Dear Organisers of the ‘DiGRA Diversity Collective Statement’, the Signatories, and the DiGRA Community,
Response from the Executive Board
The DiGRA Executive Board received ‘DiGRA Diversity Collective Statement’ on August 10th, 2024, and read it carefully. We appreciate the concern over diversity and inclusiveness at DiGRA and the time the petition organisers and signatories have taken to partake in the joint effort. We have noted that among the signatories of the letter are both current and past DiGRA members and numerous other people in the global academia who have felt strongly about our community. To all involved, we would like to thank you for caring about DiGRA community, its values and ways of operating. We are hereby presenting our reply to the letter.
As a general note, we would like to emphasise that diversity and inclusiveness as well as the safety and wellbeing of our members has always been important to us. We are sad to see that major concerns over the organisation have surfaced in the past months. At the same time, we are convinced that if such concerns existed in the first place, it is best to address them straightforwardly regardless of where they originate from or whether we as a board or the larger DiGRA community agree with all the presented flaws of the current system. DiGRA stands for all our current, past, and future members. The current Executive Board acknowledges that the values of the letter are by large values that the people on the board and, hopefully, the DiGRA community at large respect and wish everyone to adhere to. As always, we welcome direct inquiries to the board regarding any issues or concerns. Members’ safety and wellbeing is a priority for us and we hope a better DiGRA emerges as an outcome of this process.
It has become clear to us that a lack of communication and a lack of proper communication channels lie at the heart of the raised issues. We have learned that important discussions have taken place within DiGRA Diversity Group. This body within the organisation has no official procedures for reporting back to DiGRA Executive Board. Many concerns raised by this group did not have the chance to reach the other Board members. Thus clarifying the organisational structures and reporting channels are practical measures that may help in reaching the goals presented in the letter. The Diversity Working Group is responsible for some of the most critical improvements to the organisation in the past years. We trust great insight may be gained from this sub-community.
Moreover, we recognise that while the board and conference organizer teams have worked on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) improvements for several years, these changes have not been systematically communicated to the members at large.
At some point DiGRA Executive Boards ceased to communicate on GamesNetwork because it included a wider community. Many of GamesNetwork’s subscribers were never our members nor attended our events. Also, several concerns about the listserv itself were raised by the community in the past. It is therefore crucial to establish new and better means of communication, and we hope that based on our work, future DiGRA boards will be able to do better in that regard. This is one of the reasons why we have put so much effort into establishing a new website for DiGRA in the past year. In this response we will bring up some recent improvements that the board and conference organisers have implemented in the past several years with the goal of making DiGRA a more inclusive, safe and welcoming place for all of us. Behind such changes is the fast growth of the organisation.
In recent years, DiGRA has become a truly global and diverse academic association with 19 regional chapters. As an organisation, we may have to rethink whether we have not become too big for the current bylaws and modest volunteer-based governing structure that has served us well in the past. Regardless of our growth, we have assumed that diversity, inclusiveness and an open sharing of knowledge lie at the heart of our global community.
To address the changes in membership, and to ensure safety and well-being of our members, numerous changes and revisions to our previous practices have been put in place in the past years. We have revised the conference contract to reflect our goals and ideas (Guadalajara 2024 was conducted in accordance with the previous version of the contract, signed by the previous board), and re-created calls for conference hosts stressing different sets of values, with invaluable help from the diversity workgroup. We have expanded the Solidarity Fund as much as possible within our budget (remember, DiGRA is funded exclusively from membership fees and those must remain accessible), and supported numerous chapter initiatives. We have also recently introduced the position of Sustainability Officer and are now in the process of making sustainability-related game research more visible as well as creating a set of regulations for more environment-friendly DiGRA conferences.
Before the launch of the 2024 conference Call for Papers in September 2023, we revised the conference submission template for better accessibility and readability. The template itself, a seemingly minuscule item in the whole repertoire of the organisation’s matters, has previously received great attention from DiGRA boards and conference organisers who have noted the importance of details to communicate systemic imbalances, among others.
We have also improved our online security with a new website, featuring a secure members-only part allowing us to post announcements to all members, and better access to the invaluable resource of DiGRA Digital Library. This was absolutely necessary not at least due to numerous concerns raised regarding GamesNetwork listserv, and the hostile takeover of the conference address in 2023. This work would not be possible without great help from volunteers who tirelessly support the Digital Library and ToDiGRA Journal.
