(Re)coding Survivance: Relation-oriented Ontologies Of Indigenous Digital Media

Abstract

Being Indigenous is political and social – above all, it is relational. These relations extend through and beyond settler colonial power structures, across temporalities and generations. Moreover, if the personal is political, and video games, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (XR) experiences, and other digital media have become important fields of study across humanities and social sciences fields, Indigenous digital media offer engaging ways to understand the relational flows of various social, cultural, and political dynamics. This dissertation frames Indigenous digital media examples as entry points into larger Indigenous-centered relational networks, illustrating how they reorient players and designers in the processes of making and playing these games. To do this requires two parts: the first crafts my theoretical framework of relation-oriented ontologies; this is an embodied theoretical framework and methodology. Embodied here signifies that the theories engaged and cited are grounded and routed: place-based and attuned to the materialities of digital media. To sort and weave this theoretical framework, I apply three specific methods: subvert, revert, and convert, and two tools: storifying and nourishing negation. The second part is the applied research and analysis: tracing particular digital emergences of survivance - (re)codings - through Indigenous Futurisms (IF) and Inclusive Indigenous Futurities (IIF).