Confronting settler colonialism in food movements

The dominant global capitalist food system is contributing significantly to social, political, ecological, and economic crises around the world. In response, food movements have emerged to challenge the legitimacy of corporate power, neoliberal trade policies, and the exploitation of people and natural resources. Despite important accomplishments, food movements have been criticized for reinforcing aspects of the dominant food system. This includes settler colonialism, a fundamental issue uniquely and intimately tied to food systems that has not received the attention it deserves in food movement scholarship or practice. While there is a small but growing body of literature that speaks to settler colonialism in contemporary food movements and a burgeoning scholarship on Indigenous food sovereignties, there are few studies that examine practical examples of how settler colonialism is being actively addressed by and through food movement organizations. This research asks: How are food movement organizations addressing settler colonialism? Using a community-based methodology informed by settler colonial theory/studies, anti-colonial and decolonizing approaches, and food sovereignty, research partnerships were formed with two food systems networks, the Thunder Bay and Area Food Strategy and Sustain: The Australian Food Network. Purposeful sampling was used to conduct in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 23 settlers and 4 Indigenous participants in Northwestern Ontario, Canada, and Australia (Victoria, South Australia, and Western Australia). Findings from thematic analysis are presented in three parts: 1) Settler inaction; 2) Problematic inclusion; and, 3) Productive engagements, organizational commitments, and long-term visions. Based on these findings, three areas are proposed where food movement organizations can more deeply engage in addressing settler colonialism: Situating our(settler)selves, (re)negotiating relationships, and making organizational commitment. Several broad methodological limitations of this research are considered, underscoring the need for additional place-based research that traces anti-colonial and decolonizing food movement processes and holds them up to the dreams and demands of specific Indigenous communities whose lands they occupy

Reading, Writing, Lexigraphing

In this article, we address the histories and influences of reading and writing within the genre of digital games called “walking simulators.” Reading is framed as an activity separate from (and, sometimes, incompatible with) the set of actions afforded to players in most game genres. Walking simulators, on the other hand, converge the act of reading and walking in complex ways that expose the playful but putatively inactive action of reading as a disruptive queering. This queering subverts the standard expectation that to count as “player” (and for walking simulatorsto count as games) one must act and produce. We call this subversion “lexigraphing,”our repurposed verb form of Garrett Stewart’s (2006) neologism “lexigraph,” which refers to paintings of written text. Lexigraphing, applied to digital games, describes the seemingly passive action of walking in a gamespace, and reading its texts, as a recursive act of writing reading. We argue that the disruptive “passivity” of lexigraphing operates as a form of queering gamespace, citing J. Jack Halberstam’s (2011) rejection of a world that is constantly doing, acting, and producing. We apply lexigraphing to walking simulators through the lens of queer game studiesas articulated by Bonnie Ruberg and Adrienne Shaw (2017), which invites us to reject limited conceptions of gamic action and participate in a more playful queering. Reading “queer”as a verb is crucial to understanding the feminist and queer actions that walking simulators welcome. With our own verb, lexigraphing, we re-articulate the active passivity of reading-as-writing in walking simulators. &nbsp

Dear Punchy : Representing and Feeling Writing in Animal Crossing

This article explores how the Animal Crossing series represents and invites players to practice writing. Adopting several frameworks including media speleology, affect theory, and writing studies, this article argues that the representation of writing in the first game in the Animal Crossing series, Animal Forest, resists both the technological and gendered histories typically ascribed to writing and video games. Turning to the ways that players actually practice writing, this article suggests that affect plays a key role in the deep connections that players develop with fellow villagers through the act of letter writing. Ultimately, this article calls for further examination of writing’s role in the cultural significance of Animal Crossing and careful study of its representations in other video games.Cet article explore comment la série Animal Crossing représente et invite les joueurs à pratiquer l'écriture. Adoptant plusieurs cadres, dont la spéléologie des médias, la théorie de l'affect et les études d'écriture, cet article soutient que la représentation de l'écriture dans le premier jeu de la série Animal Crossing, Animal Forest, résiste à la fois aux histoires technologiques et genrées généralement attribuées à l'écriture et aux jeux vidéo. En ce qui concerne les façons dont les joueurs pratiquent réellement l'écriture, cet article suggère que l'affect joue un rôle clé dans les relations profondes que les joueurs développent avec leurs camarades villageois par le biais de la rédaction de lettres. En fin de compte, cet article appelle à un examen plus approfondi du rôle de l'écriture dans la signification culturelle d'Animal Crossing et à une étude approfondie de ses représentations dans d'autres jeux vidéo

