Abstract
This set of five flash fiction pieces emerged from a three-year ethnographic study of online medical crowdfunding in Aotearoa New Zealand. The project—which spanned 2020 to 2023 and involved interviews, case studies, surveys, media analysis, and digital participant observation—aimed to provide insight on the affective dynamics of crowdfunding as a situated relational practice; connecting the experiences of campaign organisers, recipiences, and audiences, and considering how their engagements are situated in specific material, sociocultural, and politico-economic contexts. Each of the five stories considers a different facet of findings from the study. Data//Daughter describes some of the cyborg care infrastructures of the families of children with Type 1 Diabetes, who are crowdfunding for a specific medical technology—the ‘Continuous Glucose Monitor’—which is not publicly funded in New Zealand. Let the Light is based on analysis of campaigns related to weight-loss surgeries, and focuses on the role of photography and visuality, in reproducing normative anti-fat frames. They Weave Your Story and Give It to the World thinks about the collaborative role of family in organizing crowdfunding campaigns, with a focus on (indigenous) Māori and Pasifika crowdfunders, and thinking as well about the temporalities of cancer (which makes up the focus of more than 40% of all campaigns). Pink and Blue focuses on crowdfunding of transgender and gender diverse people seeking medical transition services, for which there is also long waitlists and many other forms of gatekeeping, and which, because of New Zealand’s small population, usually involves campaigns addressing wider cis audiences. Cthulucene focuses on the medical images sometimes used in crowdfunding for infants in neonatal care units, and brings together overarching themes of responsibility and care at a distance, as mediated by technologies. Each pieces draws directly on stories, quotes, and insights from the ethnographic study, that have then been reworked into a short narrative (200–300 word, flash fiction) form, through the use of composite characters and other ethnographic fiction techniques.