Identidades e poderes no World of Warcraft

Abstract

Factors like globalization have unleashed changes in the human being way of life, bringing new practices into the quotidian (BAUMAN, 2001; LÉVY, 1996). In this work, it is relevant to focus in one of these present day practices; the act of play (electronic games). Disseminated mainly because of its function as an entertainment product and socially recognized as such, the electronic games pass through a filter which depreciates activities that are inherent to its process and need in today‟s classroom practice, as agreed in the OCEM (BRASIL, 2006). When acknowledged beyond entertainment, electronic games compose a cultural artifact and stir one of the world‟s greatest industries, besides being even more constant in the academy. Studies related to electronic games are being developed in several areas, rendering the practice of play problematic and demystifying it as a good or bad practice in its totality. In this context, this research aims at analyze questions of identity and power in the electronic game World of Warcraft from Blizzard Entertainment (2004-2016). For this purpose, besides a bibliographical study, the researcher‟s participation is employed in an ethnographical investigation as well as an interview with players from Brazilian realms. Therefore, the “moveable feast” taken as the late-modernity man‟s identity is discussed (HALL, 2011), the proposition of the identity construction as a process observed in real, virtual and projective instances is also taken into account (GEE, 2003). The relations of power scattered in the virtual space are brought into the light of Foucault‟s argumentation (2003; 2004) considering to what extent and in what manner the mechanisms of power act in the game and how they can be understood.