Ecomods: una aproximación ecocrítica a la modificación de los videojuegos

As systems that model complex relationships, digital games encourage players to enact Morton's "ecological thought" through the actions players perform within the game world. Yet these representations, as Alenda Chang (2011) has noted, "commit at least one if not all of the following missteps in their realization of in-game environments: relegating environment to background scenery, relying on stereotyped landscapes, and predicating player success on extraction and use of natural resources" (58). In other words, the flora and fauna players find are often reduced to non-interactive set pieces, thereby stripping actions of the ecological and environmental impact they could have. Despite these problems, ecocritical approaches to digital games have sought to re-assert the significance of connections between game ecologies and their environmental representations by tracing cultural associations (Bianchi, Barton), and by investigating problems with materiality and waste (Apperley and Jayemanne). This essay builds on these approaches by considering “modding,” short for “modifications,” as an area for ecocritical intervention in the flattening of games' environmental representations. Specifically, this essay examines the thriving environmental modding communities around Bethesda Softworks’ “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim”. Although some of the mods released for “Skyrim” emphasize visual enhancements, others re-connect players to the game’s ecology and environment in meaningful ways.Como los sistemas que modelan las relaciones complejas, los juegos digitales animan a los jugadores a restablecer el “pensamiento ecológico” de Morton por medio de las acciones que los jugadores llevan a cabo dentro del mundo del juego. Pero estas representaciones, como Alenda Chang (2011) comenta, “cometen al menos uno de los errores en sus realizaciones de los entornos dentro del juego: relegando al medio ambiente al escenario del fondo, dependiendo de paisajes estereotipados, y afirmando el éxito del jugador en la extracción y uso de recursos naturales” (58). En otras palabras, la flora y fauna que se encuentran los jugadores a menudo quedan reducidas a piezas establecidas no-interactivas, de esta forma desmontando de las acciones el impacto ecológico y medioambiental que podrían tener. A pesar de estos problemas, el enfoque ecocrítico a los juegos digitales ha buscado reafirmar la importancia de las conexiones entre las ecologías del juego y sus representaciones medioambientales trazando asociaciones culturales (Bianchi, Varton); e investigando los problemas sobre materialidad y basura (Apperley and Jayemanne). Este ensayo surge de estos enfoques considerando el “modding”, abreviatura de “modificaciones”, como una zona para intervención ecocrítica en la simplificación de las representaciones medioambientales de los juegos. En concreto, este ensayo examina las florecientes comunidades de “modding” medioambientales en torno a “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim” de Bethesda Softworks. Aunque algunos de los “mods” lanzados enfatizan las mejoras visuales, otros reconectan a los jugadores con la ecología y medioambiente del juego de formas significativas

