Become Human: Affective Personhood and the Emergent Body in Single-Player, Science Fiction video games

This research explores what it means to be "human"/"non-human" through an ethnographic study of single-player science-fiction video games (SPVGs), players and game developers. It examines how ideas about personhood and the body become embedded in and disseminated through SPVGs; shaping how people come to imagine personhood, its boundaries and constitutive relations at a time of quickly accelerating technological change, making this research an urgent and timely intervention.

This research focuses on how gaming influences understandings of personhood and the body vis-à-vis science-fictional worlds which allow players to explore other worlds, "other" bodies and other futures and the pivotal role played by game developers in shaping emotional, conceptual and political landscapes for vast numbers of people.

This PhD will be of interest to academic disciplines such as anthropology, media and cultural studies, and computing, as well as the gaming industry. It offers an insight into how players and developers construct, negotiate and think about constructions of the human along racialized, gendered, disabled, sexuality and technological lines as well as how these affect players and developers worldviews of pasts, presents and futures.