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In this paper, I intend to explore the role played by reflexivity in grounding a more critical perspective when designing, implementing and analysing participatory digital media research. To carry out this methodological reflection, I will present and discuss a recently concluded research project on young people’s game-making in an after-school programme targeting Latin American migrants in London/UK. I will pay special attention to how my subjectivities influenced planning, data generation and analysis of this programme, and to how context, lived experiences, curricular decisions and interpersonal relationships shaped the kinds of knowledge produced through this research. Findings emerging from this experience included relevant dissonances between curricular design/decisions and the use of participatory approaches in game-making, and the limitations of traditional analytical categories within the Social Sciences field (e.g., gender and intersectionality) to understanding subjectivities expressed through game-making. This study offers relevant insights into the place of reflexivity in research on digital media production by young people by highlighting its complexity and by calling for more critical and less homogenising approaches to this type of research.

This article investigates the relationship between young people’s game-making practices and meaning-making in videogames. By exploring two different games produced in a game-making club in London through a multimodal sociosemiotic approach, the author discusses how semiotic resources and modes were recruited by participants to realize different discourses. By employing concepts such as modality truth claims and grammar, he examines how these games help us reflect on the links between intertextuality, hegemonic gaming forms and sign-making through digital games. He also outlines how a broader approach to what has been recently defined as the ‘procedural’ mode by Hawreliak in Multimodal Semiotics and Rhetoric in Videogames (2018) can be relevant for promoting different and more democratic forms of meaning-making through videogames.

This paper explores a game-making programme for 14 Latin American migrants aged 13-18 in London/UK, carried out between October/2017-January/2018, where I investigated the relationships between game conventions, platforms and personal preferences in the curation of fluid identities through game production. Participants presented varying levels of affinity with games linked both to access issues and to other specific elements (e.g. perception of games in contemporary culture, gender). Questionnaires, observations, unstructured/semistructured interviews and gaming archives were employed to explore this participatory initiative and data was analysed through Multimodal Sociosemiotics. Findings remarked how shared understandings about digital games can find their way into platforms and act as “cultural-technical gatekeepers”, supporting or hindering the engagement with game-making of those often perceived as outsiders to gaming culture. This gatekeeping happens when there are “creative dissonances” between, for example, personal preferences and platforms aligned to normative/mainstream genres. These dissonances, however, can end up fostering subversive designs, contravening gaming conventions and potentially challenging traditional gaming boundaries. This insight is relevant for understanding “cultural-technical constraints” and subversive/non-mainstream game-making, especially in relation to innovation and appropriation of game-making resources/strategies by non-mainstream groups.

Este artículo analiza las implicaciones ontológicas y el carácter performativo del documental Shekuita o el mal trueno, lanzado en 2017 por un colectivo de producción audio- visual indígena wiwa en la Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta en Colombia. El documental explora las causas, dudas y consecuencias de un triste incidente ocurrido tres años antes: la caída de un rayo sobre una edificación ceremonial de los wiwas, que causó la muerte a casi una docena de líderes. A partir del contraste entre las explicaciones científicas de la tragedia y las que han investigado las autoridades espirituales de la comunidad desde sus ontologías relacionales, y basándonos en un trabajo de campo cuasietnográfico durante el proceso de filmación, buscamos dar cuenta de un caso específico de descolonización de lo real y de los esfuerzos de una comunidad indígena por la libre expresión y la representación autónoma. Encontramos que este documental abre puertas de forma artística a mundos otros, contados en clave insumisa desde una indigenidad que nos interpela. Concluimos que los wiwas performan un realidad que no necesariamente es la que vivieron, sino una que les permite estratégicamente alcanzar más fácilmente la realidad que quieren recuperar. El artículo intenta contribuir a la visibilización de otras ontologías distintas de la naturalista, a mostrar las autocríticas de esta y a manifestar cómo el audiovisual es un espacio propicio para descolonizar lo real. This paper analyzes the ontological implications and the performative nature of the documentary Shekuita o el mal trueno, released in 2017 by a Wiwa indigenous audiovisual production group in Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia. The do-cumentary explores the causes, doubts and consequences of a sad incident that happened three years earlier: a lightning strike on a Wiwas ceremonial building, which killed nearly a dozen leaders. Based on the contrast between the scientific explanations of the tragedy and those that the spiritual authorities of the community have investigated according to their relational ontologies and based on a quasi-eth-nographic fieldwork during the filming process, we seek to account for a specific case of decolonization of reality and of the efforts of an indigenous community for free expression and autonomous representation. We find that this documentary opens doors to other worlds in an artistic way, told in an unsubmissive way by an indigenous community that challenges us. We conclude that the Wiwa perform a reality that is not necessarily the one they lived through, but one that strategically allows them to reach the reality they want to recover more easily. The paper at-tempts to contribute to the visibility of other ontologies other than the naturalistic one, to show self-criticism of it and to show how the audiovisual is a propitious space to decolonize reality.

