08/03/2018
If you are interested in diversity in games and games user research, join GI researchers at their upcoming workshop at ACM CHIPLAY 2018. CHIPLAY 2018 will take place October 28-31 in beautiful Melbourne, Australia.
Gaming With the Subaltern
subaltern: populations that are socially, politically, and geographically outside of the hegemonic power structure of the colony and of the colonial homeland
Workshop description:
How do individual differences affect results and methods in games user research, and individuals' gameplay experiences? What perspectives and experiences are shared by people across gender, ethnicity, age, ability, class, and other social power dynamics? Which of these identity effects are unique and which are shared across dynamics of oppression? What do game researchers and developers need to understand regarding identity dynamics when gathering data, interpreting results, or presenting information? What does intersectionality (i.e., the living combination of multiple identity and power dynamics) look like in gaming, game development and research? Our workshop is built around these key questions in the hope that shared insights will allow us to move from simply valuing "diversity" toward successful intersectional practices in research, development, and play.
This workshop represents an effort to gather a community of identity, power, and diversity researchers to share our knowledge and practices with one another, collectively understand the intersections of identity-factors (race, gender, sexuality, ability, neuroatypicality, etc.) and cross-cultural issues in games research and game design. Our shared knowledge will begin with the mutual building of known biases, player experience effects, and identified sites of player exclusion/marginalization. This will form a snapshot of gaming and research’s current strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to real diversity in games and games user research (GUR). The group will map common identity factors to key research areas, revealing shared and unshared dynamics. This map will advance our collective practices and identify current, recurring barriers to diversity. It will also support the construction of a later summary document on key considerations for researchers and game developers working with diverse populations. The results of our workshop will be published to an online, publicly-available website for comment, critique, and open development.
To participate: Consult the workshop website for instructions, and submit your expression of interest to [email protected].
Submissions received by October 1st will be confirmed by October 4th, however, late submissions will be considered up to the date of the workshop. SWaGUR has contributed funding such that a limited number of participants with financial need may be supported.
Workshop website: https://subalterngur.wordpress.com/
Hope to see you there!
subaltern: populations that are socially, politically, and geographically outside of the hegemonic power structure of the colony and of the colonial homeland
