Adding some context of where Own Voices came from, since it was brought up in these very astute tags…
Own Voices was coined by author Corinne Duyvis in the 2010s to describe autistic representation by autistic people, in a time when the bulk of fiction about autism was by Autism Mom types. I’m pretty sure she was riffing on the slogan Nothing About Us Without Us, which is best known in disability rights circles in English.
Because it was a twitter hashtag it VERY quickly took off in the midst of (extremely necessary!) discussions by members of groups like We Need Diverse Books, who were advocating for the inclusion of marginalized authors in publishing, particularly publishing of children’s literature.
HOWEVER. The problem with hashtaggable slogans is that they are just. Not very nuanced! Even Duyvis herself has expressed frustration with some of the directions the hashtag ended up taking, eg publishers wanting work by marginalized authors ONLY as OwnVoices, which is to say, ONLY if they were Dealing With Their Marginalization. Black author but the book is just a fun romp and it isn’t about Black Issues? No thanks. Queer author doesn’t want to come out of the closet? Well then it isn’t OwnVoices is it? Better harass them out of the closet to make sure we are doing Rep correctly.
And as this thread calls out, the trend did not take into account that having an identity may not equal being knowledgeable about that identity (of course also because Identity Categories are not monolithic!).
Essentially, it was a phrase coined with good intentions, co-opted by marketing, and ultimately, arguably, a phrase that has outlived its usefulness. Twitter is dead OwnVoices is dead and me I feel also not so good
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