Video games, which uniquely interweave design, code, art, and sound, can be an especially robust way to express Indigenous cultures. Such games should involve Indigenous people in meaningful roles throughout design and development from conceptualization to distribution with a focus on building capacity to encourage self-determination for Indigenous game developers. This call to action informs SPEAR (Sovereignty, Positionality, Equity, Advocacy, and Reciprocity), a framework for design and development informed by the Indigenous cultural game Thunderbird Strike.

Digital games can uniquely express Indigenous teachings by merging design, code, art, and sound. Inspired by Anishinaabe grandmothers leading ceremonial walks known as Nibi Walks, Honour Water (http://www.honourwater.com/) is a singing game that aims to bring awareness to threats to the waters and offer pathways to healing through song. The game was developed with game company Pinnguaq and welcomes people from all over to sing with good intentions for the waters. The hope is to pass on songs through gameplay that encourages comfort with singing and learning Anishinaabemowin. Songs were gifted by Sharon M. Day and the Oshkii Giizhik Singers. Sharon M. Day, who is Bois Forte Band of Ojibwe and one of the founders of the Indigenous Peoples Task Force, has been a leading voice using singing to revitalize the waters. The Oshkii Giizhik Singers, a community of Anishinaabekwe who gather at Fond du Lac reservation, contribute to the healing for singers, communities, and the waters. Water teachings are infused in art and writing by Anishinaabe and Métis game designer, artist, and writer Elizabeth LaPensée. From development to distribution, Honour Water draws on Indigenous ways of knowing to reinforce Anishinaabeg teachings with hope for healing the water.

Thunderbird Strike, a 2D side-scroller developed by Elizabeth LaPensée, allows a player fly from the Tar Sands to the Great Lakes as a thunderbird protecting Turtle Island with searing lightning against the snake that threatens to swallow the lands and waters whole. The game encouraged players to learn about the indigenous culture, reflect on water protection and alternative energy sources, and gain awareness of risks posed by oil pipeline construction for the conveyance of tar sands.Thunderbird Strike was developed through residencies including O k’inādās Residency, The Banff Musicians in Residence Program, and Territ-Aur(i)al Imprints Exchange thanks to the 2016 Artist Fellowship grant from the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council.

There are clear challenges posed by rural and remote education in Australia. These challenges are caused both by physical and material factors, but more importantly epistemological divisions that have created a separation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous worlds. Video games have the potential to bridge this epistemological gap by explicating the differences between different knowledge systems and engaging students in exploring these differences. Crucially, these projects need to be co-constructed to ensure that not only the representations of Indigenous people surpass some dubious traditions, but that different epistemologies are adequately framed. There is an urgent need for research-informed game-based learning projects to begin to address the ‘epistemology gap’ and the challenges faced by all Australians.

Digital games, with their capacity for expression and facilitating experience through code, design, art, and audio, offer spaces for Indigenous creatives to contribute to Gerald Vizenor’s characterization of survivance as an active sense of Native presence. Indigenous digital games can be acts of survivance both in the ways they are created as well as the resulting designs. We Sing for Healing is an experiment in developing an Indigenous digital game during limited Internet access that resulted in a musical choose-your-own adventure text game with design, art, and code by Anishinaabe, Métis, and Irish game developer Elizabeth LaPensée alongside music by Peguis First Nation mix artist Exquisite Ghost. The non-linear gameplay expresses traditional storytelling patterns while enabling players to poetically travel in, through, and around traditional teachings. The design uses listening, choosing, and revisiting to reinforce what is best described as a non-linear loopular journey.

