The Department of Anthropology Colloquium Series Presents

Barriers to Participation in Digital Game Cultures

Kelly Bergstrom
Assistant Professor of Communication
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa


Thursday, September 26th, 3:00 pm, George Hall 227

While a growing body of interventionist literature documents new entry points for girls and women into traditionally male-dominated play or making spaces (Kafai, 2008; Jenson, Fisher and de Castell, 2011; Harvey and Fisher 2015) these investigations are focused on current and active participants. In an effort to address this gap whereby the study of “quitting” remains under explored, in this talk I will report on five years of surveys and interviews with women who are not currently playing digital games. Rather than assuming that playing or not playing is exclusively about choice or interest, I argue that there is much to be learned by asking middle-aged women about what games they avoid and their reason(s) for stopping play.

Kelly Bergstrom is an Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Her research focuses on drop out and disengagement from digital cultures, with an emphasis on digital gaming. She has published her work in Feminist Media Studies, Games and Culture, and Convergence. Prior to joining UH Mānoa, Bergstrom was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Learning in Digital Games (York University, Canada) and a postdoctoral researcher at Big Viking Games.