The website features an updated Code of Conduct created by experts from Diversity Workgroup. But even the most robust Code of Conduct is meaningless without a proper, binding and community-approved procedure to enforce it. In 2023, prompted by members’ concerns voiced via the Ombuds Team, we started work on those measures. This is a complex process that takes time and effort, especially as something being done on a voluntary basis as service to the community. The dire necessity of developing a robust Code of Conduct was made plain during DiGRA 2024, as a safety-related issue arose. Even though direct action was not taken at the conference itself, we decided to double our efforts to implement additional measures regarding Code of Conduct enforcement, as communicated to all conference participants during the General Assembly (in person) and immediately following the event (via email).
As some of you know from our previous communication and other sources available online, there is an ongoing unresolved issue from DiGRA 2024 regarding the association policies and the implementation of the Code of Conduct. As already stated in the letter to DiGRA 2024 participants, board members present at the conference were attending an anonymous complaint submitted via Ombuds Team regarding the personal safety of a participant, who felt threatened in the presence of another participant while attending the conference. This complaint was subsequently retracted before any action could be taken.
There was also a second complaint, presented directly to DiGRA President in private communication. It was related to a conference participant’s role in one of the conference events. It was solved by following a suggestion provided by the person raising the issue: senior academics – in this case, two board members – were present at the event and monitored its course.
Both cases brought to the board were concerns about safety based on reported experience of past abuse. We have considered them with all seriousness, and still do. We recognise the pain and trauma behind past experiences and the need for support and a safe space. That said, no instances of abusive behaviour were detected or reported to the board during DiGRA 2024. We urge all participants who have experienced or witnessed such incidents to bring them to our attention.
We acknowledge the President and Vice-President unknowingly discussed both cases over the Messenger channel as well as during the Board meeting with other board members as if the Ombuds visitor was not in the room, despite their presence. In said conversations, we considered this an issue to be efficiently resolved, sometimes debating possible consequences of certain actions without taking the proper precautions to the sensitive nature of the issues, and did not address the Ombuds visitor in the room as a victim/survivor. It seems that this insensitivity led the hurting person to the false conviction that we were unwilling to act – for which we sincerely apologize.
As a direct result a strong disagreement regarding the performance during the incident arose in the board, leading to board and Ombuds Team Secretaries resigning. We wish to wholeheartedly thank all former board members who decided to step down last month: Mahli-Ann Butt, Darshana Jayemanne, Poonam Chowdhury, Souvik Mukherjee and Premeet Sidhu, as well as former Ombuds Team Secretaries, Madeleine Antonellos and Cody Mejeur. Even though we did not part on the best of terms, we are sincerely and deeply grateful for all your work and dedication to DiGRA.
***
This is our general statement. We hereby respond to a petition sent to us on August 10, 2024. We respond to it as members of the Board that has been functioning since January 2023.
We will address the nine calls for action from the letter presented to us, to assure you that we are taking this very seriously, share the perspective on what is needed and work towards solving those issues. We will then present the possible framework to implement those measures the community will consider necessary.
- Put the Code of Conduct into practice, and enforce procedures to make the Code meaningful. Live up to your stated values, beyond just paying lip service to them.
The Board is aware that the current bylaws and governing system of DiGRA does not allow us to enforce the Code of Conduct properly beyond social pressure and goodwill of the members. This is why we, immediately following the 2024 conference, proposed 1) to establish an Internal Complaints Committee, with the mandate to investigate breaches in the Code of Conduct, and 2) to create well-defined, clear preventive and punitive measures all DiGRA members will agree upon. Regulations for such a body have been underway since late 2023, and our aim to put them in place was publicly announced on July 6, 2024. Moreover, the Ombuds Team will be reinstalled to address all matters requiring external, neutral arbitrage or guidance, including all conflicts between individual members and the association as a whole.
We would like to add to the consideration that for example disability and culture-specific hierarchies between people are concerns that we are paying attention to and seeking ways to address. As DiGRA conferences travel from one country to another on an annual basis, it is critical for our members to consider the local sensitivities and to learn from them, too.
- Ensure that any diversity committee in DiGRA is actually diverse, and implement policies and practices that ensure the organization actually listens to the people doing diversity work.
