Identity is a Verb (which makes Inclusion a Methodological Challenge)

Congratulations DiGeST on this ten-year anniversary! Thinking about research agendas, I find that decades as a unit of time make me hop scotch back several. For three decades now (cultural) citizenship has been my key concept of choice. In alignment with the core focus of this journal, I have tried to understand and employ 'inclusion' as a key part of the 'doing' of cultural citizenship: the way in which others – like me and unlike me –, use media culture (and especially popular entertainment from sports to TV drama, to games, to social media) to relate to what is going on in the world and to come to implicit and explicit definitions of what is best for the most of us. I do so with a strong investment in feminism, far more than in gender, as such. Don't get me wrong: gender is important, but sensitivity to power and structural inequality is more urgent. Dignity and respect for all matters more than individualizing definitions of core or essential selves. A paradox, obviously, as this is exactly what others may be invested in.