Cultivating Digital Homeplaces: Prioritizing Intergenerational Healing Through Game Play

• In Event: The Learning to Transform (LiTT) Video Gaming Lab: Modding Worlds for Sociopolitical and Sociotechnical Transformation

Abstract

Objectives:
This paper explores the practices through which a community of multigenerational gamers created a digital homeplace (hooks, 1990) within Grand Theft Auto V. Homeplaces are rooted in Black feminist epistemologies, and are physical ‘safe spaces’ cultivated by queer and femme people of color to resist the trauma and violence of intersectional racism. As spaces committed to healing, joy and resistance, homeplaces provide members of historically marginalized communities sustained opportunities to “grow and develop, to nurture our spirits” (hooks, pg. 42, 1990). Similarly, LiTT City—a race-conscious and justice-oriented space within the world of GTA V—has been designed in ways that support resilience, socioemotional wellbeing, civic engagement and communal healing. For instance, youth gamers in this study are resisting and re-designing algorithmic systems of anti-Blackness (Benjamin, 2019) within the sociotechnical infrastructures (e.g code, algorithm, user interface, etc) of gaming technologies. Specifically, this paper illuminates the collective practices that emerged within the context of LiTT City as youth and adults as they tried to design a world undergirded by abolitionist principles.

Theoretical Perspectives:
We employ sociocultural approaches and healing justice frameworks to showcase how homeplaces are being created within digital gaming systems. Both theoretical lenses honor multiple ways of knowing to center “intellectual histories of disciplinary knowledge – both recognized and unrecognized” (Warren et. al., pg. 2, 2020). By leveraging the everyday practices of marginalized communities, we explore how they re-imagine these tools to heal from and combat digital racism using abolitionist tactics. Healing justice honors the importance of embracing non-dominant forms of relationality that evoke joy, hope and community (Greene, et. al., 2021). We use these frameworks to highlight the everyday micro-interactional processes of racialized healing in digital technologies.

Methods and Data Sources:
The data for this particular study draws from our weekly GTA design council meetings, where a multigenerational group of 22 gamers met weekly to co-design LiTT City. We developed codes (Bogdan & Biklen, 1997) derived from activity logs from video records and developed thematic memos of our findings. Specifically, this study examines 13 weeks of youth-led discussions and design decisions.

Findings and Significance:
Our analysis showcased the importance of rest as resistance in the design of digital homeplaces. In particular, we take note of the intentional pauses that opened up opportunities for communities to grow together and intentionally develop practices of care and healing. For example, each week at the end of our meetings we take a moment to pause and embrace the joys of embodied practices by dancing together and listening to music. In addition, the gamers resist white supremacist gaming approaches and individualistic agendas around “winning” by creating a homplace where the importance of thriving as a collective is centered and they can dream dream new social futures (Cortez, McKoy, & Lizárraga, 2022; Gutiérrez, Cortes, et al, 2017) for games and society.

Authors

• Alexis E. Hunter, University of Colorado - Boulder
  Presenting Author

• Tiera C. Tanksley, University of Colorado - Boulder
  Presenting Author

• Arturo Cortez, University of California - Davis
  Presenting Author

• Addie Shrodes, University of Colorado - Boulder
  Presenting Author