Paper accepted @ The 3rd Geogames Symposium (3GGS) Best, Kseniia

Ttitle: Tell Your Story Through Games (TYS):  Preliminary Guidelines for Mixed-Migrant Participatory Game Jams

Conference: The 3rd Geogames Symposium (3GGS) – Iowa, USA

Authors: Kseniia Harshina

Abstract: Migration-themed games are often framed as “empathy machines,” inviting outsiders to temporarily inhabit another’s hardship. This framing can slide into identity tourism and reinforce the trope of the “helpless refugee”. This short paper presents Tell Your Story Through Games (TYS) as a participatory game jam method that centers agency, and self-expression in mixed-migrant communities. We contribute preliminary methodological guidelines for running participatory story game jams with mixed-migrant communities. Participants with lived experience of migration and/or displacement create place-based story games, choosing how personal or fictional they want the story to be. One pilot iteration has been completed; future iterations will refine the method and evaluate its support for narrative agency and community-building.