Indigenomicon

Settler colonial studies and Indigenous studies are often assumed to be the same intellectual project. In <i>Indigenomicon</i> Jodi A. Byrd examines the differences between the two fields by bringing video game studies and Indigenous studies into conversation with Black studies queer studies and Indigenous feminist critique. Byrd theorizes the image of the law of the Indigenous as structuring dispossession in games including <i>Assassin's Creed</i> <i>Animal Crossing</i> <i>BioShock Infinite</i> and <i>Demon Souls</i>. They demonstrate how games and play might reveal histories of slavery genocide and theft of Indigenous lands even as their structures obscure Indigenous spatial and embodied practices that prioritize relationships with land water plants and spirits. With ground and relationality defined as key concepts Byrd centers Indigenous visions of dystopias to reveal how game spaces encode settler structures of governance even as the design of games might yet provide vital modes of resistance to Indigenous erasure.