When Geopolitics Meets the Game Industry. A Study of Arabic Video Games and What They Teach Us

• Authors: Barthelemy Courmont , Pierre-Alain Clement
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Concomitant with its recent growth, politics have in several cases pervaded the video gaming industry (as in Americas Army by the US Army in 2003 or Special Force by the Hezbollah). Other games deserve closer scrutiny. This article focuses on Quraish, its Syrian developer Afkar Media, and on the reactions to its creation and diffusion. However, instead of being a simple tool of political manipulation, this game is part of a larger phenomenon: an endogenous set of statements from Arab societies about themselves, to themselves and the West. This article intends to demonstrate that popular objects can be used to make autonomous statements about society challenging both endogenous orthodoxy and exogenous Orientalism.

Keywords

EN

game industry; Arab world; Quraish; Afkar; Islam; Geopolitics

• Publisher: Instytut Kultur Śródziemnomorskich i Orientalnych PAN
• Journal: Hemispheres. Studies on Cultures and Societies
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 29
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 31-47

Contributors

author

Barthelemy Courmont

• Political Sc ience Department, Hallym University
• Institute of International and Strategic Relations
• Monde Chinois, Nouvelle Asie

author

Pierre-Alain Clement

• Center for Geopolitics, Raoul-Dandurand
• Strategic and Diplomatic Studies, Universite du Quebec a Montreal, Canada