Games Symposium for Oceania and the Asia Pacific
June 14th, 2023 — St Kilda Library
Exploring new perspectives of video game and tabletop roleplaying culture with game artists, makers, and researchers in Asia Pacific and Oceania.
The Asia Pacific is remarkably overlooked as the largest region of annual game production and consumption. This omission represents an opportunity to share games and games-adjacent research. Given the enormous diversity and variation in videogame production and engagement practices, this one-day symposium aims to spark emerging new perspectives.
This symposium is jointly organised by DiGRA Australia, Chinese DiGRA, and in partnership with Pride at Play. We especially encourage researchers working in Chinese sectors to submit their work on game culture to share and collaborate with the workshop attendees.
We invite short provocation submissions from game makers, scholars, artists, writers, and players exploring how games, and the cultures surrounding them play out in their local contexts within Oceania, Asia Pacific regions, including overseas Chinese and Asian perspectives around the world. Provocation submissions are jury-curated by the symposium organising committee.
Presentations must be contextualised in Oceania or the Asia Pacific and themes may include:
- Defining Oceania and Asia Pacific games research
- Exploring intersectional identities and influencers in overseas Chinese and Asian cultures
- Navigating specific regional characteristics of making and playing games
- Highlighting different or shared lived experiences within game culture
- Contextualising gender, sexuality, race, and nationality in Oceanic and the Asia Pacific regions
- Examining national/transnational game histories and futures
- Recollecting post-mortems of game production in identity play
- Platforming local and regional aesthetics and concerns in games
- Critiquing gaming counterpublics, political advocacy and resistance
- Celebrating and critiquing game fandoms/role-playing/cosplay
Submissions
Submit your provocation via this Google Form: https://forms.gle/piRXheqLAf7jxGds9
Provocation submissions should have a short title, be around 75-100 words, and clearly describe its context, main points, and the potential for further conversations at the workshop. As this is a curated symposium, submission should include author names and a brief 50 word biography.
Provocation Submissions: 1st May, 2023 (extended to 8th May, 2023).
Acceptance Notifications: 14th May, 2023.
Full-day Symposium: 14th June, 2023.
Organising Committee
Dr Mahli-Ann Butt, President of DiGRA Australia
Dr Hugh Davies, President of Chinese DiGRA
Dr Xavier Ho, Head Curator of Pride at Play
For all enquiries and questions about the symposium please contact Xavier Ho <xavier.ho@monash.edu>.