Graduated Master of Contemporary International Studies student. This blog is specifically for any academic research on whump genre/interest I do, including my research from my undergraduate final project and my master's thesis. If you would like to follow any further research, you can here! (main blog, ocs: @callaeidae3) (direct messaging: @callaeidae3, @callaei-researches)
Hello! It seems like the links I'd shared for my whump research are no longer working. I know my university had some issue with having the research projects online (which doesn't seem to be yet resolved), and it seems like the research has disappeared from Academia.edu also.
I'll update the previous posts so that they've got a working link! In the meantime, I've made the research available via Google Drive:
Sociocultural identifies within the whump community (Undergraduate research project)
Intercultural and cross-linguistic perspectives on whump interest (Master's research thesis)
Summary of results - Intercultural and cross-linguistic perspectives on the whump genre
Here is a summary of the results from the research thesis, "Intercultural and cross-linguistic perspectives on the whump genre"! This was part of my studying a Master of Contemporary International Studies. The research aimed to explore how whump-interested people connect with the whump genre cross-culturally and cross-linguistically.
Back in June/July this year (2023), I sent out a questionnaire open to any whump-interested person, and also invited interviews for bilingual whump-interested people. I've finally finished my thesis, and overall was awarded an A- for it!
The full thesis is available now to read on Academia.edu, and will also be available on IPU New Zealand's library website in January 2024.
The research isn't available on Academia.edu or IPU New Zealand library website anymore, however you can access it via Google Drive here!
This research was approved for Human Research Ethics Clearance by the IPU New Zealand Research and Development Commitee on 3rd May 2023 (HREC-2023-05-03-01).
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(NB: Due to there being an extensive amount of results, I've only summarised the key findings of the results section and a brief conclusion here. I've referenced page numbers for the full thesis if you'd like to read the extended version.)
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Summary of results (Questionnaire)
233 respondents | 92 different cultural/faith-based identities
The questionnaire was used to answer Research Question 1, "How do the aspects of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and Schwartz’ universal human values reflect in the characteristics of whump genre identity?"
The questionnaire explored four themes associated with whump genre concepts - “agency,” “comfort,” “stoicism,” and “knowledge” - and found (p. 87):
For the theme of “agency,” questionnaire participants tended to perceive a greater importance for agency for the caretaker and whumper roles. This may be related to the caretaker and whumper role characters’ abilities to carry out their roles of caretaking and whumping respectively. While the cultural dimensions did not appear to be factors inherent to the theme of agency for the whumpee role in a whump genre story, this appeared to work towards supporting the cross-cultural enjoyment of whump.
For the theme of “comfort,” hurt comfort, physical comfort and long-term recovery may be more accommodating of cultural dimension dynamics and have a greater capacity to fully realise the goals of Schwartz’ values.
For the theme of “stoicism,” the way in which these dimensions can so diversely be applied to this theme suggests a cross-culturally applicable ground.
For the theme of “knowledge,” the balance between the certainty of a known whumpee and the uncertainty of an unknown whumper indicate variable tolerance of ambiguity within the whump genre. This suggests a cross-culturally applicable ground.
The full results section for the questionnaire can be read in the full thesis (pp. 61-87).
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Summary of results (Interview)
31 interviewees (15 spoken, 16 written) | 24 different languages
The interview was used to answer Research Question 2, "How do bilingual whump-interested people perceive the ability to convey themes of hurt comfort (a subgenre of whump) in different languages?"
The interview questions were categorised into themes:
Theme 1: Preferences for language when interacting with fiction
Theme 2: Comparisons of different languages’ abilities to convey physical and emotional pain
Theme 3: Limitations or difficulties experienced when conveying whump in, and across, different languages
Theme 4: Cultural, social, and/or linguistic reasons influencing pronunciation of “whump”
Following transcription of the interviews, a thematic analysis involving examining code co-occurences found (p. 123):
For “Theme 1: Preferences for language when interacting with fiction,” preferences tended to be associated with the availability of media, the ability to connect with the author’s intended meaning, and the level of ease and comfort with which interviewees could engage with the fictional media.
