Year: 2025
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: While Bangladesh last year was undergoing a radical political overhaul led at the grassroots level, gamers in Bangladesh were not only actively subsuming the unrest into their virtual game worlds, but they were also tying in with networking platforms that are already gamified, creating paratextual layers to the games that add to their textual depth and their reception.Our research studies this phenomenon through digital participant observation.Although the entry of this South Asian nation into gaming has been late compared to the global North, and much of the necessary technology is still unaffordable to middleclass Bangladeshi households, the revenue generated from gaming in Bangladesh has seen a continued rise (Mukherjee 2022).Gamers in Bangladesh now have a flourishing digitally run network, in two of which -'Gamers of Bangladesh' and 'Bangladesh Gaming Society'-we have chosen to situate this study.Considering that videogames as a site to practice resistance and for democratic process has been researched (Richardson et al. 2021; Davies 2023; Bashandy 2023), there is not much work in this area for the global South.Adding to that is the issue that much of gaming research in the Indian subcontinent is overshadowed by a focus on India (Mukherjee 2022).For a brief background, the Sheikh Hasina headed government has had the longest regime in Bangladesh since its Liberation War in 1971.However, there was widespread dissatisfaction with the alleged bias in her governance, as evidenced by a series of anti-government demonstrations before her latest term began in 2024.In July 2024, the unrest erupted into a mass-revolution led by students and organized mostly using social networking platforms.The trigger event was the reinstatement of quotas that mandate reservations in government jobs for applicants whose ancestors were freedom fighters in the Liberation War.In actuality, only those families associated with the Awami League, the erstwhile dominant political party under Hasina, were able to secure those jobs.With rising rates of unemployment and a
Authors: Souvik Mukherjee, Piuli Basu
Institution: Centre for Studies in Social Sciences Calcutta
Language: English
Topic: Digital Games and Media
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W4411974068