contexts can benefit from research on convention accessibility policies and fandom engagement in non-US centric events.
By examining fan and anti-fan practices in various fan spaces through a disability lens, chapters 4, 5, and 6 reveal how fandoms challenge the lack of accessibility and support authentic representation. Chapter 6 examines how readers contest tropes of hurt/pain in fanfiction which inaccurately portrays characters’ sexualized perpetual pain. Examples are provided of fans who experience chronic pain and physical disability and who found inaccurate descriptions of chronic discomfort in fanfiction as an opportunity to call out poorly-written narratives depicting unrealistic views of chronic physical pain and disability. These fans sought to develop their own creative writing prompts for fans and empower their narratives of support, trauma healing, and consent.
Previous fan studies research has emphasized fandoms as sites for identity formation and expression, community building, and positive engagement. Chapters 7 and 8 shift the focus towards anti-fandom practices, gatekeeping, and power dynamics that remain present in fandom sites. Howell challenges the assumed ‘welcoming nature’ of fandom, sharing examples of policing transgression against disabled fans intending to subvert dominant narratives. Fans with disabilities find their voices often misrepresented or silenced; this chapter invites future examination of exclusionary practices in fandoms.
Disability and Fandom informs the disciplines of fan studies, disability studies, media studies, and pop cultural studies, focusing its theoretical analysis on fan writing practices, online presence, social engagement in fan conventions and communities, and the presence of anti-fans. Examples of fanfiction that depict body disability, exploration of social media to express diversity, and fan sites that focus on neurodivergence shed light on the presence of visible and invisible disabilities in such popular contexts. This book brings together fan studies and disability studies to close a gap between fandom diversity and transformative fan practices, promoting visibility to often-concealed fan voices. Each chapter provides examples of the presence of disability in a particular fan context, which informs fan studies and researchers focusing on popular culture, as well as scholars delving into disability studies in fandoms. This work will inspire academics in fan studies to carry out intersectional research, highlighting disability in gaming forums, Live-streams or online conventions, which have not been explored in this book.
Disability and Fandom contributes to scholarly research by recognizing the existence of disabled people in the real (and online) world, describing their presence as the ‘true typical’, in which experiencing the world is mediated by the space and the types of embodiments subjected by the effects of the ‘kairotic space’. This book weaves together gender, race, and ‘the non-normative’ to provide a theoretical analysis of identity and participatory culture. Howell highlights the areas of opportunity to continue the salient conversation on the lack of visibility of disabled fans in various US contexts, and brings up the negative side of fandom, particularly trolling and harassment that fans inflict upon other fans. Scholars will find themselves reflecting critically on policies in fan events, inclusivity in fan panelists, authentic media representation of the diverse nature of fandom, and the ubiquitous presence of anti-fans. This book brings attention to the advocacy work of fandom communities in amplifying voices and complex identities that otherwise have been ignored. Readers will find explicit examples of fandom analysis following intersectional theoretical approaches that will influence future academic research in the field, especially to encourage scholars to explore non-English speaking fandoms and media representations of disability outside the US-centric sphere.