How do people present themselves online and offline, and is there a connection between the two?
Belonging & Belongings is research project with a multi-disciplinary approach. It explores how people express their multiple identities using fashion and communication technologies.
What makes people feel they belong to a certain group of people, and how do their belongings (physical and virtual, garments and media) express this belonging?
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Because there are many ways in which people do this, we want to look at differences. We focus on the UK and Japan, and look at London and Kyoto in particular.
Even within this focus of course a wide range of different expressions of identities exist, allowing us to do comparative studies between different (sub)cultures.
The aim of the Belonging & Belongings research project is to explore what techno-social styles can be identified in people’s expressions of their multiple identities through online and offline appearances using communication technologies and fashion.
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List of potential research questions to address throughout the project:
– How do people express their identity through fashion, portable technology and virtual presences?
– How do people cope with combining multiple on and off line appearances?
– Why do people have a range of different on and off line appearances?
– What is the link between people’s on and off line appearances?
– What types of techno-social styles can we identified in people’s online and offline appearances?
From fieldwork #001 in London