2021 Online Conference

Diversifying Persona Studies Online International Conference and Special Issue

Abstract

The online conference does not and cannot replicate the flow and feel of a face-to-face experience; instead, it offers something new.
We saw the timing and the mode of the conference as a chance to ask hard questions about the ground that persona studies has carved as an emerging field of study. We wanted to ensure that persona studies is a space for new voices and new directions of inquiry, and to provide a conference space that is entirely built around inclusive scholarship.
The purpose of framing the conference as diversifying persona studies was to expand the scope and reach of our ambition, invite new possibilities, to challenge the conceptualisations of the field, and to challenge ourselves to release a sense of ownership and control over what persona studies could be. We have always strived to make persona studies as a welcoming and inclusive scholarly exercise, but the risk of groupthink and boundary policing is ever-present, and the conference theme was intended to challenge this.