Votre recherche

This thesis explores the many ways indigenous religion is articulated, performed and translated in the video game Never Alone - Kisima Inŋitchuŋa (2014). The video game was among the first of its kind – being made in a close collaboration with an indigenous group, and published by the first indigenous owned video game company in the U.S.A. At launch, Never Alone gathered attention from traditional media in both North America and in Europe, and the game reached a global audience. Never Alone tells a story based on Inupiat storytelling, and Cultural Ambassadors gives the player an insight into Inupiat culture and tradition. Never Alone balances on the edge between the conventions of the video game medium and its genres, and of indigenous tradition and religion. This thesis examines how vocabularies that can be related to ‘indigenous religion’ are used and translated in Never Alone, and how these vocabularies relate to a globalizing discourse on indigenous religion. This thesis also explores how the medium of video games facilitates new ways of reclaiming traditions and articulating indigenous religion.

This thesis analyzes and discusses the complexities of digital representations involving Indigenous peoples through video games. Connecting both Game Theory and Native Studies, I analyze how digital games incorporate identity, culture, and relationships in diverse and intellectual ways and provide new spaces for Indigenous agency and semiotics. Beginning with an analysis of several historical and negative representations of Indigenous peoples, I then compare those tropes to projects within today’s environment and mainstream video game companies, independent companies, and educational service providers. I assert that while some digital media representations of Indigenous cultures are stereotypical and problematic, others facilitate a sense of cultural continuance and survivance. Lastly, some video games display both stereotypical and cultural continuance within them.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: As I sit writing in my kitchen while the forces of the U.S. military state are brought to bear on thousands of Standing Rock water stewards and land protectors and their allies in Cannonball, North Dakota, I consider how this sail special issue on digital Indigenous studies not only represents a collection of essays about the critical work Indigenous women are performing in their various digital projects but also illustrates that these online “Indigenous territories” (Hearne), crafted on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, save lives. Every single day since the protectors first gathered to oppose the proposed 1,170-mile Dakota Access pipeline (a project that would potentially contaminate the Missouri watershed and the Ogallala Aquifer and desecrate Dakota sacred sites), digital independent and social media have constantly covered the story. At least 1.3 million Facebook users checked in virtually at Oceti Sakowin and other Indigenous camps and communities to ensure that support presence is recognized, while the world monitors the presence of the military and police force gathering at the construction site to curb further violence. The Standing Rock gathering offers hope to networked Indigenous youth, a demographic between three and ten times as likely to commit suicide than the national average peer rate. The Nodapl action in the Indigenous imaginary is an invitation to stand at the front lines of a global movement to protect water and land resources for all living beings on this planet and to draw attention to and support those whose lives and ways of being are in peril through overt military action and consequential environmental destruction. It is also an occasion, in the words of Jolene Rickard, “to invest in the apparatus of the imagination” (Bernardin). One need only look at the online art, handwritten signs, and logos representing #nodapl, #standingrock, [End Page 172] #waterislife, and #rezpectourwater to see the ways in which Indigenous artists are creatively and powerfully envisioning this movement, most often immersed with work that features strong images of Native women and girls, the community backbone and life force. Or we need only view digital videos like computer animator and artist Joseph Erb’s black-and-red graphic history of Standing Rock, “Mni Wiconi / Water Is Life” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXoy5lzpjiM), and first-person game platforms like Elizabeth LaPensée’s Thunderbird Strike, which extend the conversations at Standing Rock to the struggles over Enbridge’s Alberta tar sands pipeline and fracking practices as players work to undo and prevent further environmental degradation. Following Idle No More’s digital and geospatial (re)articulation of Indigenous territories, we are now living and loving and hoping in this historic moment as new ways of relating to one another and living in deep connection with the land and all its forms of life are being physiologically, intellectually, and spiritually forged at the geospatial confluence of the Missouri and Cannonball Rivers. They are being forged as well through the confluences of digital rivers on our electronic devices and in our online conversations about the beauty and devastation of the events that are unfolding in Standing Rock. Susan Bernardin’s essay in this issue on Heid E. Erdrich’s “Pre-Occupied” considers the meaning of rivers to Native peoples and contends that images of waterways, particularly the Mississippi, are mobilized “to make visible the continuing claims of this and other imperiled riverine systems.” In her introduction, Joanna Hearne asks us, “How might such an intersection of digital and Indigenous specificities take place in a way that is ‘native to the device’; that is, how might Indigenous specificity be embedded in shared platforms that are therefore central to all of our digital lives?” The essays in this special issue respond to this question by theorizing digital media in fresh and innovative ways. Many of us teach digital humanities courses or classes with strong digital media content, but we lack the language for critically engaging this new field on its own terms as it intersects, extends, and radically reconceptualizes more familiar research areas such as cinema studies, Indigenous / Native American studies, communication, literature, art, and history.

