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Appalachia

Misria
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As a hobby, tabletop role-playing games have a dubious history of appropriation of non-western fantasy tropes as supplemental, and othered. Advanced Dungeons and Dragons' Oriental Adventures (1985), and Al- Qadim (1992) tokenized East Asian, and Middle-Eastern mythology, respectively. Since the onset of Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition (2014), it's publisher, Wizards of the Coast, makes claims to progress in its depictions of BIPOC communities, by bringing in folks to talk about their own cultures, such as with Journeys through the Radiant Citadel (2022). More fundamentally however, the release of 5th edition and the hobbies resurgence coincided with the proliferation of crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, allowing new voices to populate the hobby space. Adventure games like the all indigenous Coyote and Crow allow for a non-colonial view of North America that presents indigeneity beyond traditionalist tropes, offering advanced technologies like Yutsu Lifts, Second Eyes, and Nisi. The horror game Old Gods of Appalachia offers a marginalized region the chance to celebrate their heritage, and reshape the narrative around Appalachia. The focus on local, and indigenous authorship may offer benefits beyond a sense of authentic representation. When utilized therapeutically, these games may work to address intergenerational trauma, and offer therapeutic insights specifically built to unmoor the legacies ascribed onto these groups by dominant and colonial powers. 

Thomas, Brian J. 2023. "Local Games for Local Trauma." In 4S Paraconference X EiJ: Building a Global Record, curated by Misria Shaik Ali, Kim Fortun, Phillip Baum and Prerna Srigyan. Annual Meeting of the Society of Social Studies of Science. Honolulu, Hawai'i, Nov 8-11.

second thoughts on willowick

mikefortun
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Katie Cox Shrader10:44 AM Today@kimfortun@uci.edu I know what you mean about that anxiety. Two thoughts: 

- Re working with urban planners and others on gentrification: Santa Ana has a long, rich history of anti-gentrification organizing, and many of the groups involved in those have worked with UCI including planners. I recall from my time working with Montoya that some of the politics there are sensitive. I think an important next step is to be researching/documenting some of that history and reaching out to groups like el Centro Cultural de México and the Kennedy Commission. Maybe the OC library archive too. It seems really important to include gentrification as a central part of our analysis of EiJ in SA and I think we have a lot to learn from them. Those conversations may give us some insight into how outside planners might help or support, and how they might already be doing so.

- This kind of discursive risk does seem really important to track... AB 617 certainly comes to mind here. I also wonder how we might discern the difference between instances where well-intentioned interventions are captured or coopted in implementation, and those where legislation is compromised from the outset. Not to be cynical, but I am very curious about what developers supported the Surplus Land Act. Is the kind of development that Rise Up Willowick is fighting a "detour from intent" or is it a predictable/anticipated outcome of incentivizing the auction of public land for (private) redevelopment? In other words, is the Surplus Land Act a mechanism for progressive redistribution (golf courses become affordable housing), or neoliberal privatization of public assets (city-owned green space becomes a Jamba Juice)? Such a very California question.Show lessReassigned to kimfortun@uci.eduKatie Cox Shrader10:46 AM Today@mike.fortun@uci.edu  ... Now am thinking we need to have a workflow for moving these side-bar conversations into PECE as analysis of field notes. Maybe we could be in the habit of having these conversations in the text of the document, rather than the comments?