Understanding Masculinity and Gaming will investigate male gamer experiences of game culture as a contested space where a hypermasculine subculture is challenged by diversity. With an interdisciplinary team of scholars, the project will break new ground by combining game studies and masculinity studies in offering a new experience-centric theory of the relationship between the gamer identity and masculinity that goes beyond reductionist ideas of toxic masculinity. The project will create insight into experiences of male marginalization in light of the contestation of game culture, and thus provide a new understanding of the relationship between game culture and online movements relating to anti-feminism and the alt-right.