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.

This article examines Indigenous video games that critique mainstream environmental politics at the level of mechanics. An analysis of video games’ influences on ecological values requires looking beyond the representational to the mechanical relationships between player and software. As a cultural–computational medium, video games are embedded with ethics of interaction that inflect this representational dimension by requiring that players generate the text as participant. With the recent visibility of Indigenous rights movements, developers have embedded Indigenous cultural protocols in the mechanical interactions (or technical protocols) of gameplay. In the context of critique, their integration produces “critical protocols,” configurations of gamic action that encourage players to evaluate their treatment of real-world environments. Critical protocols emerge between the technical and cultural, where scripts for interaction in algorithmic spaces intervene in affirmative game design and work as an analog beyond the game. Indigenous developers call for new ways of computing and critiquing settler digitality through play. These games aim toward representational as well as computational sovereignty.

When Rivers Were Trails is a 2D adventure game wherein The Oregon Trail meets Where the Water Tastes Like Wine through an Indigenous lens. The game depicts a myriad of cultures during the player’s journey from Minnesota to California amidst the impact of land allotment in the 1890s. Initiated by the Indian Land Tenure Foundation, the game was developed in collaboration with the Games for Entertainment and Learning Lab at Michigan State University thanks to support from the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians and the many Indigenous creatives who contributed design, art, music, and writing. Uniquely, When Rivers Were Trails is a sovereign game, meaning that it was directed and informed by Indigenous creatives who maintained the role of final decisions during development. Merging design research and close reading methods, this study sets out to describe the game’s design, development process in regards to the game writing, and the resulting themes which emerged as a result of engaging Indigenous writers in self-determined representations.

En 2014, une collaboration entre le studio Upper One Games et des conteurs et aînés iñupiats d’Alaska a mené au lancement du jeu vidéo Kisima Inŋitchuŋa (Never Alone). Ce jeu de plateforme invite à une immersion poétique dans un univers nordique guidée par une trame narrative inspirée d’une légende traditionnelle. Dans une perspective culturelle, les fonctions ludique et documentaire du jeu permettent d’acquérir des connaissances en lien avec les pratiques traditionnelles et la vision du monde des Iñupiats. Ainsi, l’étude exploratoire présentée dans cet article contribue à comprendre les caractéristiques du jeu (design, narration, mécaniques) et les stratégies relevant de sa conception. Les résultats invitent à reconsidérer des représentations dominantes du Grand Nord et soulignent en quoi le jeu vidéo se fait vecteur d’expression du patrimoine culturel, artistique et oral d’un peuple autochtone de l’Arctique.

Computational algorithmic thinking (CAT) is the ability to design, implement, and assess the implementation of algorithms to solve a range of problems. It involves identifying and understanding a problem, articulating an algorithm or set of algorithms in the form of a solution to the problem, implementing that solution in such a way that the solution solves the problem, and evaluating the solution based on some set of criteria. CAT is an important scaffolded on-ramp as students develop more advanced computational thinking capabilities and apply computational thinking to solve problems that are more constrained and require greater expertise. Supporting Computational Algorithmic Thinking (SCAT) is both a longitudinal between-subjects research project and a free enrichment program supporting and guiding African-American middle school girls over three years as they iteratively design a set of complex games for social change. This article explores Scholars' reflections about the difficulties they faced while using CAT capabilities as they engaged in collaborative game design for social change over those three years. We particularly focus on how these difficulties changed over the course of three years as well as new difficulties that emerged from year to year as Scholars become more expert game designers and computational algorithmic thinkers.

