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Questions of nation and identity not only concern multiple aspects of video games, their production, and their consumption, but also require further and manifold discussion from different perspectives. In an effort to bring together voices from different fields that engage with video games and gaming practices from various perspectives, this virtual round table discussion attempts to open up the conversation beyond the realms of academia. Kathrin Trattner and Lisa Kienzl talked to Megan Condis, Marijam Didzgalvyt , Georg Hobmeier and Souvik Mukherjee about how concepts such as nation(alism) and identity impact video game representations, the gaming industry, and online gaming cultures in numerous ways.

An interview by Kathrin Trattner with Mira Wardhaningsih, Cultural Content Director from StoryTale Studios about the game Pamali

Indigenous and decolonizing perspectives on education have long persisted alongside colonial models of education, yet too often have been subsumed within the fields of multiculturalism, critical race theory, and progressive education. Timely and compelling, Indigenous and Decolonizing Studies in Education features research, theory, and dynamic foundational readings for educators and educational researchers who are looking for possibilities beyond the limits of liberal democratic schooling. Featuring original chapters by authors at the forefront of theorizing, practice, research, and activism, this volume helps define and imagine the exciting interstices between Indigenous and decolonizing studies and education. Each chapter forwards Indigenous principles - such as Land as literacy and water as life - that are grounded in place-specific efforts of creating Indigenous universities and schools, community organizing and social movements, trans and Two Spirit practices, refusals of state policies, and land-based and water-based pedagogies.--publisher's description.

This book explores Vietnamese popular television in the post-Reform era, that is, from 1986, focussing on the relationship between television and national imagination. It locates Vietnamese television in the experiences of everyday life and the prevailing network of power relations resulting from marketization and globalization, and, as such, moves beyond the clichéd assumption of Vietnamese media as a mere propagandist instrument of the party state. With examples from a wide range of television genres, the book demonstrates how Vietnamese television enables novel conditions of cultural oppression as well as political engagement in the name of the nation. In sharp contrast to the previous image of Vietnam as a war-torn land, post-Reform television conjures into being a new sense of national belonging based on an implicit rejection of the socialist past, hopes for peace and prosperity, and anxieties about a globalized future. This book highlights the richness of Vietnam’s current culture and identity, characterized, the book argues, by ‘fraternity without uniformity’.

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.

This article considers larger methodological questions of what political work is undertaken when scholars engage in postcolonial critiques of video games within academic intellectual frameworks. What is postcolonial game studies, and what is its purpose, within the context of larger issues of inclusion, representation, diversity, and the challenging of hegemonic power structures? After surveying some of the key literature in postcolonial game studies, the author provides critical frameworks for understanding the means by which these approaches have largely been excluded from video game studies, and their crucial function in operating against the grain of profit and innovation-driven discourses in games. This work is the extension of a larger discussion of inclusion, diversity, and tolerance discourse within the liberal academy, and particularly the functions of postcolonial, postmodern and other critical cultural scholarly interventions. In this article, the author argues for a postcolonial approach to game studies, but one that refuses to be reduced to an institutional cultural labor of due diligence, or according to Slavoj Žižek’s term, a ‘culturalization of politics’. Through the work of Stuart Hall and Sara Ahmed on intellectual diversity work within the context of large systems and academic institutions, this article asserts that the perception that critical theorizations (like postcolonial game studies) exert pressure on efficiency and innovation is greatly outweighed by the rich toolkits they bring to video games as maturing cultural forms.

