[Air-L] Call for Papers: Race in Games and Game Studies Online Conference

[Gerald Voorhees]

Race is a fundamental dimension of games implicating who is represented in
games, how the labour of making games is divided, and who is welcomed to
play and on what terms. As a field, game studies has only begun the work of
understanding these matters because race also shapes the study of games.
Game studies is built on colonial logics and animated by white supremacy.
The major problematics of the field (ludus v narrative, game v player,
pro-social v antisocial) are premised in Western epistemic traditions. And
games researchers largely focus on the hegemony of play, the games and
gaming practices of the presumed audience of white male players imagined by
the mainstream games industry (Fron, Fullerton, Moire, and Pearce 2007).

Race in Games and Game Studies will be a two day conference dedicated to
exploring how race impacts games and game studies. The conference will be
hosted online December 7-8, 2023 and registration is free. We will feature
conventional paper panels as well as plenary discussion panels focused on
future directions for research at the intersections of games and race.

In addition to advancing the state of games research concerning how
representations, industry practices, and community norms contribute to the
shifting dynamics of racial privilege and marginalization, we hope to
identify the gaps and trends in recent research in this area. By outlining
what is being done and what has yet to be examined closely, we hope to
suggest new directions and possibilities for this work to explore and to
highlight ways that researchers in the humanities, social sciences, and
fine arts might work together to close gaps in the field.

We as eager to learn about joy and justice as we are to gain new insight
into ongoing/emerging harms, and encourage participation from game scholars
and/or developers from all careers stages who are working on topics at the
intersection of race and games, such as:


   -

   Representations of race and/or racialized identities in games
   -

   Experiences of racial minorities in the games industry and/or gaming
   communities/cultures
   -

   Anti-racist and/or decolonial activism in games, game cultures, game
   studies, games education,  and/or in the games industry
   -

   Indigenous, Black, Latine, and/or Asian/Asian-Americangames and/or game
   studies
   -

   Racism in games, games education, game development and/or in spaces of
   play
   -

   Black and/or Indigenous futurism in games
   -

   Race as a facet of intersectional identity in games and/or gaming
   -

   Racialized ontologies of games and/or play
   -

   White supremacy and/or coloniality in games and/or gaming


Interested games scholars and makers are encouraged to submit abstracts for
15-20-minute-long presentations (300 words + 5 keywords) and a short bio
note (100-150 words) to https://raceandgamesconf.uwaterloo.ca/openconf.php
by September 15, 2023. Questions can be addressed to the organizers at
race.game.studies at gmail.com.

The Race in Games and Game Studies conference is enabled in part by the
support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
(SSHRC).