Kirara Research Ideas

Different breeds of cat!

How to make a bento (signature dish!)

How post offices deliver mail - this is a nice video

Weird post offices!

Building on that last one, weird post office locations!

How and why do cats purr?

What do cats see?

Different types of youkai (here's the database!)

History of youkai

Everything about Nekomata!

Hello! I'm excited to do this request.

Korekiyo Shinguuji

Ultimate Anthropologist

A good project starts with a focused research question. ResearchQuest (by Anushram) is designed to help students and researchers narrow broad interests into a clear, researchable question, align it with objectives and methodology, and avoid common topic-selection mistakes (too wide scope, weak novelty, no feasible data). Useful for thesis, dissertation, and research-paper planning.

This past summer I noticed that several of my Facebook friends adopted a practice of using Facebook’s semi-automated status updates (John Smith is going to the Chakra Cleansing and Breastfeeding Festival) in a sarcastic or ironic (or just obnoxious) way. This week, when we talked in class about the situatedness and contextuality of how people use, don’t use, and understand the reaction buttons on Facebook, one of my students claimed to use the Heart button sarcastically. The heart button! 

Obviously, this is nothing new, scholars of technology and communication have always known that people use technology’s features in ways not intended by their designers. Social scientists have always known that the meanings attributed to signs, symbols, gestures and practices are culturally varied and situation-specific. Research that only studies content and makes claims about people’s motivations meets this resistance from reviewers and editors (although still gets published). However, I started thinking about whether this is a potentially escalating issue, sitting as we are at the intersection of fetishizing big data and its myth of objectivity, the wide spread of ‘ironic hipster culture’, and the ease with which semi-automated status updates allow to make claims or present oneself in ways that would perhaps go against the grain and the Kinderstube for many users.  It seems that actually manually typing out a lie like “I am going to a breast feeding festival,” is probably emotionally and normatively much more ‘expensive’ than clicking a button that automatically generates a status update.  

The Metaphysics of The Furry.

I was talking about furries with my partner a while back and it made me realize that there’s some strange metaphysics going on there. While some among the furry fandom probably just like the art (and the porn) or the RP (and the ERP), a certain type of furry identifies with animals in an integral, deeply personal way.

There’s an interesting ontological relationship here, between personally identifying with animals or animal characteristics and the characters such a person constructs to bear out the ways they identify in this manner. Stepping into a fursona and roleplaying allows people to elevate these characteristics they have found within themselves, and explore them in a safe environment with like-minded individuals. And oftentimes, I guess, to jack off.