The Administered Dream: Esports, Digital Reification, and the Paradox of Pluriversality in the Global South
Convener: Antonius Harya Febru Widodo
In the “multipolarising world” of the 21st century, the digital arena is often heralded as the ultimate meritocracy—a leveling field where Global South youth can bypass traditional geopolitical borders through skill and connectivity. However, viewing this phenomenon through a Critical Theory lens reveals a tension between the promise of pluriversal futures and the universalizing logic of the algorithm. This panel investigates esports not merely as play, but as a dominant strain of the Culture Industry that standardizes “hopes and imaginaries” into quantifiable data.
We argue that the esports ecosystem operates as a “closed system” of rationality. For the aspiring player in Indonesia or the Philippines, the dream of sovereignty is paradoxically pursued through intense submission to technological dependencies. We invite papers that scrutinize the material culture of this pursuit—specifically the fetishization of “performance peripherals” (e.g., the lightweight mouse, the high-refresh monitor). Here, Adorno’s concept of pseudo-individuation is palpable: players seek unique identity through mass-produced tools, believing that acquiring the perfect “egg-shaped” mouse will liberate them from structural precarity.
Furthermore, we explore the platform geopolitics of the server. If the Global South is to be an “epistemic center,” how do we reconcile this with the reality that digital sovereignty is often dictated by server locations and ping latencies managed by hegemonies in the Global North or East Asia? By analyzing the “simulated governance” of league structures and the “labor” of the gamer, this panel asks whether esports offers a genuine alternative economy, or if it merely reifies global inequality under the guise of digital play. We seek to understand if a true pluriversal future can exist within the rigid, binary code of a competitive map.