Ethnographies of the Videogame

Helen Thornham is Research Fellow at the Institute of Communications Studies, University of Leeds, UK.

• Acknowledgments; Chapter 1 Introductions: Videogames, Gender, Ethnography; Chapter 2 Constructing a Gendered Gaming Identity; Chapter 3 Articulating Pleasure: Gender, Technology and Power; Chapter 4 The Practices of Gameplay; Chapter 5 Bodies and Action; Chapter 6 Pleasure and the Imagined Gamer; Chapter 7 Conclusions: Towards a Theory of Domestic Videogaming;

'Helen Thornham’s excellent exploration of video gaming decisively shifts the terrain of game studies. From the solitary screen experience to play in the living room, in Thornham’s work gaming becomes an embodied techno-social relation accounted for in narrative terms. A rich and sustained ethnographic study that also re-theorizes the relation between games and those who play them.' Caroline Bassett, University of Sussex, UK 'A welcome corrective to the view that videogaming is dangerously antisocial. Thornham persuasively demonstrates that videogaming is a physical, embodied activity, deeply embedded in everyday domestic routines and relationships. Her theoretical approach reveals important insights into gender relations, and challenges stereotyped concepts of gaming behaviours. Gamers and non-gamers alike, as well as scholars interested in these new, important leisure activities, will find this book of considerable interest.' Máire Messenger Davies, University of Ulster, UK