@misc{9249986,
  abstract     = {{This thesis examines how Chinese women players negotiate sustained engagement with narrative-driven single-player games with fixed male protagonists, and how these experiences relate to agency and empowerment across personal, interpersonal, and political levels. The study draws on semi-structured interviews with fifteen Chinese women players and reflexive thematic analysis. The findings reveal different trajectories across personal, interpersonal, and political levels. At the personal level, players describe confidence, agency, and strength developed through play as extending into everyday life. At the interpersonal level, women-only gaming communities provide spaces where gendered experiences can be discussed and shared awareness can develop. At the political level, players articulate critical awareness of gendered structures. Yet this awareness remains largely bounded within personal and community settings and is not necessarily accompanied by broader collective action. This pattern may partly reflect the perceived social costs of publicly claiming gendered empowerment. Players may describe changes consistent with empowerment without naming or presenting these experiences publicly as empowerment. This separation between realization and claiming suggests that critical awareness and public or collective action do not necessarily develop together. Game spaces can therefore enable empowerment without necessarily enabling its public claiming beyond the boundaries of play.}},
  author       = {{Li, Jiajing}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Playing His Part, Holding Her Strength: Gendered Negotiation, Agency, and Empowerment among Chinese Women Players of Fixed Male-Protagonist Single-Player Games}},
  year         = {{2016}},
}