Writing Hypertext: Anthropology, Pedagogy, Politics

This thematic week on Allegra takes off from the exploration of an ethnographic video game, The Long Day of Young Peng. This interactive teaching tool is a product of field research and interdisciplinary cooperation, and continues to create new linkages and insights through its use in the classroom and its reflections of broader trends in Chinese society. The choices afforded by the game platform confront the players with ethical dilemmas and the workings of their own imagination as they guide young Peng on his way from the countryside to the big city in search of work. Contributors to this thematic week will explore how the Peng game has inspired them to think critically about interactivity, play and representation as constitutive elements of contemporary digital cultures.

“To learn what else this week has in store, skip ahead to 4.”

Curated by Andrea Pia.

Andrea Pia is Assistant Professor in Anthropology at the London School of Economics. His first book manuscript follows Yunnanese hydro-engineers, street-level bureaucrats and embattled rural residents as they negotiate with the mounting pressures of China’s many water crises.