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Citation link: https://doi.org/10.26092/elib/401
02_gamevironments_Kocik.pdf
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Discrepancy Detected. Operationalizing Immigration and Borderzone Policy in Papers, Please


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Authors: Kocik, David 
Abstract: 
This article examines how Papers, Please (2013) critiques modern immigration policies by operationalizing immigration law and borderzone security. In the game, the player is an immigration officer at a recently demilitarized zone between two fictionalized countries. Every in-game day, the player decides which migrants must be admitted, rejected, or detained by comparing increasingly complicated documentation to ever-changing immigration policies. Through a visual and operational emphasis on rules and paperwork, Papers, Please conveys how supposedly fair immigration processes prioritize documentation and order over the lives and rights of individual immigrants. The game also shows how modern governments implement haphazard and reactionary immigration policies through ever-changing rules for the player to follow. By making the player complicit in the systemization of immigration, the game shows how seemingly equitable borderzone policies support daily unethical and dehumanizing treatment of migrants at highly regulated borders.
Keywords: Immigration, Papers, Please, Government, Democracy, Law, gamevironments
Issue Date: 21-Dec-2020
Journal: gamevironments 
Start page: 35
End page: 63
Band: 13
Type: Zeitschriftenartikel
ISSN: 2364-382X
DOI: 10.26092/elib/401
URN: urn:nbn:de:gbv:46-elib46047
Institution: Universität Bremen 
Faculty: Fachbereich 09: Kulturwissenschaften (FB 09) 
Institute: Institut für Religionswissenschaft und Religionspädagogik 
Appears in Collections:Forschungsdokumente

  

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