We consider the fact that the informal, voluntary-based structure of the current Diversity Workgroup, does not occupy a clear position within DiGRA governing bodies, is a major oversight. It hampers the communication between the Workgroup and the Board, and slows down important initiatives. This is why we wish to introduce intermediaries in the form of an official DiGRA Diversity Advisory Board, a less numerous (and as such, more operational) body composed of members with different regional backgrounds, identities, cultures, and lived experiences – and with an official mandate to participate in DiGRA policy-making. This was also announced on July 6, 2024. We hope for Diversity Workgroup input in creating actual policies and prerogatives for the Diversity Advisory Board.
We are also considering other actions and solutions, including:
- Receiving an annual report and recommendations from the Ombuds Team to ensure there are no unresolved cases or unanswered questions, and to learn how to improve the Association.
- Clarifying tasks and responsibilities for all board positions and DiGRA governing bodies, and establishing clear and formal channels of communication.
- Providing specialist training for a member elected DiGRA Diversity Officer.
- Involving the new DiGRA Diversity Advisory Board in decision-making process as a body reviewing board policies, and bolstering diversity workers presence in local committees organising the conference, as advisors.
- Support the DiGRA Ombuds program in whatever form it takes, and consider paying professional ombuds for their time and expertise if possible.
As our previous Ombud Chris LaHatte resigned to accept a new position as Anti-Corruption Commissioner for the kingdom of Tonga, that forbids him from any other professional activities, we are indeed without an Ombud. Board members already met with representatives of the International Ombud Association to discuss terms for the replacement, and we are now working to reconcile financial demands with the DiGRA budget and the financial strain we put on members, especially those from low-income countries. That is, the Board is trying to reconcile the need for an impartial Ombud without personal ties to DiGRA and its members, with the need for global predicated on reasonably low member fees.
- Develop structures for centering and promoting students and early career scholars, and give them meaningful shared governance of the organization.
In the past, DiGRA conference participants and members have contributed to Doctoral Consortiums, workshops to improve better supervisory practices, and a recently initiated mentorship programme. Students and early career professionals are the future. We consider them of utmost importance and wish our events to be welcoming and respectful of everyone.
We consider the Solidarity Fund a crucial tool to help students and early career scholars to present their research on the international stage. The Fund has already allowed a number of such young researchers to participate in our annual conferences. We hope that future boards will continue to support events such as the annual Doctoral Consortium or the supervision workshop organized in 2023, and valuable initiatives like the Mentorship Programme initiated this year. We are also discussing a new DiGRA programme format facing Early Career Scholars from 2023, with a good chance it will be introduced for DiGRA 2025. As for the governance, there is an official position of Student Officer on the Board, but we are also considering enlarging the number of student representatives and giving them a mandate: something we will gladly discuss with the community.
- Platform and highlight the diversity of scholarship within DiGRA, ensuring that at least one keynote is offered to a junior scholar and that current and former DiGRA board members are not overrepresented in these sessions.
Diversity is what makes DiGRA special. We bring together research areas and paradigms, people from all around the world and of different backgrounds. This is a value that the current board sees as one of our most precious ones.
So far, the selection of keynote speakers is the prerogative of the Local Organizing Committee – in the new version of the conference contract we introduced more involvement from other DiGRA bodies, to safeguard diverse choices. It can be argued this custom is already informally introduced, as two keynotes in Seville 2023 were Early Career Scholars, and the diversity was the focus of keynote selection for the canceled Tampere 2020 conference, and then Kraków 2022. To further safeguard diversity, we are also preparing more detailed instructions for the Program Committee and Local Organizing Committee regarding conference organisation and execution.
This year’s program, too, included work from several often underrepresented groups mentioned in the open letter. The Program Chairs had paid particular attention to how these people were placed in the program, to maximize their impact and exposure as well as to provide a comfortable environment for discussion.
- Be vigilant in protecting and supporting marginalized people in the organization. Look out for predators and abusers who remain a part of it and hold them accountable.
This is among major reasons to create additional governing bodies focusing on this very task (as discussed at point 1 and 2). It is, however, important to note that a body established by an academic association can only address matters in the capacity related to this association and its code of conduct, employing only measures allowed by bylaws.