As a media form entwined in the U.S. military-industrial complex, video games continue to celebrate imperialist imagery and Western-centric narratives of the great white explorer (Breger, 2008; Dyer-Witheford & de Peuter, 2009; Geyser & Tshalabala, 2011; Mukherjee, 2016). While much ink has been spilt on the detrimental effects of colonial imagery on those it objectifies and dehumanises, the question is why these games still get made, and what mechanisms are at work in the enjoyment of empire-themed play experiences. To explore this question, this article develops the concept of ‘casual empire’, suggesting that the wish to play games as a casual pastime expedites the incidental circulation of imperialist ideology. Three examples – Resident Evil V (2009), The Conquest: Colonization (2015) and Playing History: Slave Trade (2013) – are used to demonstrate the production and consumption of casual empire across multiple platforms, genres and player bases. Following a brief contextualisation of postcolonial (game) studies, this article addresses casual design, by which I understand game designers’ casual reproduction of inferential racism (Hall, 1995) for the sake of entertainment. I then look at casual play, and players’ attitudes to games as rational commodities continuing a history of commodity racism (McClintock, 1995). Finally, the article investigates the casual involvement of formalist game studies in the construction of imperial values. These three dimensions of the casual – design, play and academia – make up the three pillars of the casual empire that must be challenged to undermine video games’ neocolonialist praxis.

Studies investigating the representation of Africans and other ethnicities are scarce in video game literature. Using a content analysis approach, this paper examines Africans’ representation in ten of the most popular games of 2014 in the United States based on industry market research reports. The findings show that Africans are underrepresented in video games explored in this study. The study also reveals that African characters in these games did not play leading roles in the storyline. Results are discussed as they pertain to Africans’ representation in video games, media effect, and media literature. This exploratory study broadens the discussion on representation in video games to other ethnicities and shows the need for studies on representation in contemporary video games that include understudied ethnicities.

An exhibition at Mexico City's Museo Jumex argues that from 1960 and '85, artists across Latin America created a "decolonial" cultural history. However, the use of the term is largely unclear.

Cet article discute de la pertinence d’identifier les arts visuels autochtones comme tel, de maintenir une forme de distinction vis-à-vis des œuvres produites par les artistes autochtones. Il s’agit d’éclairer le débat en soutenant qu’il existe bel et bien certains éléments précis qui permettent encore de définir les arts autochtones. Est également abordé le fait que les artistes continuent d’employer la stratégie claire de l’auto-identification. Sous cet angle, cette catégorie des arts autochtones ne semble pas encore caduque

Le travail de l’artiste huron-wendat Pierre Sioui est assez méconnu au Québec. Prolifique dans les années 1980 et ayant exposé aux quatre coins du Canada ainsi qu’aux États-Unis, Sioui a ensuite totalement disparu du milieu des arts contemporains autochtones. Une relecture du travail de cet artiste permet de redécouvrir un créateur fascinant tout à fait inscrit dans les préoccupations esthétiques et politiques de sa décennie. Sioui semble surtout avoir employé sa démarche artistique au service d’une redécouverte de son identité et de ses racines. Il l’a fait par le biais de recherches à la fois théoriques, cosmologiques et esthétiques des valeurs et de la culture huronne, le conduisant vers une thématique entourant principalement le sens des rituels, la mort et le cycle de la vie. Tous ces vieillards dans ses oeuvres, ces cadavres, ces ossements et ces crânes, parlent de relations entre mort et renaissance, entre colonialisme puis réappropriation, et semblent être pour Sioui une véritable trame créatrice à renouveler sans cesse.

Game Devs & Others: Tales from the Margins tell the true stories of life in the industry by people of color, LGBTQIA and other marginalized identities. This collection of essays give people a chance to tell their stories and to let others know what life on the other side of the screen is like when you’re not part of the supposed “majority”. Key Features This book is perfect for anyone interested in getting into the games industry who feels they have a marginalized identity For those who wish to better diversify their studio or workplace who may or may not have access to individuals that could or would share their stories about the industry Includes initiatives aimed at diversifying the industry that have a positive or negative impact on the ongoing discussions Coverage of ajor news items about diversity, conferences aimed at or having diversity at its core of content and mission are discussed Included essays are written with as little game dev specific jargon as possible, makeing it accessible to people outside the industry as well as those in the scene but that may not have all the insider lingo

