This call can also be found on the JVWR web site here.

Call for Papers

Journal of Virtual Worlds Research (JVWR) Issue on Asian Perspectives

GUEST EDITORS

Kenneth Y T Lim, National Institute of Education, Singapore
Young Hoan Cho, National Institute of Education, Singapore
Michael Vallance, Future University, Hakodate, Japan

DEADLINES

• Authors submission of abstract: April 15th, 2012 using the Journal publishing system (login at the top right of the journal site, state that you aim at the Asian Perspective issue.) Abstract submission will give authors quick feedback and allow editors to identify reviewers asap.
• Authors submission of full paper: Jun 1, 2012
• Editors review report and initial decision to authors: Jul 1, 2012
• Authors submission of revision: Aug 1, 2012
• Editors final decision and comments to authors: Aug 15, 2012
• Authors submission of completed, final version of paper: Sep 01, 2012
• Staff editor & authors work till Planned Publication Date: Sep 30, 2012

ABOUT

We are interested in topics like socio-cultural framings of virtual worlds, game-based worlds and the communities that emerge within them as well as special technologies that have emerged in the region. Commentators such as Engeström (1999) have given us lenses through which to investigate such interactions and growth.

When highlighting patterns of usage of virtual worlds, the mass media tends to draw generalisations from anecdotal extremes of the neglect of families and acts of gang-related or self-inflicted violence; other generalisations are drawn about the outsourcing of the acquisition of in-game resources. We argue that understandings of virtual worlds from Asian perspectives must be broader than these naîve generalisations.

The purpose of this special issue is to seek a nuanced landscape of virtual worlds from Asian perspectives – a landscape which encompasses both peaks and valleys, as opposed to one which emphasizes some at the expense of others.

Congruent with this approach, the question of whether there are indeed “Asian perspectives” and the forms these might take, might be articulated along the following lines of inquiry:

• a straightforward sub-regional approach (such as, but not limited to, the impact of virtual worlds in northeast Asia);
• position papers and academic research which foreground the evolutionary trajectory of community-growth as embedded within Oriental (as opposed to Occidental) cultures;
• in this latter regard, considerations might even be taken of the distinctions – and interplay – between the in-world actions of protagonists as informed by their respective cultural worldviews, and their wider constructs of identity and self within their home-cultures as they participate in their regular everyday activities.

We therefore invite position papers and interim reports of research studies which might shed light on the preceding issues, such as – but not limited to:

• comparative studies on the use, understandings and significance of virtual worlds and game-based worlds across Oriental and Occidental cultures;
• ethnographies of protagonists and players living and operating within Asian societies;
• longitudinal studies of in-world and cross-world community emergence and growth from Asia;
• research studies on interventions within a diversity of Asian contexts, such as formal education and / or non-formal learning;
• descriptive studies of protagonists and players of Asian origin, focusing on how their in-world actions and identities might have been shaped by wider cultural factors – and vice versa.

GUIDELINES

We welcome submissions in the form of full research papers, research-in-brief papers, “think-pieces,” essays, monographs, interactive online exhibits with accompanying detailed descriptions, and other forms of scholarship.

For specific submission instructions and detailed descriptions of the different submission formats visit: http://jvwresearch.org

FURTHER INFORMATION

Please contact:
Kenneth Y T Lim voyager AT mac.com
Young Hoan Cho younghoan.cho AT nie.edu.sg
Michael Vallance mvallance AT mac.com

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