En esta conversación entre la cineasta documental Marta Rodríguez y Pedro Pablo Gómez, antes que hacer un recorrido cronológico por el trabajo la artista, se abordan problemas tranversales que están presentes a lo largo de su obra: el cine documental como modo de representación; la construcción de una metodología del cine documental latinoamericano; el carácter decolonial de la obra de Rodríguez y su compromiso indeclinable durante más de cuatro décadas de acompañar las luchas de campesinos, indígenas y afrodescendientes, entre otros. Y es en este abordaje donde Marta Rodríguez, haciendo uso de una memoria extraordinaria, puede tejer un relato en el que se destaca la ética de la artista y su compromiso indeclinable de denuncia de las injusticias sociales, utilizando las tecnologías del cine, no para hablar por las víctimas, sino para hacer escuchar sus voces y mantener vivas sus imágenes; unas imágenes que interpelan el discurso colonial mediante el cual se ha tejido nuestro relato de nación. Dans cette conversation entre la cinéaste documentaire Marta Rodríguez et Pedro Pablo Gómez, avant d'entreprendre une tournée chronologique de l'œuvre de l'artiste, nous traitons les problèmes transversaux présents tout au long de son travail : le cinéma documentaire comme mode de représentation ; la construction d'une méthodologie du documentaire latino-américain; la nature décoloniale de l'œuvre de Rodríguez et son engagement pendant plus de quatre décennies pour accompagner les luttes des paysans, des indigènes et des Afro-descendants, entre autres. Et c'est dans cette approche que Marta Rodríguez, avec une mémoire extraordinaire, peut tisser une histoire qui souligne l'éthique de l'artiste et son engagement indécelable à dénoncer les injustices sociales, en utilisant les technologies du cinéma –pour ne pas parler en lieu des victimes, mais pour faire entendre leur voix et garder leurs images vivantes. Des images qui contestent le discours colonial par lequel notre récit de nation a été tissé.

If character actions are not to be seen in deterministic ways, then an alternative framing should be considered on which writers might base constructs of complexity of action. This is possible if action itself is seen as an expression of relationality rather than as activity-as-substance. Looking at people in this way enables the behaviour of Feiticeiro/a characters to be seen as activities that are more than the actions of combinations of sexed bodies in physical spaces. This chapter explores a construct for action on this basis as it becomes possible by acknowledging in a construct of ‘doing’ the phenomenological notions of ‘being’ as a Feiticeiro/a form constituted by a hybrid of ‘object-discourse-nature-society’ characterised by networks of confluence. The chapter explores the notion of the Feiticeiro/a character in terms of an internal coherency, taking account of interactions and activities (as exhibited through their material form), ‘naturalness’, linearity of course of action and embodied notions of meaning-creation.

This thesis argues that photography is tainted with ingrained racist ideologies that have been present since its earliest inception in 1839. It considers the act of photographing the Other as a site of Western violence, myth, fantasy and disavowal. It examines archival images through the prism of race, representation and human rights with the aim of extracting new meanings that bring the Other into focus. This is done by reading the images both against the politics of the time in which they were made and as contemporary objects at work in the political and cultural present. The thesis makes the case that photography is burdened with ideological fault-lines concerning race and rights. The fault-lines have been forged by cultural and colonial violence resulting in Western scopic regimes that have dominated and fixed the Other within an inescapable set of Western epistemologies that have been used to serve and enhance imperial perspectives on race. I argue that these perspectives are still active within the Western mindset manifest as benign acts of photographic empathy that work to ultimately bolster Western hegemonies and economies. This thesis is based on 25 years of experience as a researcher and curator of international photography exhibitions, direct research into archives in different continental settings, the presentation of papers in a variety of national and international contexts, and interviews withphotographers, curators and academics. My hypothesis is that the history of photography can only be complete if the voice of the subaltern is made critically present within it, so allowing us to engage with important political racial memory work that can help us re-read the past and reconfigure different meanings concerning history, race, rights and human recognition in the present. I argue that photography requires decolonising work to be carried out on its history. I propose that if we do not recognise the historical and political conjunctures of racial politics at work within photography and the effects on those that have been culturally erased, made invisible or less than human by such images, then we remain hemmed within established orthodoxies of colonial thought concerning the racialised body, the subaltern and the politics of human recognition.

Article sur les machinimas de l'artiste Skawennati (Kanien'kehá:ka) et du travail du laboratoire d'ABTEC (Aboriginal Territories on cyberspace) à l'Université Concordia.