Hi! I am a Post-Doctoral Researcher, currently affiliated with the Game Research Lab, Tampere University.
The banner is for the SURVIVE-project (by Ludwig Sandbacka) where me and my colleagues explore intersections between survival games and survivalism.
matildastahl.bsky.social
In addition to our book being OA, the teacher association SMLF (Swedish as L1 and Literature Education in Finland), gave us the opportunity to discuss our findings in their member magazine ARENA. I am so happy that we were able to make our research accessible this way!
www.smlf.fi/arena/#flipb...
Glimpse of yesterday's sneak-peak of our upcoming OA-book "Learning and Identity in Competitive Gaming: An Empirical and Methodological Discussion" at ÅAU, Vaasa.
link.springer.com/book/9783032...
We are also giving a public book talk at Vapriikki, Tampere on June 12th!
www.vapriikki.fi/tapahtumat/
Our (Ståhl & Rusk) Open Access book "Learning and Identity in Competitive Gaming - An Empirical and Methodological Discussion" is finally published!
link.springer.com/book/10.1007...
It is based on in-game material of CS:GO recorded by the youth participants, a group of Finnish men, themselves.
Ludwig Sandbacka has provided wonderful illustrations for the book based on empirical examples. The one above is one of my favorites, as I find that it captures the presence of participatory researcher very well.
Please check out his other work as well:
www.ludwigsandbacka.com
Finally made it to Bluesky so that I can share this awesome project with everyone!
Delighted to see that the Routledge Companion to Video Games and History now has a webpage and a cover!
There will be an ebook (which given the length of this I imagine will be many people's preferred reading approach), it just doesn't show on the page yet.
www.routledge.com/The-Routledg...
Today, we gave a presentation with
@matildastahl.bsky.social
about 'Gender as portrayed, experienced, and observed in women’s Nordic esports events' at
@gameresearchlab.bsky.social
22nd annual spring seminar. The vibes were strong and I guess the photo says it all (thanks to Lobna Hassan)!
Travelled to ECQI with @matildastahl.bsky.social to discuss the role of identity, safety, and danger in "riskful" ethnography!
This work-in-progress brings together some of our previous experiences of risks and challenges in fieldstudies, using them as a base for our future work in SURVIVE.
Busy week for the CoE blog! Have a look at this blog post where Matilda Ståhl, Aska Mayer (@amayer.bsky.social), Robyn Hope, Rainforest Scully-Blaker (@rainforestsb.bsky.social) and Nick Taylor (@nickttaylor.bsky.social) discuss intersections between survival games and survivalism.
The Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies
This post introduces SURVIVE, a project that has been a site of collaborative inquiry since 2025, looking at the intersections of ideas and practices of survivalism and preparedness in digital game…
