Ludic Inquiries Into Power and Pedagogy in Higher Education

Amelia Walker lectures in Creative Writing at the University of South Australia, on Kaurna Yerta, the unceded lands of the Kaurna people. She has been writing and publishing poetry since her teenage years. Her fifth poetry collection, Alogopoiesis, was published by Life Before Man (Gazebo Books) in 2023. Amelia’s research embraces creative methods of knowledge-making. Helen Grimmett is a teacher educator in the School of Curriculum, Teaching and Inclusive Education, Monash University, Australia, on Bunurong/Boon Wurrung Country. Her passion is taking playful and creative approaches to both her teaching and research in order to disrupt expectations and challenge traditional understandings of teaching, learning, and schooling. Alison (Ali) L. Black is a senior lecturer at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia, on Gubbi Gubbi/Kabi Kabi Country. She uses autoethnography, poetry, and narrative to listen to and understand inner worlds and wider cultural experiences. Ali’s research recognises the importance of contemplating, acknowledging, and responding to lived lives.

PART I. Philosophical sparks and promises of transformation. 1. Weaving conceptual, philosophical, and methodological threads amongst tapestries of privilege, power, and pedagogy. 2. Diversity and cultural pedagogical games and play: Through an Aboriginal lens. 3. Women leadership in higher education: Using positional power to change the game and amplify women’s voices. 4. Power and the game of higher education: Self-validating aggrandisement or transformational praxis?. 5. oWL, Bear, ::machine:: : Virtual NPC design as a shamanistic mode of resistance. PART II. Lived experiences. 6. Mahjong, the PhD and me: Which game should I play and how?. 7. Navigating the academic panopticon: An autoethnographic exploration of chronic illness, productivity, and belonging in academia. 8. Queer(y)ing board games as public pedagogy: ‘Playing out of bounds’ to activate LGBTQIA+ agency in academia and beyond. 9. Here to kick neoliberalism in the balls: The bogan in the university. 10. Games and invasion: Accounts of lived experience from First Nations writers, artists, and researchers. PART III. Pedagogical perspectives. 11. Academic kinship: I once had a game, or should I say it once had me?. 12. As play becomes practice: Observations on robust gamified education elements in the new normal. 13. Ludic reflections: Exploring strains of relational thought arising in a video games-based ‘STEMinar’ course. 14. Playing the game of education is playing the game of life for students with disability. Part IV. The spirit of play. 15. Playing with power and being played: Collaborative gameplay as a site of connection and insight. 16. Ludic lessons in liminality: A provocation from playing Solitaire. 17. Cards against academia: Playing the game of ‘opportunities’ through a feminist friendship lens. 18. Refluxus – Four soluble heads: Collective play through domestic art pedagogy. 19. Gaming the system: Choosing to play the infinite game in academia. 20. Remembering how to play: Breaking the rules (with meaning)