Aoife Currie '25 is an Anthropology major, and a Gender & Sexuality Studies Minor, specializing in the burgeoning field of Digital Anthropology. She has been involved in activism & social justice most of her adult life, and plans on bringing that experience and tenets to her work in the field...
Advisor
Semester
Summer 2023
Description
In my research fellowship, I looked at the Constructed Language, or "Conlang" Toki Pona, and its popularity in online fandom communities. I discussed how Toki Pona is a a language that strongly adheres to the philosophy that there are no “incorrect” ways to use their language through its linguistic structure, as well as how the speech community surrounding Toki Pona speakers is organized almost entirely online, and how that modifies the traditional understanding of what a speech community is, and how it operates less like a speech community, and more like an online "Fandom".