After the case at DiGRA 2024 we have consulted experts, lawyers, and ombuds persons about harassment and diversity matters. We have listened to them and made careful notes. It is very clear to us that we cannot make anyone accountable for acts that should be investigated by the police and prosecuted by courts of law.
This said, we do not want to disrespect individual experiences or personal concerns. We agree that DiGRA needs to continue the work that has been ongoing for at least ten years in the area of DEI. A respected scholar noted recently that DiGRA has long been leading when it comes to DEI matters – here again we do not wish to wait for others to come up with solutions that we can implement but through our democratic processes prepare procedures that the membership feels comfortable adhering to. At the same time, we need to establish impartial structures and procedures to allow all members to be heard equally.
- Actively engage with, cite, and support scholars working in issues of diversity and social justice in games. These are not special interest topics for a few specialists, they are broad concerns for anyone sincere about building diverse, inclusive, just organizations.
Recommendations regarding citations and support of the work from diverse and marginalised scholars were introduced into review instructions in 2020 (incidentally, by the Program Committee featuring two of the current board members), and we will continue to support this direction. It is to be stressed, though, that we can encourage citations and disseminate relevant research, but we neither can nor wish to actively police or censor our member’s research, as this Association is composed of people with vastly different backgrounds and research interests.
- Establish and enforce regular order for Board meetings. This should include agendas circulated, minutes taken and regular reporting from treasurer and ombuds. Members should be able to find how and why decisions have been taken.
For the better part of the term, the Board met on a regular basis, several times a year. The schedule was much more regular than in the past, as frequent as possible given the fact that the Board is composed of volunteers devoting their personal time to the community, and residing in several different time zones. This regular schedule was in recent months interrupted by unforeseen personal circumstances.
The DiGRA Executive Board has met seven times in the last one-and-a-half years and dealt with numerous additional items through email correspondence. We handled, among other things, the applications and initiation of two new regional chapters, liaising with three conference organiser teams and one program committee, handled publications on the Digital Library, built a new website with several new features, adopted and put into use a new membership registration and management system, prepared a new conference submission template with conference program committee, revised the conference agreement format, addressed concerns from chapters, discussed a case of hostile action towards DiGRA, handled various direct member queries, established LinkedIn presence, considered and allocated both solidarity funds and chapter funding, etcetera.
The number of actual board meetings has seen a manifold increase from previous years. This is not to say that previous boards have not been as dedicated or hard-working as the current one but to emphasise that the sheer amount of work and emerging concerns for the currently very large organisation has increased and added to the need for having regular meetings. For two reasons there was a five month period without meetings leading to the conference in 2024. First, the board members were fully occupied with website building, planning coming conference technical issues and other practical matters. Second, a key member of the Board was unavailable due to personal circumstances. At no point did a board member express a wish to have a meeting.
To avoid such problems in the future we are already considering making the Board Secretary an appointed position (akin to the Treasurer), thus giving the Board more robust tools to work on an internal schedule, keep up with procedures and prevent prolonged breaks. This change has been discussed since July 9th, 2024, and will be presented to the General Assembly as a change in the bylaws.
We also hope introducing additional governing bodies and a clear division of responsibilities will remove some of the burden from the volunteers serving as board members and facilitate smooth operation even if some elected members of governing bodies will be forced to attend their personal or professional life for a longer period.
- Consider restructuring the organization and board to give regional/local chapters more agency (e.g. chapters co-hosting annual conferences). As an association formed in 2003, it may be time to find new ways for greater – and more genuine – forms of international collaboration.
This board was supportive of chapters from the very beginning, and we wish to continue so by focusing on their development as a main focus of the Association. We help to build chapters and see it as a favourable outcome that these chapters grow out of DiGRA when the main organisation no longer provides a meaningful frame for the regional or language-based group to operate. We are always welcoming of initiatives from the community and support chapters and their collaboration with the limited means at our disposal.
Board members have discussed giving more agency and influence to the chapters for well over a year. In the current iteration, discussed since July 9 2024 we are considering the creation of the DiGRA Chapter Council, an additional governing body composed of all elected Chapter Heads, to meet regularly to foster inter-chapter collaboration, and to supervise the Board and review its actions.