Cher Punchy:: Représenter et ressentir l'écriture dans Animal Crossing

This article explores how the Animal Crossing series represents and invites players to practice writing. Starting with affect theory in video games, I consider how writing allows for an “incurving” of player and villager that can result in the deep emotional ties with computer- controlled characters on display in conversations across Animal Crossing fandom. Next, drawing on a media archaeological and speleological approach, I demonstrate that these expressions of affect and desire are supported by a cluster of libidinal surfaces and actions that define Animal Crossing’s writing interfaces. Finally, I conclude by considering how the confluence of affect, sexuality, and gender in the writing tools and surfaces of games like Animal Crossing could potentially grant game studies access another vantage point from which to study the deep emotional bonds the emerge between players and NPCs/digital actors.Cet article explore comment la série Animal Crossing représente et invite les joueurs à pratiquer l'écriture. Adoptant plusieurs cadres, dont la spéléologie des médias, la théorie de l'affect et les études d'écriture, cet article soutient que la représentation de l'écriture dans le premier jeu de la série Animal Crossing, Animal Forest, résiste à la fois aux histoires technologiques et genrées généralement attribuées à l'écriture et aux jeux vidéo. En ce qui concerne les façons dont les joueurs pratiquent réellement l'écriture, cet article suggère que l'affect joue un rôle clé dans les relations profondes que les joueurs développent avec leurs camarades villageois par le biais de la rédaction de lettres. En fin de compte, cet article appelle à un examen plus approfondi du rôle de l'écriture dans la signification culturelle d'Animal Crossing et à une étude approfondie de ses représentations dans d'autres jeux vidéo

Ecomods: An Ecocritical Approach to Game Modification // Ecomods: Una aproximación ecocrítica a la modificación de los videojuegos

      As systems that model complex relationships, digital games encourage players to enact Morton's "ecological thought" through the actions players perform within the game world. Yet these representations, as Alenda Chang (2011) has noted, "commit at least one if not all of the following missteps in their realization of in-game environments: relegating environment to background scenery, relying on stereotyped landscapes, and predicating player success on extraction and use of natural resources" (58). In other words, the flora and fauna players find are often reduced to non-interactive set pieces, thereby stripping actions of the ecological and environmental impact they could have. Despite these problems, ecocritical approaches to digital games have sought to re-assert the significance of connections between game ecologies and their environmental representations by tracing cultural associations (Bianchi, Barton), and by investigating problems with materiality and waste (Apperley and Jayemanne). This essay builds on these approaches by considering “modding,” short for “modifications,” as an area for ecocritical intervention in the flattening of games' environmental representations. Specifically, this essay examines the thriving environmental modding communities around Bethesda Softworks’ The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Although some of the mods released for Skyrim emphasize visual enhancements, others re-connect players to the game’s ecology and environment in meaningful ways. Resumen      Como los sistemas que modelan las relaciones complejas, los juegos digitales animan a los jugadores a restablecer el “pensamiento ecológico” de Morton por medio de las acciones que los jugadores llevan a cabo dentro del mundo del juego. Pero estas representaciones, como Alenda Chang (2011) comenta, “cometen al menos uno de los errores en sus realizaciones de los entornos dentro del juego: relegando al medio ambiente al escenario del fondo, dependiendo de paisajes estereotipados, y afirmando el éxito del jugador en la extracción y uso de recursos naturales” (58). En otras palabras, la flora y fauna que se encuentran los jugadores a menudo quedan reducidas a piezas establecidas no-interactivas, de esta forma desmontando de las acciones el impacto ecológico y medioambiental que podrían tener. A pesar de estos problemas, el enfoque ecocrítico a los juegos digitales ha buscado reafirmar la importancia de las conexiones entre las ecologías del juego y sus representaciones medioambientales trazando asociaciones culturales (Bianchi, Varton); e investigando los problemas sobre materialidad y basura (Apperley and Jayemanne). Este ensayo surge de estos enfoques considerando el “modding”, abreviatura de “modificaciones”, como una zona para intervención ecocrítica en la simplificación de las representaciones medioambientales de los juegos.  En concreto, este ensayo examina las florecientes comunidades de modding medioambientales en torno a The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim de Bethesda Softworks. Aunque algunos de los mods lanzados enfatizan las mejoras visuales, otros reconectan a los jugadores con la ecología y medioambiente del juego de formas significativas