Work

Relational Bleeding, Bending, and Diffraction: Brazilian Transnational Children's Transgressive Digital Play on Roblox

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: ABSTRACT This article draws from a one‐year connective ethnographic study that examined Brazilian transnational children's composing practices on a digital gaming platform named Roblox. Building upon research on digital childhoods, transnational childhoods, and play, the authors thought with concepts of relational bleeding, bending, and diffraction to understand how participating children and parents constructed narratives and (re)configured relationships during gameplay. The findings highlight how Roblox was a space where children simultaneously reified and reorganised the relational and spatial conditions of their out‐of‐game lives. Thus, the authors emphasise a need for scholars to examine how children generate spaces for the maintenance of kinship ties, belonging‐making, and peer affinity in digital spaces despite the ideological and game‐based constraints therein.

Source: Children & Society

DOI: 10.1111/chso.12967

Authors: Mariana Lima Becker, Alex Corbitt

Institutions: University of Georgia, SUNY Cortland

Language: English

Topic: Digital Games and Media

Subfield: Sociology and Political Science

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,620

Funder: National Council of Teachers of English