PAMLA 2024: Indigenous Cosmologies in Virtual Realms: Video Games and Multimodal Storytelling

deadline for submissions: 
April 30, 2024
full name / name of organization: 
121st Annual Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association Conference
contact email: 

Indigenous scholar and game developer Jason Edward Lewis has argued that the involvement and agency of Indigenous communities in the video game industry allow Indigenous artists and creatives to “stake out our own territory in a common future” (Lewis, 2014). After Lewis, and in light of the meteoric increase in video games titles and other works of digital media by, about, and for Indigenous communities, this session will explore the intersection of Indigenous cultures and cosmologies, storytelling, and video games.

Many Native scholars have mapped the manner in which works of popular media often resort to clichéd and derogatory representations of Indigenous peoples. From Oregon Trail to Red Dead Redemption, video games have commonly followed suit. Johnnie Jae, the founder of the media platform A Tribe Called Geek, states unambiguously: “We have been rendered invisible by the hypervisibility of stereotypes and pre-conceived misconceptions of who Indigenous people are in a contemporary context” (Jae qtd. in Roanhorse et. al., 2017).

While understanding that supporting and empowering Indigenous voices within the video game industry is an ongoing endeavor, this session aims to honor the strides made by Indigenous creators, cultural leaders, and community advocates who utilize interactive digital platforms, from virtual reality documentaries to video games, to express their cultural identities, histories, and contemporary experiences. Our session will lay emphasis on the ways in which the increased involvement of Indigenous creatives and consultants at all levels of game development helps to foster meaningful dialogues surrounding Indigenous cosmologies and lifeways not only through interactive virtual storytelling, but through the very technical affordances of the medium itself. A member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, scholar Wendi Sierra writes how “game mechanics are embodiments of world views” (Sierra, 2022, 206), and game creator and scholar Elizabeth LaPensée (Anishinaabe, Métis) argues that “just as we [Indigenous peoples] talk about reciprocity between ourselves and land and waters, our designs should have reciprocity with the device and vice-versa” (LaPensée, 2020).

Our session aims to foreground the strategies used by Indigenous game developers and media creators in incorporating Indigenous knowledges, languages, protocols, and cosmologies into their creations while interrogating the ethical, cultural, and political dimensions of Indigenous representation and self-determination within new media. Session participants might consider such topics as:

  • Analyses of specific Indigenous games, virtual reality projects, and other new media titles, such as Never Alone / Kisima Inŋitchuŋa; Thunderbird Strike; Mikiwam: Solarpunk Herbalism; THIS IS NOT A CEREMONY, and more...
  • The incorporation of traditional storytelling techniques, oral histories, and cosmologies into gameplay and narratives...
  • The involvement of and engagement with Indigenous communities in the development process...
  • The issues raised by limited resources, intellectual property rights, respectful representations, access to technology, cultural appropriation, and more in the gaming industry writ large...
  • The benefits of fostering dialogue and reconciliation through gaming, and the detriments of taking virtual experiences as proxies for lived reality...

To submit a 200-300 word abstract, visit https://pamla.ballastacademic.com/Home/S/19130