As preparation for our next general meeting in Lisbon, Claudia Silva (WG4 Vicechair and VM grantee) gave us a teaser of the Decolonial Workshop that will take place during the meeting.
The decolonial theory has been applied to several areas, ranging from communication (Moyo and Mutsvairo, 2018), big data studies (Couldry, N., & Mejias, 2019), to game design and ludonarratives (Betocchi, Klimick, Perani, 2020) to AI (Mohamed, Png, Isaac, 2020). To date, however, studies about Interactive Digital Narratives (IDN) understood through the critical lenses of the decolonial theory are scant.
This workshop departs from the premise that to understand the telling of complex societal issues of the 21st century, we need first to decolonize our thinking and practices of producing knowledge and IDNs.
Such an epistemological endeavour is crucial, in the scope of a research network that aims to tackle complexity and digital narratives, as we can ask ourselves if it is possible to not be Eurocentric when we are a group of European researchers funded by European funding.
How can INDCOR researchers challenge white saviours’ narratives, for instance? Or escape the temptation of the white saviour fantasy, which is quite prevalent in interactive digital narratives like digital games (Jayanth, 2021).
Interested in knowing more about Decolonial Thinking and IDNs? Further reading can be found here.
