Affect and Agency in Modern Warfare Videogames: Feeling the Muslim Enemy

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to discuss the acted or performed dimension through which Western warfare videogames are employed in the creation of culturally divided identities. During the interaction, affects and emotions are channelled in order to shape subjects acritically embracing Western values, while also driving a larger process of construction of a generic Muslim enemy. On the one hand, Middle-Eastern subjects work as agents of a polarizing process which prompts users’ aggressive reaction; on the other, whole Middle-Eastern cities and regions are being re-created as three-dimensional spaces, and then digitally stored to expand huge terrestrial and cultural databases. These function on two levels: first, as virtual training grounds for prospective soldiers, and secondly as affective maps providing cultural coordinates as to how Muslim territory is to be felt and, consequently, lived.