Cosplay Culture and Anime Carnivals in Chennai: A Theoretical Framework of Identity Construction and Participatory Fan Engagement

This article examines the growing phenomenon of cosplay in relation to cultural integration, identity formation, and fans’ active participation in their chosen fandoms. The cosplay and anime communities in Chennai, India have rapidly grown over the past couple of years (2022 to 2024) and reflect this growth through many ways, including a variety of festivals and events associated with these fandoms. The research is based on five primary anime events that took place in the city and included ethnographic data collection methods, such as semi-structured interviews with approximately 62 cosplayers and content analyses of fan communities on various platforms (e.g., Instagram and Discord) using mixed-methods (i.e., ethnographic fieldwork, content analyses, and semi-structured interviews). The theoretical models used to guide the research include Goffman’s Dramaturgical Model, Hall’s Encoding/Decoding Model, and Jenkins’ Participatory Culture Theory. Overall, the research findings suggest that Chennai’s cosplay community is representative of a ‘glocal’ identity in which participants engage in a dialogue among Tamil cultural history, pan-Asian media aesthetics, and the global nerd community. Furthermore, the relational, performative, and material aspects of identity-building in costume design are demonstrated, and the carnival is presented as a space that produces heterotopia, where social standards that determine status and hierarchical order are momentarily suspended. Thus, this article contributes to the field through both empirical and theoretical means and can be applied to the study of other emergent fan cultures in major metropolitan areas across South Asia.