For “Theme 2: Comparisons of different languages’ abilities to convey physical and emotional pain,” interviewees’ comparisons highlighted differing ways of presenting and conveying pain in language, for example, through language features and words. Overall, interviewees felt that the languages which they were fluent in were generally equally capable of conveying physical and emotional pain, although different languages tended to approach the communicating of pain in different ways.
For “Theme 3: Limitations or difficulties experienced when conveying whump in, and across, different languages,” the perceived limitations and difficulties experienced across languages tended to be associated with difficulties in conveying semantic, pragmatic and cultural meaning across languages, and tended to stem from the differences between sociolinguistic approaches to communicating ideas in languages.
For “Theme 4: Cultural, social, and/or linguistic reasons influencing pronunciation of “whump,” common cultural, social and linguistic reasons for interviewees’ pronunciations of “whump” included how interviewees expected the word to sound based on their expectations of the letters in the phonological environment, the impact of a lack of having heard the word spoken aloud, sociocultural influences, intuition and language education.
The full results section for the interview can be read in the full thesis (pp. 61-87). Interview transcripts (sensitive details filtered out) can be read in Appendix H (pp. 177-399).
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Conclusions (brief exerpt from p. 130)
Research Question 1 explored cross-culturally applicable aspects of the whump genre. The findings suggested that themes of the whump genre accommodate variations in cultural social orientations and values, thereby enabling an interculturally common ground among whump-interested people.
Using qualitative research (interview), Research Question 2 explored how bilingual whump-interested people perceive and connect with hurt comfort themes across different languages. The findings suggest that multiple factors contribute to how bilingual whump-interested people engage with the whump genre, including but not limited to first and second languages as a tool to experience closely or otherwise distance the subject with, the availability of whump media in different languages, and manner of conveying aspects of pain and comfort through lexical, phonetic, grammatical and cultural aspects of language.
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Thank you to everyone who participated in the research - the questionnaire and/or the interview! Your voices are all important in this kind of research, and are all very much appreciated!
Last day for the questionnaire! I'll be closing it this time tomorrow (i.e. 9pm NZST, Thursday 13th July)
And a reminder that the last day I'll be doing interviews is Friday 28th July (~1pm NZST at the latest). İf you still want to register your interest, you can do so until Friday 21st July (9pm NZST) - I'll be closing the "registration of interest" form then 🙂
Thank you so much to everyone who's participated in the questionnaire and/or interview so far! I really appreciate it!!
Last day for the questionnaire! I'll be closing it this time tomorrow (i.e. 9pm NZST, Thursday 13th July)
And a reminder that the last day I'll be doing interviews is Friday 28th July (~1pm NZST at the latest). İf you still want to register your interest, you can do so until Friday 21st July (9pm NZST) - I'll be closing the "registration of interest" form then 🙂
Thank you so much to everyone who's participated in the questionnaire and/or interview so far! I really appreciate it!!
Thanks to everyone who registered their interest in participating in the interview so far! (And extra thanks to the people I've interviewed already! Your responses are all very much appreciated!!)
The registration of interest form has now reached 40 responses. I was intending on closing the form when it reached 40 responses, but I'm still waiting to hear back from some people who I contacted a month ago.
Because of that, I've decided I'll keep the form open until late July, or until the maximum number of interview participants (40 people) who I can confirm an interview for has been reached.
If you have filled out the form - please reply to the email/message I've sent you, if you haven't already, so I can confirm if you are still wanting to participate in the interview! :)
(I have contacted everyone at least once, but if you did fill out the form and you haven't received any email/message from me, feel free to send me a DM on this blog!)
General information:
My name is Renée Nielsen, and I am a postgraduate student at IPU New Zealand Tertiary Institute. I am currently underta
Questionnaire - İntercultural and cross-linguistic perspectives on whump genre
As part of my research thesis for my Masters of Contemporary International Studies, I am conducting research on "Intercultural and cross-linguistic perspectives on whump genre."
This questionnaire is part of this research!
Survey period: Thursday 1st June 2023 (9pm, NZST) - Thursday 29th June 2023 (9pm, NZST)
For the purpose of this research, participants must:
be at least 18 years old
be interested in, or have an appreciation for, whump in fictional stories
Note: Participants are not required to consider themselves a part of the "whump community" in order to participate in this study.
