A Raciosemiotics of Appropriation

Transnational Performance of Raciogender among Mexican K-Pop Fans

Bibliographic Data

ID7540732
AuthorsJoyhanna Yoo (0000-0002-4857-5693, Harvard University Press, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume11
Issue1
Pages68-92
Publication date2023-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSigns and Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2326-4489 • E-ISSN: 2326-4497
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1086/722810
OpenAlexW4323914508
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited34

Advancing a raciosemiotics (Smalls 2020) of appropriation, this article examines what happens when raciolinguistically charged signs circulate and are taken up in a context different to their production. Based on face-to-face and digital ethnography of K-pop fans in Mexico, this study presents a multimodal semiotic analysis of fans’ metapragmatic discourses and social media practices. I show how fans orient to the female K-pop idol, a mediatized figure of personhood (Agha 2005; Hiramoto and Kang 2017) indexical of hegemonic cosmopolitan femininity but simultaneously an exotic racialized Other in many non-Korean contexts. My examination of fan discourses and performance on social media treats the characterological figure of the female K-pop idol as a desirable, aspirational racial other for Mexican fans, while attending to the sociohistorical specificities of Asian racialization in the context of Mexico. The characterological figure is shaped by, and must interact with, local racial ideologies. My analysis suggests that such performances allow fans to differentiate themselves from other Mexican youth by demonstrating their knowledge of intra-Asian differences. Moreover, they are able to fashion neoliberal and queer subjectivities, albeit conditionally, through their indexical approximation of K-pop idols

Aesthetics · Appropriation · Art · Context (archaeology · Cultural appropriation · Ethnography · Ideology · Indexicality · Linguistics · Political science · Politics · Semiotics · Sociology · Anthropology · Asian Culture and Media Studies · Gender Studies · History · Japanese History and Culture · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy