ABSTRACT
Utilizing autoethnography to reflect on the author’s role as an “aca-fan archivist,” this chapter considers what it means to embody a position as both an academic and a collector of fan merchandise (e.g., an “aca-fan”) who uses the material acquired to curate an archive of ephemera dedicated to a particular area of pop culture (in this instance, mediations of dinosaurs). The chapter partly argues for the continued relevance of Bourdieusian approaches to studying (aca-)fan identities and practices, and so introduces the neologism of “sub/cultural capital” to understand the status of cultural artefacts that move between contexts of fan collecting and archival curation. Additionally, reflections are offered on how an aca-fan archive generates exclusions rooted in age-based taste formations.