This questionnaire will take approximately 10-15 minutes.
Additional information:
This research defines whump as, "Whump is a genre of fiction that places emphasis on a character's physical and emotional experience of pain, and often recovery, in a story."
this is an academic research project (Master's research thesis)
Your responses are completely anonymous.
You may edit your response up until the survey period closes.
You may withdraw any information you provide up until the time the survey period closes.
For detailed information, please see here: İnformation sheet - Questionnaire (this is also at the beginning of the Google Form)
This research also has an interview with limited spaces. İf you are interested, see this post here. İnterview participants must be bilingual, and meet the participant criteria mentioned above.
This study has been approved by the Research and Development Committee of IPU New Zealand Tertiary Institute. The approval was made on the 3rd of May, 2023.
If you have any questions at any time, feel free to ask!
📝 Just over one week remaining for the questionnaire! 📝
Anyone is welcome to participate! The only requirements to participate are that you are over 18 years old, and that you have at least some general interest or appreciation for whump.
Note (just in case of confusion): You do not need to be bilingual for the questionnaire - that is only an additional requirement for the interview!
General information:
My name is Renée Nielsen, and I am a postgraduate student at IPU New Zealand Tertiary Institute. I am currently underta
Questionnaire - İntercultural and cross-linguistic perspectives on whump genre
As part of my research thesis for my Masters of Contemporary International Studies, I am conducting research on "Intercultural and cross-linguistic perspectives on whump genre."
This questionnaire is part of this research!
Survey period: Thursday 1st June 2023 (9pm, NZST) - Thursday 29th June 2023 (9pm, NZST)
For the purpose of this research, participants must:
be at least 18 years old
be interested in, or have an appreciation for, whump in fictional stories
Note: Participants are not required to consider themselves a part of the "whump community" in order to participate in this study.
This questionnaire will take approximately 10-15 minutes.
Additional information:
This research defines whump as, "Whump is a genre of fiction that places emphasis on a character's physical and emotional experience of pain, and often recovery, in a story."
this is an academic research project (Master's research thesis)
Your responses are completely anonymous.
You may edit your response up until the survey period closes.
You may withdraw any information you provide up until the time the survey period closes.
For detailed information, please see here: İnformation sheet - Questionnaire (this is also at the beginning of the Google Form)
This research also has an interview with limited spaces. İf you are interested, see this post here. İnterview participants must be bilingual, and meet the participant criteria mentioned above.
This study has been approved by the Research and Development Committee of IPU New Zealand Tertiary Institute. The approval was made on the 3rd of May, 2023.
If you have any questions at any time, feel free to ask!
📝 Just over one week remaining for the questionnaire! 📝
Anyone is welcome to participate! The only requirements to participate are that you are over 18 years old, and that you have at least some general interest or appreciation for whump.
Note (just in case of confusion): You do not need to be bilingual for the questionnaire - that is only an additional requirement for the interview!
Thank you to everyone who has participated in the questionnaire and/or interview so far! I’m really enjoying learning different perspectives from people of so many different language and cultural backgrounds! I’m working through them slowly, so if I haven’t yet contacted you again to organise a time, don’t worry, I will within the next few weeks!
I’m just letting you know of two updates to the information sheets:
I have a new supervisor for my research. This is now reflected in the information sheets.
My new supervisor has clarified that I will need to include written transcripts of the interviews in the appendices of my research. This means that the transcripts of the interviews (only the transcripts, not the recordings themselves) will be publically available if this research thesis is made publically available.
I have included a new section in the information sheets to express the second point, so as to clearly state this.
Any confidential, sensitive, or potentially identifying information will be filtered out to preserve anonymity and confidentiality. Names will not be used; interviewees will be referred to as “Interviewee #1,” “Interviewee #2,” etc.
You can read the full information sheets below. I have also included, below the "keep reading," the new section re clearly expressing the second point about the transcripts!
Information sheet links
Questionnaire | Interview | Interview - registration of interest
Use of interviews in the research
The interviews will be transcribed, and quotes may be drawn from the interview to support the research findings, discussion, and research summaries.
