Investigating identity becoming trajectories within the interplay of spatial and social dimensions of affinity spaces

Abstract

Where the notion of education used to be (and still is) prevalently accepted as the teaching and learning within formalized settings, 21st century learners of today are developing highly sophisticated, and reflective literacies through participation and play with digital technologies. With the hybridization of learning with popular media culture, learners expect, and derive, little gratification from institutional contexts such as school. Such development implies an pressing need to understand the kinds of phenomena occurring in these so-called progressive (relative to current school practices) learnings and to consider the implications to present settings. Situating our study within the context of the extremely popular immersive multiplayer game space, World of Warcraft (WoW), this research is focused on the intertwining relationship between individual identity and the collective emergence and regulation of social communities within the activities transacted in the game and its related spaces. These issues are investigated in the informal learning space of online guild structures within WoW, while foregrounding central issues of identity and becoming that are core to contemporary media and literacies. The findings arising from this research are meant to inform design principles that will contribute to strongly coupled learning processes within both formal and informal contexts of learning.