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I don’t think you’re going to have any aborigines in your world’

Minecraft ing terra nullius

Bibliographic Data

ID11167396
AuthorsLigia López López (0000-0001-6035-7376, The University of Melbourne, corresponding author), Lars De Wildt (0000-0002-6901-6903, Institute for Media Studies, KU Leuven , Leuven , Belgium), Nikki Moodie (0000-0002-5238-8073, The University of Melbourne)
Year2019
Volume40
Issue8
Pages1037-1054
Publication date2019-11-17
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueBritish Journal of Sociology of Education (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0142-5692 • E-ISSN: 1465-3346
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01425692.2019.1640596
OpenAlexW2966975160
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited33

The myth that justified the takeover of a continent lives on both in classrooms and in popular media. Drawing from classroom observations in an urban primary school in Australia, this article enters the technology in education conversation, more specifically through the use of videogames for learning. Based on classroom exchanges between teachers and students, we interrogate how the school’s use of Minecraft, a best-selling commercial videogame, continues to reproduce myths of settler colonialism in the twenty-first century. Specifically, the curriculum mobilizes structures inherent to both Minecraft and modern Australia’s treatment of its Indigenous populations. That is, both classroom and videogame interactions reproduced the myth of terra nullius: the doctrine which determined that land, prior to colonization, was empty and unowned, and therefore available for settlement by the colonizer. We conclude that within videogames and classrooms, students’ voices manage to interrogate the curriculum, resisting the reproduction of erasive coloniality in school

Archaeology · Colonialism · Conversation · Curriculum · Doctrine · Indigenous · Indigenous Education · Media studies · Mythology · Pedagogy · Political science · Reproduction · Sociology · Classics · Communication · Ecology · Educator Training and Historical Pedagogy · History · Law · Literacy, Media, and Education · Tourism, Volunteerism, and Development

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  • Against Game Studies

    Open Access•Alex Gekker•Media and Communication•2021

  • Minecraft's territory

    Open Access•J J Schmidt•Geo Geography and Environment•2025

  • Politics of Production

    Open Access•Emil Lundedal Hammar, Lars De Wildt et al.•Games and Culture•2020

  • Crafting worldly spaces

    Jordan Lincenberg, Rebecca Eynon•The Review of Education Pedagogy…•2021

  • Against Curriculum

    Ligia López López, Elizer Jay De Los Reyes•Journal of Intercultural Studies•2022

  • What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy

    Open Access•J P Gee•Computers in entertainment•2003

  • The Biggest Estate on Earth

    Open Access•Bill Gammage, William Gammage•The biggest estate on earth•2011

  • Videogames and Postcolonialism

    Open Access•Souvik Mukherjee•Videogames and Postcolonialism•2017

  • A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay

    Open Access•Watkin Tench•Narrative of the Expedition to…•2013

  • The Aboriginal Tent Embassy

    Gary Foley, Andrew Schaap et al.•Aboriginal Tent Embassy•2013

  • Disinventing and Reconstituting Languages

    Daragh Hayes, Sinfree Makoni et al.•Disinventing and Reconstituting…•2006

  • The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

    Max Weber•Protestant Ethic and the Spirit…•2005

  • ‘Do they not have rational souls?’

    Jodi A Byrd•Settler Colonial Studies•2016

  • Gender Trouble

    Judith Butler•Gender Trouble•2011

  • The Darker Side of the Renaissance

    John Frederick Schwaller•Sixteenth Century Journal•1996

  • Children and Minecraft

    Open Access•Jane Mavoa, Marcus Carter et al.•New Media & Society•2017

  • Why Terra Nullius? Anthropology and Property Law in Early Australia

    Open Access•Stuart Banner•Law and History Review•2005

  • Whiteness and futurity

    Open Access•Andrew Baldwin•Progress in Human Geography•2011

  • Plain facts

    Bill Gammage•Landscape Research•2008

  • The genealogy ofTerra Nullius

    Andrew Fitzmaurice•Australian Historical Studies•2007

  • Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native

    Patrick Wolfe•Journal of Genocide Research•2006

  • Against the Dark

    Michael J Dumas•Theory Into Practice•2016

  • The Making of Indigeneity, Curriculum History, and the Limits of Diversity

    Ligia López López•Making of Indigeneity, Curriculum…•2017

  • Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom

    Sylvia Wynter•CR The New Centennial Review•2003

  • Pathways for Indigenous Education in the Australian Curriculum Framework

    Open Access•Martin Nakata•The Australian Journal of…•2011

  • Digital Conquerors

    Open Access•Daniel Dooghan•Games and Culture•2019

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    Open Access•Souvik Mukherjee•Games and Culture•2018

  • On the Coloniality of Being

    N Maldonado-Torres•Cultural Studies•2007

Unique citing works9
Citations per year1,5
Citation span2020 - 2025 (6)
Citation velocityrecent
Highly citedNo
Citation typesNeutral: 9
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