Graduate Student, Sociology and Anthropology
Thesis Title: Towards an association between gaming and leisure
Justin Paulson
About
I am working on a thesis that examines the stigma around MMO video games as a valid form of leisure. Intended primarily as a way of setting up a theoretical framework to be tested qualitatively in my future PhD work, I am drawing broadly on the fields of political economy, political sociology, critical theory and actor network theory. This theoretical foundation (coupled with ethnographic data) will be employed to consider the curious doubled ways in which online video games are perfect forms of leisure according to the western neoliberal context and yet those who play them seriously are considered weird, geeky and antisocial.