For all interviews, both written and spoken, a written-out transcript of the interview will be included in the appendices of the final research thesis. If the research thesis is published, and subsequently becomes publically available, the transcripts will be made publically available as part of the published research thesis.
Raw interview files (e.g. audio files from spoken interviews, unfiltered copies of direct messages from written interviews) will not be published, nor will any such file be ever made publically available.
With regard to the interview transcriptions, any confidential, sensitive, or potentially identifying information will be filtered out by the researcher during the transcription process in order to maintain anonymity and confidentiality. Steps taken to maintain anonymity and confidentiality of interviewees includes: referring to the interviewees as “Interviewee #1,” “Interviewee #2,” etc., as opposed to using any names or social media handles; referring to age in terms of age brackets (e.g. “18-24”) instead of an exact age; and omitting any location-identifying information more specific than country/nationality (unless directly relevant to the research, e.g. regional dialectal impact on pronunciation).
(Edit (18/06/23): added in the text in purple, "(unless directly relevant to the research, e.g. regional dialectal impact on pronunciation)")
General information:
My name is Renée Nielsen, and I am a postgraduate student at IPU New Zealand Tertiary Institute. I am currently underta
Questionnaire - İntercultural and cross-linguistic perspectives on whump genre
As part of my research thesis for my Masters of Contemporary International Studies, I am conducting research on "Intercultural and cross-linguistic perspectives on whump genre."
This questionnaire is part of this research!
Survey period: Thursday 1st June 2023 (9pm, NZST) - Thursday 29th June 2023 (9pm, NZST)
For the purpose of this research, participants must:
be at least 18 years old
be interested in, or have an appreciation for, whump in fictional stories
Note: Participants are not required to consider themselves a part of the "whump community" in order to participate in this study.
This questionnaire will take approximately 10-15 minutes.
Additional information:
This research defines whump as, "Whump is a genre of fiction that places emphasis on a character's physical and emotional experience of pain, and often recovery, in a story."
this is an academic research project (Master's research thesis)
Your responses are completely anonymous.
You may edit your response up until the survey period closes.
You may withdraw any information you provide up until the time the survey period closes.
For detailed information, please see here: İnformation sheet - Questionnaire (this is also at the beginning of the Google Form)
This research also has an interview with limited spaces. İf you are interested, see this post here. İnterview participants must be bilingual, and meet the participant criteria mentioned above.
This study has been approved by the Research and Development Committee of IPU New Zealand Tertiary Institute. The approval was made on the 3rd of May, 2023.
If you have any questions at any time, feel free to ask!
Thank you to everyone who has filled out the registration of interest form for the interview so far! There have already been almost 30 responses. It's exciting to see the range of different languages!
I am currently working through contacting everyone, so if you have filled the form, you will be receiving a message from me sometime soon
Intercultural and cross-linguistic perspectives on whump genre - information, interview registration of interest form
I can now announce more information about my upcoming research on whump / whump interest! ✨✨✨
As part of my research thesis for my Masters of Contemporary International Studies, I am conducting research on "Intercultural and cross-linguistic perspectives on whump genre."
This study has been approved by the Research and Development Committee of IPU New Zealand Tertiary Institute. The approval was made on the 3rd of May, 2023.
For the purpose of this research, to participate in the questionnaire and/or in the interview, you must:
be at least 18 years old
be interested in, or have an appreciation for, whump in fictional stories
Additionally, as the interview explores whump through the perspective of different languages, for the interview you must also:
be bilingual (i.e. at least conversationally proficient in two or more languages)
Note: Participants are not required to consider themselves a part of the whump community in order to participate in this study.
Interview information ---------------
Interview participants will be given two options to choose between:
a spoken interview, conducted via Zoom; or
a written interview, conducted via Tumblr direct messaging, or an alternative direct messaging application as agreed upon by the researcher and participant.
Spoken interviews will be recorded. Spoken interview participants are not required to have video turned on during the interview. The researcher will contact interview participants following interview participant selection to schedule a suitable time for spoken interviews.
