This presentation was delivered on October 20, 2022 at the Transformative Play Initiative Seminar 2022: Role-playing, Culture, and Heritage.
Description:
Can play be transformative of individuals and collectives, groups and cultures? And if so what characteristics make it so? Taking our starting point in the liberatory potential of education (hooks 2014, Freire 2021) we posit play as central to liberatory education. Possibilities for both profound rejection and deep connection reside in the space that opens when one is asked to play. In a play community the ethos of inclusion dominates the ethos of the rule system (De Koven 2013). Whereas a game may remain rigid, ejecting the less masterful players in favor of the most facile, the interaction if play is flexible and when inclusion is centered by bend and stretch to keep the players in play, together. In play, we carve out a space in but apart from everyday life, where we may open ourselves to very real experiences of joy, transgression, humor, and co-creation. Yet, dominant modes of education, both formal and informal, are often un-playful. Indeed, it is gamification, not playification, that has become the buzzword connecting education and games with rewards and failures as its core mechanics that mold the player into the demands of the game. Toys, as opposed to the rules, are the companions of play. In this talk, we introduce Feminist Philosophical Toys, a series of seven DIY paper toys, as one such alternative. The toys challenge foreground the dialogic (Bohm 1996) while also reflecting on and committing to new materialist mattering, record-keeping and record making (Hickey-Moody, Palmer & Sayers 2016). In doing so, they foreground both diffractive and communal, and even more-than-human, nature of knowledge-making. The toys challenge the dominant form of theorizing and its mechanics of knowledge making, and have been piloted with a range of ages and in disciplines including HCI, Game Design, Art, and Education. Pushing against the ubiquity of text, and the high economic and environmental costs of digital technology, the playful and humble paper toy, through a process of co-constituted becoming, is feminist philosophy, unfolding space for liberation in community.
Bios:
Rebecca Rouse, PhD, is an Associate Professor in Media Arts, Aesthetics and Narration in the School of Informatics’ Division of Game Development at the University of Skövde, Sweden. Rouse’s research focuses on investigating new forms of storytelling with new technologies such as immersive and responsive systems via queer, critical, feminist perspectives and methods. Rouse designs and develops projects across theatrical performance, interactive installation, movable books, and games. This design work dovetails with Rouse’s research in critical pedagogies and design methods, and queer feminist media theory and history of technology. For more information visit www.rebeccarouse.com
Nassim Parvin is an Associate Professor at the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech, where she also serves as an associate director to the Digital Integrative Liberal Arts Center (DILAC). Dr. Parvin’s interdisciplinary research integrates theoretically-driven humanistic scholarship and design-based inquiry. Her scholarship appears in design, Science and Technology Studies (STS), and philosophy venues. Her designs have appeared in venues such as the Smithsonian Museum and received multiple awards and recognitions. She is one of the lead editors of Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience, an award-winning open-access journal in the expanding interdisciplinary field of feminist STS. Dr. Parvin holds a PhD in Design from Carnegie Mellon University.
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This seminar is hosted by the Transformative Play Initiative in the Games & Society Lab at the Department of Game Design, Uppsala University Campus Gotland. This seminar is made possible by financial support from the Sustainable Heritage Research Forum (SuHRF). The Transformative Play Initiative explores the use of analog role-playing games as vehicles for lasting personal and social change.
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Graphic Design by Liliia Chorna. Music by Elias Faltin. Video edited by Rezmo (Mohammad Mohammad Rezaie).