For those that are familiar and those that are just finding out,

I am Taniger, otherwise known as Brenton Spivey. I'm a twenty-year Furry and third year PhD student and I'm conducting interviews for my PhD this year at Anthrocon. My area of study is us (Furries) as a community and I'm doing an ethnographic and auto-ethnographic study of Furries from as a many countries as I can visit. I'm enrolled at Aberystwyth University, my supervisors are Prof. Matt Hills and Dr. Kate Egan, and I received my ethics approval through Aberystwyth's ethics board last year.

This will be the fourth round of interviews for the PhD. Most of them have been conducted at the Welsh Furs' monthly Furmeet in Cardiff and I recently conducted interviews at Confuzzled in Birmingham.

If you would like to be interviewed feel free to contact me here or just meet up with me at Anthrocon. All the data is anonymized, meaning your name and your fursona name won't be used in the study and I'm not collecting personal data. I'm interested in you as a Furry, your thoughts, and your experiences. I like to think of this as us telling our stories in our own words.

The interview process takes roughly one hour. Some are quicker, some are longer. It just depends on what you have to say. It's fairly informal, giving you the chance to say what you want and add what you feel is important. Additionally, I offer the chance to redact, withdraw and respond. For redaction, I will show you your interview transcript and how I have theorized the data and you may remove statements as you see fit. Response is the neatest one, allowing you to write an amendment to the PhD document which goes in unedited allowing you to say what you want regardless of whether you agree with me, disagree, or just want to add something. Lastly you have the right to withdraw any and all data up until the point that the PhD document is handed in or any secondary documents are published.

I'm legally responsible for ensuring the privacy of my interviewees and I'm not writing the PhD to be sensational or make fun of us as a community. I've got too much time and money invested in this project and to be perfectly frank, this is my career. This isn't about making us look good or bad, this is about academic study of our community.