Exploring Other-Than-Human Identity: A Narrative Approach to Otherkin, Therianthropes, and Vampires

Clive Baldwin; Lauren Ripley

doi:10.18778/1733-8077.16.3.02

Authors

Clive Baldwin St. Thomas University, Canada https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9213-4908
Lauren Ripley St. Thomas University, Canada https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4012-7148

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.16.3.02

Keywords:

Otherkin, Therians, Vampires, Narrative, Identity, Spiritual Identity

Abstract

Drawing on in-depth, narrative interviews with 24 self-identified Otherkin, Therianthropes, and Vampires, we explore how members of these communities navigate Bamberg’s three “dilemmatic spaces” or tensions of continuity/change, similarity/difference, and person-to-world/world-to-person fit. With regard to the first, we identify four aetiological narratives (walk-ins, reincarnation, trapped soul, and evolutionary soul), and discuss stories of shifts and awakening. For the second, we discuss how participants manage the similarity/difference tension with regard to themselves and humans, and explore categorical and renunciatory othering within the communities. Finally, we explore the ways in which members of the communities experience a barren narrative environment, and ways they seek to construct storyworlds and narrative resources as frames for establishing their identities.

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