This presentation was delivered on October 21, 2022 at the Transformative Play Initiative Seminar 2022: Role-playing, Culture, and Heritage.
Description:
My name is Kaya Toft Thejls and I am a master’s student at The Centre for Gender Studies, Uppsala University. I am working on my master’s thesis, a project on how trans* and gender non-conforming people (myself included) use larping as a medium to explore gender. In my thesis work I am interested in how larping can be used as a medium for gender exploration. I build on the little research which exists on trans exploration of gender (Baird, 2021) and more broad research on embodiment and transformativity in larps (fx. Lundell, 2014). My research also has a methodologically experimental side to it, though, and this is what I would love to discuss and develop during the conference. I wish to explore the possibilities, limitations, and ethical questions of using larp as a methodological tool in qualitative research where the larp itself – its design or its specific impact – isn’t the subject of study. Coming from the field of gender studies, I wish to bring forth discussions of embodiment and affect as part of the research process. I consider how an engagement with embodied and fictional characters or stories as part of a focus group interview may have the possibility of directing and bringing forth memories, in aid of a collective knowledge production. Drawing on practical knowledge from organizing larps and holding space in workshops and debriefs, I am curious as to what happens with the research situation and the interaction between participants in a focus group interview, if a shared experience of larping lays the ground for the interaction. What happens with trust, intimacy and affect in the research situation? What does holding space and taking care of the participants entail if I do more than “pick their brains” in a standard interview? And how might this problematize the idea of the standard interview situation as necessarily more “neutral” or ethically uncomplicated?
Bio:
Kaya Toft Thejls is a master student at the Centre for Gender Studies at Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden. They have a bachelor’s degree in education science from Aarhus University in Copenhagen, Denmark. Their interest are often situated in crossroads between gender studies, education and role-play. They are currently working on their master’s thesis on gender exploration in larp.
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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).