Agile Authorship: Exploring Collaborative Dementia Memoirs through Fanfiction Practices

Area of Science:

• Narrative Studies
• Disability Studies
• Psychology

Background:

• Collaborative life writing faces ethical challenges regarding power dynamics and disabled subjects' agency.
• Traditional authorship models may not adequately represent the lived experience of dementia.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine how collaborative dementia memoirs challenge personalized authorship.
• To propose "agile authorship" as a new model for collaborative memoirs involving individuals with and without dementia.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of collaborative dementia memoirs, specifically "Slow Puncture" and "Somebody I Used to Know".
• Drawing parallels with shared authorship concepts from fanfiction communities.
• Applying concepts of interdependence and shared creation to narrative analysis.

Main Results:

• Collaborative dementia memoirs demonstrate interdependence and shared authorship, moving beyond single-author authority.
• These narratives facilitate mutual understanding and exploration of the dementia experience.
• The concept of "agile authorship" offers a framework for understanding these dynamic collaborations.

Conclusions:

• Collaborative dementia memoirs can effectively challenge traditional authorship by emphasizing interdependence.
• Shared authorship models, inspired by fanfiction, provide a valuable alternative for representing complex experiences like dementia.
• "Agile authorship" offers a novel conceptual tool for analyzing collaborative life writing.