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<div id="content"><h1 id="introduction">Introduction</h1>
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<p>This Special Issue has been an attempt to understand games and
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rituals. Instead of an introduction, we will try to unravel this
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mysterious journey as well as keep questioning and collaging.</p>
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<p>We mapped the common characteristics and the differences between
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games and rituals in relation to ideology and counter-hegemony. We
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practiced, performed and annotated rituals, connected (or not) with our
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cultural backgrounds while we questioned the magic circle. We dived into
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the worlds of text adventure games and clicking games while drinking
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coffee. We talked about class, base, superstructure, (counter)hegemony,
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ideology and materialism. We discussed how games and rituals can
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function as reproductive technologies of the culture industries. We
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annotated games, focusing on the role of ideology and social
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reproduction. We reinterpreted bits of the world and created stories
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from it (modding, fiction, narrative) focusing on community,
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interaction, relationships, grief and healing.</p>
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<p>The eventual outcome of this process is a console, a magical object,
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a wooden container, a promise of healing. How can the unpacking of
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games, rituals, ideology and superstructure in relation to witch hunting
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become the midwife of a healing box? How can practices of healing and
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care work as counter-hegemonic acts which cure and liberate our souls
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and bodies from patriarchal and capitalistic fetters?</p>
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<p>We didn’t manage to provide you with comprehensive answers or
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conclusive statements. The truth is that this wasn’t our plan. Our
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intention was to create openings for debate or even conflict, to map a
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territory, to invite those who would like to join us.</p>
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<blockquote>
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<p><em>“What if you are playing tetris and the tetris gods give you
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something apart from the usual seven tetrominoes, like an unexpected
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pregnancy or the end of capitalism?” (Stephen).</em></p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>Starting with rituals, we claim that they can be understood as
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instruments in the struggle for the exercise of power. Organized by
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<em>repetition</em>, they (re)connect the individual to the collective,
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creating a vision towards a given perception of society. Participation
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in this creative act is determined by several factors: a ritual’s
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function, its relationship to hegemonic power, a collective’s politics
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and objectives, etc.</p>
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<blockquote>
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<p><em>“Ritual is a means of performing the way things ought to be in
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conscious tension to the way things are in such a way that this
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ritualized perfection is recollected in the ordinary, uncontrolled,
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course of things. Ritual relies for its power on the fact that it is
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concerned with quite ordinary activities, that what it describes and
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displays is, in principle, possible for every occurrence of these acts.
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But it relies, as well, for its power on the fact that, in actuality,
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such possibilities cannot be realized” (Smith, 1980).</em></p>
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>
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<p><em>“Ideology talks of actions: I shall talk of actions inserted into
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practices. And I shall point out that these practices are governed by
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rituals in which these practices are inscribed, within the material
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existence of an ideological apparatus(…)Ideas have disappeared as such
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to the precise extend that it has emerged that their existence is
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inscribed in the actions of practices governed by rituals defined in the
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last instance by an ideological apparatus” (Althusser, 1970).</em></p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>Similarly, videogames create worlds. Often, those worlds mirror our
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own, reproducing certain ideals and values as norms through their
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narrative, game play, design. This trimester we explored world-building
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characteristics found both in rituals and videogames. We critically
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considered those worlds, identifying the key points and elements through
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which specific videogames and rituals circulate political, cultural and
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social values. While this world-building might be interpreted from an
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angle of implicit and explicit bias rooted in hegemonic values, we
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investigated the generative, creative possibilities of such
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characteristics.</p>
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<blockquote>
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<p><em>“The main task of mass culture is to create, reproduce, and
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manage particular kinds of subjects — workers, consumers, individuals,
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citizens — required for current conditions. To perpetuate their own
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existence, mass media must succeed at representing the violent coercion
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of capitalist systems as natural laws: Of course you have to pay rent to
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live inside; of course you have to buy food to eat; of course you have
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to work if you want to survive. The production of a fungible, disposable
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and migratory working class requires the alienation and atomization of
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communities into individuals, which involves destroying the village,
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kinship structures, indigeneity, and many other previous forms of
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meaning-producing structures, leaving a gap which ideology must fill.