We have also decided to prioritise chapters as conference hosts, and to work more forcefully to ensure collaboration between the chapter and the local organising team – provided any chapter will volunteer to host, or participate in hosting of the annual conference, which is a prerequisite for any major involvement. DiGRA conference is organised by volunteers who have expressed a desire to work for the organisation, and we cannot force such a burden on chapters.
Our calls for conference organising are open to everyone.
***
On several points, we share the ‘DiGRA Diversity Collective Statement’ letter’s assessment of the current DiGRA state, and many of the presented ideas about how it should be reformed. In our response above, we have introduced numerous activities to steer the Association in that direction. There are also additional items we were about to develop in final month’s of this Board’s term. The situation changed when half of the elected board members resigned. It is clear to us this Board no longer holds the mandate to introduce such extensive changes to the Association. We will therefore leave our project outline as a possible roadmap to our successors, as the only action this Board will perform will be preparation for general elections this autumn.
In the aftermath of the resignations, we had an internal vote of confidence on July 27, to make sure any following actions were possible with the current leadership. The leadership was reassured of the support of the remaining board members. The reason we will resign now is to allow a new beginning and to respect our colleagues who resigned earlier based on their personal experience or in solidarity with others. The reason we did not all resign from the DiGRA Executive Board earlier was to provide our response to the petition that was under preparation, as well as other inquiries and requests sent to the Board during and after Guadalajara 2024 conference, to be able to attend to various outstanding tasks at DiGRA, and to secure continuity from this board to the next.
It is therefore up to the next Board elected among DiGRA members by their peers to evaluate the needs of the Association and execute any changes they deem necessary. We can only hope this new body will learn from our experiences.
The General Election will be announced within the first two weeks of September to all DiGRA members through Memberful, our membership platform. The announcement will include details on how to nominate candidates to various Executive Board positions, as well as detailed description of voting and vote-counting procedures. Please note that only current DiGRA members are eligible for nominations and can vote. All who attended the conference in Guadalajara are automatically members of DiGRA: others might sign through this website.
We sincerely ask everyone to consider if they want to contribute to DiGRA from within the Executive Board. The current board members are prepared for an extended transition period should the incoming board members wish to consult us on anything.
While still remaining in the position to carry our responsibility to respond to the current petition and finish all outstanding tasks, we are happy to receive any questions you may have. Please address all your inquiries to digrainternational [at] gmail [dot] com.
Sincerely yours,
Executive Board Members of DiGRA
Hanna Wirman (resigned from the role of President on her own initiative on August 1st, 2024)
Tomasz Z. Majkowski, Vice President
Jussi Holopainen, Treasurer
Sonia Fizek, Open Seat, Sustainability Officer
Akinori Nakamura, Open Seat
Miia Siutila, Secretary
Hanna Wirman’s personal note
Since July 2024, six DiGRA Executive Board members and two members of the Ombuds team have left their seats. Some did this to directly express their dissatisfaction with the association’s leadership regarding a case that was handled at the 2024 conference and others to express solidarity with resigned members. These colleagues are all respected members of our community whom we have had the pleasure of working with for a great number of years.
While the board and many of our members find it difficult to accept the means and some of the content and claims of the letters shared, I are confident that the petition signatories and former board members have acted in good faith. It may take time for those of us who remain on the board to fully understand the different reasons for leaving abruptly. However, I accept that their choices are based on the same dedication towards those in the margins which inspired them to contribute to the organization in the first place.
I will personally work harder to listen to, and understand other perspectives even when I disagree and in the cases where the official framework limits my available options to act. I sincerely hope that people like the resigned DiGRA Board and Ombuds Team Secretaries will stay among us helping us all hear more clearly and louder. While the course of the events over the summer have affected me greatly and I find the unfolding of the events unfair and uncollegial, I respect the larger goals behind the actions taken and the courage it takes to speak up. I truly hope there will be a way for us to work together and trust one another’s willingness to reach shared goals.
It has been my great pleasure to be part of DiGRA for nearly two decades and I am proud of what I and my fellow board members have achieved over the years. On August 1st 2024 I resigned on my own volition as DiGRA President. I have done so out of respect for my colleagues, the community at large, as well as out of concern for my own wellbeing. I have remained on the board to carry out the responsibility of attending to the petition and to make sure matters that required immediate action were handed in due time.
Sincerely,
Hanna Wirman, former DiGRA President