First Person Scholar: Indigenous Special Issue

Tuesday, August 18, 2020
We are very excited to highlight the release of a First Person Scholar special issue, called "(Re)coding Survivance: Sovereign Video Games. Guest edited by Michelle Lee Brown, the special issue showcases Indigenous game designers, developers and scholars, as they share their stories and insight on the relationships between game design, Indigenous survivance, Indigenous futurisms.
First, an introduction podcast featuring Michelle Lee Brown, Beth LaPensée, Maru Nihoniho, Meagan Byrne and hosted by FPS Editor-in-Chief betsy brey, explains what survivance means and how playing and designing games has been a way to recode and reimagine the colonialist values in video games as an act of survivance.
Next, in her article, “(Re)Coding Survivance and the Regenerative Narrative,” S. Rose O'Leary envisions a decolonized form of narration, regenerative narrative (or regenanarrative), as a pathway to assert Indigenous survival and retell the stories of the past that erases Indigenous people.
Continuing the discussion, in “The Burden on Our Back: Conveying Nahua Survivance Through Games,” Joshua A. Wood explores previous iterations of Indigenous representation in games and reflects on creating a game about modern Nahua life and survivance.
Wrapping up the special issue is “Kakwitene Vr: Virtual Reality Endangered Language Revival and Retention with Onkwehonwehneha A.I. (Ancient Intelligence)” by MoniGarr, as she shares her experiences as a developer creating VR language retention programs that reflect values of Ancient Intelligence, as opposed to Artificial Intelligence.  
All these pieces and more can be found at FirstPersonScholar.com