"Les bandes dessinées, chansons, films, jeux vidéos, musées, reconstitutions, romans, séries télévisées et voyages occupent de plus en plus de place dans la vie des élèves. Comment exploiter en classe ces biens, loisirs et services culturels d'histoire pour que les élèves posent de mieux en mieux certains actes mentaux que les historiennes et historiens doivent effectuer lorsqu'elles et ils adoptent leur pratique? Pour répondre à cette question, les auteures et auteurs de cet ouvrage explorent les usages scolaires possibles et souhaitables des produits qui ne sont pas associés à l'histoire savante et sur l'exploitation didactique de ce que la Loi québécoise sur les biens culturels désigne comme "?une oeuvre d'art, un bien historique, un monument ou un site historique ... une oeuvre cinématographique, audiovisuelle, photographique, radiophonique ou télévisuelle?". Les auteures et auteurs s'intéressent à des oeuvres qui ne sont pas créées pour l'école, mais qui peuvent néanmoins servir aux enseignantes et enseignants pour faire apprendre l'histoire aux élèves."--Résumé de l'éditeur.

James Brady was a mid twentieth-century Indigenous political organiser, trapper, prospector, writer, and intellectual. He was also a prolific photographer. This article considers the significance and aesthetics of Brady’s photographic archive through the lens of Indigenous visual sovereignty. Brady was Métis - one of Canada’s three recognised Indigenous peoples along with First Nations and Inuit. The Métis engaged in two conflicts with the Canadian state and negotiated the entry of a province into confederation. For a significant period of history, they lived outside Canadian infrastructures, whether the system of First Nations’ reserves created in the post-treaty era or Euro-Canadian settlements. Particularly vulnerable to land loss and displacement, the Métis were in desperate condition when Brady first began travelling with his camera. Brady’s photographs document the political rebirth of Métis people and the resilience and persistence of Métis communities in northern Alberta and Saskatchewan. They bear photographic witness to the lived experience of sovereignty rooted to place and continue to resonate with his subjects and their descendants

Games face a crisis of diversity in both their content and in the industry itself. The inequalities that underlie these issues are heightened in the Global South. Addressing these issues will require a systemic decolonisation of games education in which future generations of industry professionals become critically engaged in their creative practice. Decolonisation requires the investigation and reconstruction of the ways knowledge is created and produced. To enable this, the curricula employed in teaching games requires close investigation and intervention. The difficulties of enabling access to knowledge when teaching games are exacerbated when seen in light of the need for decolonisation. Situated in a South African context, this article investigates the first-year core course ‘Key Concepts in Game Design’ offered at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. It outlines the challenges games education faces in South Africa and takes stock of the state of the course and of the perceptions of students enrolled in it. It demonstrates that the course curriculum requires increased Africanisation and the establishment of common play practices. Finally, it highlights the importance of focusing on the development of critical game literacies as part of the decolonising project.

From #Gamergate to the daily experiences of marginalization among gamers, gaming is entangled with mainstream cultures of systematic exploitation and oppression. Whether visible in the persistent color line that shapes the production, dissemination, and legitimization of dominant stereotypes within the industry itself, or in the dehumanizing representations often found within game spaces, many video games perpetuate injustice and mirror the inequities and violence that permeate society as a whole. Drawing from the latest research and from popular games such as World of warcraft and Tomb raider, Woke gaming examines resistance to spaces of violence, discrimination, and microaggressions in gaming culture. The contributors of these essays identify strategies to detox gaming culture and orient players toward progressive ends, illustrating the power and potential of video games to become catalysts for social justice

Feminism in Play focuses on women as they are depicted in video games, as participants in games culture, and as contributors to the games industry. This volume showcases women's resistance to the norms of games culture, as well as women's play and creative practices both in and around the games industry. Contributors analyze the interconnections between games and the broader societal and structural issues impeding the successful inclusion of women in games and games culture. In offering this framework, this volume provides a platform to the silenced and marginalized, offering counter-narratives to the post-racial and post-gendered fantasies that so often obscure the violent context of production and consumption of games culture.

Introduction to the gamevironments Special Issue Video Game Development in Asia: Voices from the Field .