[Air-L] EXTENDED DEADLINE: DiGRA 2017 Workshop: “Gaming the Systems: Towards a More Inclusive DiGRA”

Adrienne Shaw tue86728 at temple.edu
Tue Mar 21 08:38:33 PDT 2017


What would it mean for Game Studies to be diverse, and what role can
DiGRA play in achieving this? Does the term ‘diversity’ deserve
critical scrutiny in its own right?



Participation

Participation in the workshop is open to all DiGRA participants,
regardless of acceptance to the workshop. Space is limited. If you
plan to attend the workshop as a participant (not a presenter), please
register by June 15, 2017 by sending an email to Darshana Jayemanne at
digradiversityworkshop at gmail.com.



Introduction

In light of corporate initiatives such as Intel’s recent and highly
substantial investment in creating an inclusive workforce, ‘diversity’
can legitimately claim to be one of the most impactful terms that has
ever been developed in league with humanities and social sciences
thinking. On the other hand, diversity can be seen as a code word for
the most comfortable way in which difference appears to contemporary
power structures - and hence subject to academic critique.



Intel’s recent and widely publicized investment in making their own
workforce more inclusive and diverse[1], as well as increasing
diversity in games and the tech industry broadly, demonstrates that
conversations about representation are finally making headway in
corporate sectors. At the same time, we might question if these
business-minded approaches to diversity are really invested in the
more critical types of change diversity is discussed in relation to in
academic conversations.



Moreover, as the industries we are interested in begin to take
seriously questions of their own diversity, we too must take stock of
who is represented in the wide field that is game studies. What can we
do to make our field more inclusive and represent a wider array of
perspectives? Might it even be possible that we could use such efforts
in turn to offer a model for the industries we study as they launch
efforts to increase diversity?



As scholars, perhaps the response to this situation is quite
predictable: more research is needed. This DiGRA workshop will pose
the question of what a diverse game studies would look like in both
theoretical and practical registers: partly by gathering theoretical
papers and partly by providing a venue for voicing and testing ideas
that can be represented as precedents to DiGRA and other game studies
conferences.



The workshop will balance the question of what other fields have done
to encourage diversity with the question of what scholars of play can
bring to thinking about what academic diversity means in the first
place. This will be a half day workshop on July 2, 2017, organized as
follows:



Format and Activities

12:00-12:30 Opening and Introductions



12:30-13:00 Designing Diversity Guidelines



13:00-15:00 Paper presentation – six papers, 15 minutes each and 5
minutes of question time.



15:00-15:30 Break and Play Time



15:30-17:00 Co-facilitated Discussion



Location

PAR-Arts West North Wing-256 (Collaborative Learning Room)

The University of Melbourne

Parkville 3000.

Call for Proposals

We welcome proposals for papers that investigate questions such as,
but not limited to:



●      What have conferences, fields of study and the game industry
done to encourage diverse participation? Can and should DiGRA take a
proactive role in fostering game studies diversity?



●      To what degree is diversity a useful concept? What political
work does it do and can it do in our field? How does it link with
concepts of representation, attention and competition, and to what
level are such concepts already part of the logic of the academy?



●      What potentials do academics interested in play bring to
broadening or questioning the idea of diversity?



●      How diverse is the history of game studies as both theory and
pedagogy and to whom does this matter?



●      What is the relation of academic game studies to videogame
business and industry across various regional and national contexts,
and to what degree does this affect diversity?



●      Middleware is often cited as increasing access to game
development, but how diverse are the resources, assets and legal
structures of such tools? What role does the academy play in this area
and how could it be expanded?



●      Who is best positioned to speak on regional issues including
funding and representation, and what power dynamics are at play in the
centrality of the Anglophone academy to DiGRA?



●      Is DiGRA creating a safe space for diverse voices, and what are
best practices models for how DiGRA should do this internally, and
pressure platforms externally? What are the practical issues and how
can they be met?



Submissions



Please send your extended abstract (1500-3000 words) to Sian Beavers
digradiversityworkshop at gmail.com by April 5, 2017 at 17:00 CET (9:00
PST). Please note this is an open paper format and you are not
required to use the DiGRA template for extended abstracts.



Notifications of acceptance will be sent to participants on April 20,
2017. Full papers (8000 words including references) are due September
15, 2017 for peer review. Camera ready papers for ToDigra publication
on November 17, 2017.











Publication

Accepted papers will be included in a Diversity Special Issue of
ToDiGRA, published in 2018, where full papers will be subject to an
additional round of peer-review prior to publication.



Important Dates



Extended Abstract Deadline: April 5, 2017 12 Midnight PST (Pacific
Standard Time)



Notice of Acceptance: April 20, 2017



Camera Ready Abstracts: June 1, 2017



Full Paper Draft: September 15, 2017



Camera Ready papers for To Digra: November 17, 2017














-- 
Adrienne Shaw
Assistant Professor
Temple University
Department of Media Studies and Production
School of Media and Communication
2020 N. 13th St.
Annenberg Hall, room 203A
Philadelphia, PA 19122
telephone: 215-204-6201
fax: 215-214-5402
smc.temple.edu/msp
www.adrienneshaw.com

Office Hours: Tuesday 11am-2pm
Email Hours: M-F 12-2pm

Author of: Gaming at the Edge: Sexuality and Gender at the Margins of
Gamer Culture, University of Minnesota Press, 2014
(http://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/gaming-at-the-edge)

Founder of the LGBTQ Game Archive: https://lgbtqgamearchive.com/



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