Computer Science education research establishes collaboration among students as a key component in learning, particularly its role in pair programming. Furthermore, research shows that girls, an underrepresented population in computing, benefit from collaborative learning environments, contributing to their persistence in CS. However, too few studies examine the role and benefits of collaborative learning, especially collaborative talk, among African-American girls in the context of complex tasks like designing video games for social change. In this exploratory study, we engage 4 dyads of African-American middle school girls in the task of designing a video game for social change, recording the dyads' conversations with their respective partners over an eight-week summer game design experience during the second year of what has now become a six-year study. Qualitative analysis of dyadic collaborative discussion reveals how collaborative talk evolves over time in African-American middle-school girls.

Questions about the meanings of racialized representations must be included as part of developing an ethical game design practice. This paper examines the various ways in which race and racial contexts are represented in a selected range of commercially available e-games, namely war, sports and action-adventure games. The analysis focuses on the use of racial slurs and the contingencies of historical re-representation in war games; the limited representation of black masculinity in sports games and the romanticization of ‘ghetto play’ in urban street games; and the pathologization and fetishization of race in ‘crime sim’ action-adventure games such as True Crime: Streets of LA. This paper argues for, firstly, a continuous critical engagement with these dominant representations in all their evolving forms; secondly, the necessary inclusion of reflexive precepts in e-games development contexts; and thirdly, the importance of advocating for more diverse and equitable racialized representations in commercial e-games.

Many games touch upon issues that are related to the postcolonial culture we live in. Be it in the shape of referring to how it has generated ethnic differences, subscribing to (post) capitalist values of winning and gaining, or by employing militarist strategies that have been partly shaped our colonial histories, cultural notions that are related to our colonial past are often resonant in games. However, one particular strand of strategy games takes the notions of colonialism as its most central focus. Games like Age Of Empires (AOE), Civilization and Rise of Nations, may differ greatly in certain ludological aspects, but all share a strong fascination with colonial history. Through employing colonial techniques of domination like exploring, trading, map-making and military manoeuvring, players create their personal colonial pasts and futures. Even though it is evident that such games share an explicit fascination with colonial history, it remains less clear in what way they may be called postcolonial. In this article I will shed light on why and how such games can be called postcolonial and should even be conceived as one of the most significant arenas to express the tensions and frictions that are part of the postcolonial culture we live in. As postcolonial playgrounds they offer the perfect means to play with and make sense of how colonial spatial practices have shaped contemporary culture. I will argue that the very character of digital games as well as the specific game mechanisms of historical strategy games makes them postcolonial playgrounds par excellence.

The widespread popularity of sandbox games, and Minecraft in particular, may be a recent phenomenon, but their appeal may be much older. Rather than representing a wholly new development in gaming, these games may participate in a larger media ecology that flatters a neoliberal worldview. This research calls for greater attention to the coercive economic assumptions encoded in gamemechanics. Drawing on scholarship in ludology, postcolonial studies, and phenomenology, it suggests that sandbox games like Minecraft habituate players to myths of empire and capital that rationalize political and economic inequality. More than simply offering a blank slate for player creation, Minecraft rewards players for assuming their entitlement to the world’s resources and thus their superiority over other inhabitants of the game world.

In this investigation, the authors ask how media exemplars of Black masculinity influence the views of and intentions toward other Black men. An experiment compared the effects of exposure to Black video game characters fitting the exemplar thug or street criminal (e.g., Carl Johnson from GRAND THEFT AUTO: SAN ANDREAS) versus exemplars of professional Black men (e.g., political leaders), on evaluations of an unknown and unrelated Black or White political candidate and on pro-Black attitudes. Results revealed significant interactions of exemplar type and candidate race on favorability and capability candidate ratings and on pro-Black attitudes. These data demonstrate the power of mass media exemplars of Black masculinity to prime meaningfully different outcomes in viewers. As the face of gaming evolves with advances in technology, so too should the characterization of race in games.

