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134805 https://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.I.42705 http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ 2016-12 46 pages eng Burrus, Ella Rene Mack, Robert Behl, Natasha School of Social and Behavioral Sciences Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts Barrett, The Honors College Text In this undergraduate thesis, I explore the relationship between politics and popular culture through an ethnography of Justice League Arizona, a cosplay ensemble devoted to costumed civic activism. While existing scholarship addresses cosplay ensembles and political theory, there is very little that examines how the act of cosplay can be a form of politics and what the impact of that interpretation has on both individuals and the community at large. Through both participant observation and interviews with members of the ensemble, I discovered that cosplay has the ability to intensify aspects of the self, the ability to expose new aspects of the self, and the ability to bring one closer to a particular character. I also found cosplay to be political through the sensibility and situated knowledge that proves to be in practice during cosplay, ultimately having the power to be used as a form of political resistance. Politics Fandom Cosplay Real Life Superheroes: An Ethnographic Exploration Behind Cosplay and Politics