SIMON WELLISCH

PhD Student

Research Title: Playing Geopolitics – The Geopolitical Imaginations in Video Games, among Content Creators and Consumers
Research Group: Politics, Economies And Space (PEAS)
Thesis Advisor: Prof James D Sidaway
Co-advisor: Assoc Prof Woon Chih Yuan

I specialised in political geography and geopolitics during my Bachelor and Master studies in Germany and the Czech Republic. Other field studies included Lithuania, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Xinjiang (PRC). I am particularly concerned with perceptions and dissemination of geopolitical concepts and their underlying power relations. My regional interests include but are not limited to post-Soviet and post-communist countries as well as Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia.

My doctoral thesis wants to broaden the study of video games to gain more insights into the representation of geopolitical narratives. Despite their widespread popularisation, video games have only occasionally received some attention in this regard. The main research topic are geopolitical imaginations in video games in different genres as well as their resonance among content creators and players. This leads to a multitude of questions: How are geopolitics manifested in the games? What differences, what similarities can be observed? How can players interact with the games’ narratives and how do they interact with them? Are there differences or similarities between player bases, e.g. based on gender? What possibilities of content creation do the players have on their own and what content do they create? What is the community’s perception of geopolitical issues?

Publication: Simon Wellisch & Lukáš Laš (2020) Media discourses of territorial disputes in Japan, Asian Geographer, DOI: 10.1080/10225706.2020.1768569