A useful way of conceiving of the geographically contextualized work that Scalar invites is to venture into its affordances for play. In her book Literary Games, Astrid Ensslin delineates a schema of “ludostylistics,” (52) play-like elements that can help parse the literature and gaming. These stylistics include “gameplay”, encompassing player and interface movement;  “agency”, “interface design,” which includes components like a “gameworld;” and an “algorithmic encoding of rhetorical purposes” (Ensslin 53).  

Out of the box, Scalar’s affordances only just approach these criteria, and Ensslin would likely reject the classification of any current Scalar books as a games (54). However, there are enough similarities that understandings of ludic mechanics are applicable to analysis of this scholarship, particularly when considering reader agency, navigation, and worldbuilding strategies.

In particular, the possibilities of navigating a digital field can align ludic stylistics and scholarship. Using a game metaphor is particularly helpful for working through geographic organization. As Espen Aarseth writes:

“The defining element in computer games is spatiality. Computer games are essentially concerned with spatial representation and negotiation, and therefore a classification of computer games can be based on how they represent – or, perhaps, implement – space” (qtd. in Lammas and de Smale)

Lammes and de Smale continue this argument, suggesting that while this spaciality often conveys colonial ideologies, it also creates room for “‘alternative’ affordances in which mapping gains new meaning that can be critical and reflective at the same time.” In other words, the spaciality of games may allow for a Debord-ian détourn of the colonialist mapping project, and a reappropriation of place-representations for anti-colonial purposes.

Overall, I am not suggesting that scholarship become gamified. Instead, I believe that learning from games can allow for spatially-contextualized scholarship, leveraging this affordance for decolonial portrayals of space.  

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