Beyond the Online: Critical Collaborations and Dialogues Among Anthropological Approaches to Video Games

As video games are increasingly becoming a venue through which interactive entertainment and education occurs, a variety of academics have begun turning a critical eye towards this medium. These investigations have contributed much to our understanding of the cultural specificities and the incorporation of the media into everyday practices by its users, especially in the area of online video gaming in virtual worlds. While anthropology and allied disciplines have shown significant interest in examining the ways in which cultures and subjectivities become articulated through virtual worlds and internet-based video game media, there are many more possible arenas of investigation.

This panel seeks to explore some of these possibilities that emerge when the scope of an anthropology of video games broadens to encompass 1) the inclusion of other disciplinary approaches to video games, such as cultural studies, media studies, education, and history; 2) collaborations with, and investigations of, the global video game industry—its publishers and developers, localizers and middlemen, marketers and modders; and 3) engagements with video game users who often appropriate the media in unanticipated and emergent ways. In doing so, we seek to query the utility of disciplinary boundaries in relation to the study of video games—What does anthropology have to contribute to the study of video games? What can other disciplines teach us? In addition, we seek to explore what forms of useful collaborations with industry experts and users could possibly emerge when the anthropology of video games is expanded to encompass a global industry.

Panel will convene at the American Anthropological Association annual meetings, San Francisco, Nov. 19-23, 2008. See http://dev.aaanet.org/meetings/presenters/index.cfm for more details.