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Landscapes of tension, tribalism and toxicity: configuring a spatial politics of esport communities

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posted on 2020-08-05, 09:14 authored by Emily HaydayEmily Hayday, Holly CollisonHolly Collison, Geoffery Kohe
Proliferation of esport has created a complex landscape of participants, communities, organisations and investors. With alluring lucrative economic, social and political incentives, the crowded esport commons has become a site of rich resource for varied interests, yet also a locale of idea sharing, community production, and collective action. Notwithstanding advantageous outcomes for some stakeholders, esport has also become a space of turbulent tribal relations, exclusion, marginalisation, and inequalities. Such issues precipitate the need for closer examination of esport spaces, relations within these communities, and the underlying ideological and moral conditions thereof. Drawing on spatial theory, and utilising data from 16 semi-structured interviews and 3 focus groups (n= 65) with key esport stakeholders, this research explores current experiences of identity and esport community membership. Our investigation focused on esport and explored the ideological grounding, current practices and tensions present within esport communities.

History

School

  • Loughborough University London

Published in

Leisure Studies

Volume

40

Issue

2

Pages

139-153

Publisher

Taylor & Francis (Routledge)

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Rights holder

© Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

Publisher statement

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Leisure Studies on 17 August 2020, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/02614367.2020.1808049.

Acceptance date

2020-08-04

Publication date

2020-08-17

Copyright date

2020

ISSN

0261-4367

eISSN

1466-4496

Language

  • en

Depositor

Dr Emily Hayday. Deposit date: 4 August 2020

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