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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.

“… the murders occurred where it all began — in the remote forests of southeast Guinea, where superstition overwhelms education and whispers of Ebola stoke fear and sometimes violence.”

“The increase in violence marks a new dark chapter in the fight against Ebola…”

The information of the article was collected by investigating several news agencies. For example, a team of journalists from the Guardian and health works went to the distant village of Guinea to cross the words about Ebola. From the words of the Guinea village chief, journalists from other news agencies are also known.

The article has reveal the trust issue (crisis) dealing between the local publics and the health department workers on the spread of Ebola (and anyone that assist with the work of spreading the awareness of Ebola). This issue is revealed via the several violence acts happened in the area. These cases are reported with briefs of scenes and relevant data.

In this article, the main agencies been depicted are the local publics and the health centers. From the reports, Guinea medical centers and aid works are the main targets that received violence acts and harassments from the general publics. Whereas the publics have the perception that aid workers such as doctors and nurses are the transporters of the virus within the local communities.  

Due to the trust crisis between the groups, public health cannot be improved via the service from the medical centers. General publics are refused to get into contacts with aid workers.

1. With the lack of understanding of new disease (in this case, Ebola for the villagers), the trust crisis is easily raised up between publics and aid workers due to the fear of unknown things.
2. The number of death been announced can violate the faith that publics put into the aid workers. Acts of violence are the fears from the publics.
3. There is a lack of medical education in the area like Western African, Ebola has been there for three times since 1970s, and the publics still not having the correct perception on the disease awareness.