My project explores the potential of emergent games to foster curiosity-driven learning and facilitate new knowledge alliances in interdisciplinary fields. By combining emergent game design, open process practices, and a feminist ethic of care, my collaborators and I aim to create a platform that promotes curiosity and accountability while exploring politically charged scientific questions.

In one such collaboration, the Industry of Integrations (IOI) project (Nevelsteen 2021) will be applied to scientific databases, known collectively as Open Data Infrastructures (ODIs). We intend to use these ODIs at high levels, and integrate them with Collaborative Data Platforms at more local levels (for example through Citizen Scientists) to create a citizen-driven ecosystem. In this system people can build integrations, bridging scientific ODIs between different disciplines, and integrate with their own citizen contributed data – the scientific equivalent of user generated content (UGC). In addition, we hope to bridge scientific ODIs and game platforms, to allow the incorporation of physical world elements into casual games. In this way, by bridging science and creativity, we can dissolve the boundaries between laypeople and experts, and build new knowledge alliances. And also build super cool games.

I was doing a web search for hits that contain both pluralism and feminism and found this article by Esther Turnhout, which is adapted from her inaugural lecture as Chair of Science, Technology and Society (STS) at University of Twente: A better knowledge is possible: Transforming environmental science for justice and pluralism. Articles are written in such terrible ways, so I read the lecture instead. It explains a lot of the concerns I have, and I mostly enjoyed reading it. Here’s some bits I highlighted, and then some thoughts about how this relates to my work going forward.