Games have long functioned as places, or meaningful spaces, for players. Via play, from analog games to immersive reality games, players occupy special places; not just rich fictional worlds, but also environments holding different cultures, values, and potentials. These latter places go beyond entertainment alone–in them, players can enjoy belonging, connection and so much more. However, the places created and sustained by games have historically been designed and developed without marginalized people in mind. The archetypal white, cisgender, straight male is centered as the “normal” player, and so the places within games have been for their enjoyment, belonging, connection, etc. As a result, players that diverge from the assumed norm often feel unsafe, excluded, and even attacked in those same places while playing games where they should be able to at least have fun.

The space of games is not unique in othering marginalized people, and many approaches to combating oppression have been explored and developed across generations. One is to create counterspaces, which combat oppressive dominant culture. Counterspaces have centered marginalized people's joy, rest, and healing across contexts, generating places where they can enjoy belonging, connection, and even career support. Such counterspaces generate experiences that marginalized people should be able to enjoy in games too. With this in mind, I have been researching how games can be designed to be counterspaces for marginalized people. Drawing from game design research on uplifting marginalized people, counterspace research, and research on creating public places for community well-being, I develop the concept of counterspace games.

I present three roles for counterspace games in the lives of marginalized players: refuge, ritual, and reclamation. First, I conceptualize a single-player counterspace game as an uplifting refuge through the lens of autoethnographic play analysis. Counterspaces, however, are typically not solitary experiences. By examining existing counterspace practices of BIWOC+ in STEM, I learned that counterspaces can be generated by uplifting rituals. This insight then informed my research on multiplayer counterspace games, exemplified by my prototype Mentorship Garden and it's embedded rituals. Creating a "magic circle" – a separate and protected space for play – proved effective for refuge and ritual design. However, counterspaces are needed wherever oppression festers – in the real-world environments where marginalized people spend their time. As a result, I seek to extend my work to creating playful counterspaces that can be used in real-world contexts to reclaim the spaces that marginalized players encounter every day.

To accomplish this goal, I draw from my work in mobile AR, which shows how physical environments can be reshaped as places for uplifting marginalized communities. I contribute a playful research-as-counterspace method for co-storytelling about how marginalized communities might use mobile AR for their well-being. I also contribute insights on how mobile AR and play can transform and reclaim unwelcoming environments towards supporting BIWOC+ in STEM. With this, my dissertation provides actionable methods and strategies for playful counterspace creation, as well as identifies opportunities for further research – such as counterspace games for resistance, radicalization, and revolution.

213 pages

Thesis Committee:
Jessica Hammer (Co-Chair)
Geoff Kaufman (Co-Chair)
Sarah Fox
Mia Ong (TERC)
Brian Smith (Columbia University)

Brad A. Myers, Head, Human-Computer Interaction Institute
Martial Hebert, Dean, School of Computer Science

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