"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.

1. Racism and Mainstream Media / Lori Kido Lopez -- 2. Image Analysis and Televisual Latinos / Mary Beltrán -- 3. Visualizing Mixed Race and Genetics / Meshell Sturgis and Ralina L. Joseph -- 4. Listening to Racial Injustice / Dolores Inés Casillas and Jennifer Lynn Stoever -- 5. Branding Athlete Activism / Jason Kido Lopez -- 6. The Burden of Representation in Asian American Television / Peter X. Feng -- 7. Indigenous Video Games / Jacqueline Land -- 8. Applying Latina/o Critical Communication Theory to Anti-Blackness / Mari Castañeda -- 9. Asian American Independent Media / Jun Okada -- 10. Remediating Trans Visuality / Amy Villarejo -- 11. Intersectional Distribution / Aymar Jean Christian -- 12. Podcasting Blackness / Sarah Florini -- 13. Black Twitter as Semi-Enclave / Raven Maragh-Lloyd -- 14. Arab Americans and Participatory Culture / Sulafa Zidani -- 15. Diaspora and Digital Media / Lia Wolock -- 16. Disrupting News Media / Meredith D. Clark -- 17. Latinx Audiences as Mosaic / Jillian M. Báez -- 18. Media Activism in the Red Power Movement / Miranda J. Brady -- 19. Black Gamers' Resistance / Kishonna L. Gray -- 20. Cosmopolitan Fan Activism / Susan Noh.

This research explores the ways different people experience the racial content of video games. Building on DeVane and Squire, this research speaks to content analyses literature that shows games as modern minstrelsies. Using Bonilla-Silva’s definition of Racial Ideology in conjunction with Winddance-Twine’s concept of Racial Literacy, I examined racial ideology and its role as an interpretative framework. I also used Bourdieu's notion of cultural capital to account for video game cultural knowledge. Data were collected through personal interviews where participants played the video game Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony for 30-50 minutes. A sample of 31 participants covering variation in gender, gaming experience, and race answered questions assessing their racial ideology, then played the game introduction, and finally, answered questions assessing interpretations of game content. Racially aware people with little gaming experience echoed the content analysis minstrelsy findings while colorblind racist non-gamers believed the content accurately represented the world. However, deeper familiarity with gaming and other mass media opened up a new interstitial space for challenging the racial status quo. Racially aware gamers saw the franchises as lampooning the shallow stereotypes in mainstream society. More importantly, with a more sophisticated media context, many colorblind racist gamers also saw racial representations as intentionally offensive. Gamers herein create inventive, non-threatening, but meaningful ways to address racialization across a spectrum of racial literacies. As a result, content analyses need a richer understanding of the experiences of video games for consumers.

This article examines the racialization of informational labor in machinima about Chinese player workers in the massively multiplayer online role playing game World ofWarcraft. Such fan-produced video content extends the representational space of thegame and produces overtly racist narrative space to attach to a narrative that, whilecarefully avoiding explicit references to racism or racial conflict in our world, is premised upon a racial war in an imaginary world*the World of Azeroth. This profiling activityis part of a larger biometric turn initiated by digital culture’s informationalization of thebody and illustrates the problematics of informationalized capitalism. If late capitalism ischaracterized by the requirement for subjects to be possessive individuals, to make claims to citizenship based on ownership of property, then player workers are unnatural subjects in that they are unable to obtain avatarial self-possession. The painful paradox of this dynamic lies in the ways that it mirrors the dispossession of information workers in the Fourth Worlds engendered by ongoing processes of globalization. As long as Asian ‘‘farmers’’ are figured as unwanted guest workers within the culture of MMOs, user-produced extensions of MMO-space like machinima will most likely continue to depict Asian culture as threatening to the beauty and desirability of shared virtual space in the World of Warcraft.