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While the fundamental structures of domination — racism, patriarchy,
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heterosexuality, etc. — form the bedrock of this ideological apparatus,
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the complexity of the always expanding and changing capitalist system
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requires an equally flexible set of subsidiary tools capable of rapidly
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adjusting ideology en masse. In general, media emerge not to meet the
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demands or desires of individual users but to accommodate what the
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predominant mode of production requires” (Osterweil, 2018).</em></p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>Our intention was to look into rituals and their overlap with video
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games as a way to explore “forbidden” or otherwise lost knowledge erased
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by oppressive systems (e.g. witch hunts). Understanding games and
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rituals as gateways to alternative ways of relating to Nature, each
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other and (re)production of life, labour, etc, we played together by
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writing fan fiction and spells, developing rituals, analysing and
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creating games together.</p>
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<blockquote>
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<p>“<em>Sims as social reproduction: some values are certainly given by
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the game (make money to buy nicer things, progress in your career by
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doing tasks that improve your skill, charisma is a skill but not
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kindness) , but also ideology is put into the game by the player. The
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player chooses what to reproduce and often share in the “gallery” or on
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social media. Community being so important in this game then means that
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the crux of the social reproduction is happening when the choices you
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have made in the game are broadcasted. Did you create a heteronormative
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white thin nuclear family that made a lot of money? Or did you choose to
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play differently?” (Ada).</em></p>
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>
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<p><em>“The Communist Party of Second Life (CPSL) aims to be a Marxist,
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internationalist and revolutionary organization for all communists in
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Second Life. The CPSL aims to spread understanding of Marxism among SL
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citizens, to organise support in SL for the class struggle in RL,
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including all struggles of the working class against imperialism and the
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bourgeoisie, its state and wars” (keksakallu.klata).</em></p>
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>
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<p><em>“The act of the modder’s appropriation of the pre-existing game
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is also similar to Michel de Certeau’s cultural ‘poaching’. De Certeau’s
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everyday bricolors make do with remixing the privatized spaces and
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products of consumer society that they find themselves inhabiting and
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using. Rather than being passive consumers, ordinary people invent
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varied subversive tactics for stealing back the given of everyday life.
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De Certeau writes, ‘Everyday life invents itself by poaching in
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countless ways on the property of others’” (Schleiner, 2017).</em></p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>Meanwhile, we explored the figure of the witch as a magical
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practitioner, as a resisting body, a border figure. <em>“Federici
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presents the witch”as the embodiment of a world of female subjects that
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capitalism had to destroy: the heretic, the healer, the disobedient
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wife, the woman who dared to live alone, the obeha woman who poisoned
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the master’s food and inspired the slaves to revolt.” Behind the witch
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hunt, she uncovers a joint effort by the Church and the state to
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establish mechanisms of gendered control of bodies that immanently
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resisted newly instituted regimes of productive and reproductive work”
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(Timofeeva, 2019).</em></p>
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<blockquote>
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<p><em>“Sorcerers have always held the anomalous position, at the edge
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of the fields or woods. They haunt the fringes. They are at the
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borderline of the village, or between villages. But sorcerers not only
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exist at the border: as anomalous beings, they are the border itself. In
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other words, the borderline passes through their bodies” (Deleuze,
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Guattari, 1980).</em></p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>How does the understanding of the hunting of the witches that
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happened a few centuries ago in relation to the figure of the witch as a
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marginal, rebellious entity shed light on contemporary witch-hunting?
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How does this knowledge provide us with tools of empowerment,
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emancipation and resistance, and make us reimagine counter-hegemonic
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practices of collective care and healing?</p>
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<figure>
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<img src="wall.jpg" alt="Never stop questioning, never stop mapping." />
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<figcaption aria-hidden="true">Never stop questioning, never stop
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mapping.</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<h6 id="documentation">DOCUMENTATION</h6>
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