INDIGENOMICON: AMERICAN INDIANS, VIDEO GAMES, AND THE STRUCTURES OF DISPOSSESSION

Jodi A. Byrd

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Settler colonial studies and Indigenous studies are often assumed to be the same intellectual project. In Indigenomicon, Jodi A. Byrd examines the differences between the two fields by bringing video game studies and Indigenous studies into conversation with Black studies, queer studies, and Indigenous feminist critique.

Byrd theorizes “the image of the law of the Indigenous” as structuring dispossession in games including Assassin’s Creed, Animal Crossing, BioShock Infinite, and Demon Souls. They demonstrate how games and play might reveal histories of slavery, genocide, and theft of Indigenous lands even as their structures obscure Indigenous spatial and embodied practices that prioritize relationships with land, water, plants, and spirits. With ground and relationality defined as key concepts, Byrd centers Indigenous visions of dystopias to reveal how game spaces encode settler structures of governance even as the design of games might yet provide vital modes of resistance to Indigenous erasure.

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PUBLICATION DETAILS

LANGUAGE	BINDING	EDITION	ISBN	YEAR	PAGES
English	Hardcover		9781478029274	2025	312
English	Paperback		9781478032649	2025	312
English	eBook		9781478061496	2025	312

PUBLICATION DETAILS

Indigenomicon: American Indians, Video Games, and the Structures of Dispossession

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TAGS

Authors: #JodiAByrd

Publishers: #DukeUniversityPress (Duke University Press)

Languages: #English

Format: #Hardcover #Paperback #eBook

Accessibility: N/A

Year: #Year2025

Genres: #GameStudies #WorldHistory

Companies:

N/A

Public Figures:

N/A

Games:

#AnimalCrossing (Animal Crossing)

#AssassinsCreed (Assassin's Creed)

#Bioshock (Bioshock: Infinite)

#DarkSouls (Demon's Souls)

Misc:

N/A