For any written interviews conducted via Tumblr direct messaging, the researcher will use the Tumblr handle @callaei-researches or @callaei-researches-interview (for direct messaging) to communicate with the participant.
Interview - Registration of interest form -------------
If you are interested in participating in the interview, please fill in the form below! (same link as the top of the post)
Information sheet
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General information:
My name is Renée Nielsen, and I am a postgraduate student at IPU New Zealand Tertia
Additional information -------------
This research defines whump as, "Whump is a genre of fiction that places emphasis on a character's physical and emotional experience of pain, and often recovery, in a story."
Important things to note about the research (see the information sheets under the "keep reading" for detailed information):
- this is an academic research project (Master's research thesis)
- the questionnaire is entirely anonymous
- the interview requires a means of direct communication with the researcher, but this information will not be shared. In the research, interviewees will be referred to as "Interviewee 1," "Interviewee 2," etc.
- responses are entirely voluntary, and you may withdraw at any time during the research period
- any personally identifying information will be kept confidential and accessible only to myself (the researcher) and my research supervisor.
Detailed information -------------
More information about the questionnaire, the interview, and the registration of interest form can be found here. These will be also given at the beginning of the questionnaire, the registration of interest form, and to all participants selected for the interview.
Questionnaire information sheet
Interview information sheet
Interview - Registration of interest information sheet
I have just started my research year of my Masters' degree! I'm currently working on my research proposal and ethics clearance.
This research will have both an online distributed questionnaire and an interview.
I am hoping to have the questionnaire open in June 2023 (pending human ethics approval clearance). The interview* will happen following the questionnaire, and will be limited in spaces - I will update on this later.
I will confirm my focus area of research and the survey period opening dates within the coming weeks!
*The interview will have spoken interview /written interview options, to maximise accessibility for participants. Note: the interview will have a participation criteria.
Later this year, I'll have the chance to work on (and propose) an idea for my second year research thesis - which I've already got an idea for.
I want to continue research on the topic of whump interest / whump community / whump and hurt comfort genre research. To make sure the idea I have in mind will work and will be accepted, in the meantime, for me, it's a matter of refining and clarifying this idea. But yes, I'm definitely keen on doing more academic research on it. And both my supervisor for my last years' research project and the head of research at the time, they were both quite interested in the prospect of postgraduate primary research with this.
Given the success of last years' project, I'm fairly confident that I (hopefully!!) should be all good to go ahead with this! And if it's all good, then there will be more opportunities for people to partipicate in the research (e.g. via interviews) if you wish!
"Wherein particular attention has been given to certain areas of the research (e.g. asexuality, whump genre), this does lessen the importance of topics relevant to whump interest that may not have been focused on."
Is this supposed to say "does not lessen" or am I misunderstanding this sentence?
Ahh thanks for pointing that out!!!!! Yes, it is supposed to say "does not lessen"! :'o
The full version of my final undergraduate research project is now available online via IPU Library Google Drive (link below)
"Sociocultural identities within the whump community: Investigating whump and hurt/comfort genre, whump interest and the whump community, and the application of whump in narrative processing".
An overview of the core topics covered within literature review and discussion:
- discussion of whump in light of sadomasochism and asexuality
- discussion of whump in terms of whump as a tragedy vs comedic genre
- analytical suggestion of how whump fiction may function as a means of narrative processing for trauma
- other insights about whump, whump genre and whump community arising from the research
Note that it's 100pages long... I wrote a lot (lol). There's a Table of Contents at the start.
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NB: while there is much more research and greater analysis that could be done from this study, due to limited researcher capacity and time constraints, only the elements discussed in the research were able to be properly explored.
The analysis' and discussions contained within have aimed to be considerate of diversity in whump interest experiences. Wherein particular attention has been given to certain areas of the research (e.g. asexuality, whump genre), this does not lessen the importance of topics relevant to whump interest that may not have been focused on.
Definitions are given throughout the research - so even if you're not familiar with whump at all, you will still be able to read it!
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Finally, if you haven't seen my previous post, this research received the Undergraduate Research Project Award (see this post) 🎉
Thank you to everyone who made this research possible!
