Leaving home: Using videogames to help students understand forced migration

Abstract

The representation of human mobility has depicted refugees in very different ways, from passive victims to threats to the economy, security, and national order in the receiving countries. This article presents a study conducted with graduate students with the aim of analyzing how this kind of geopolitical ideas about forced migration can be confronted by virtually approaching the situation of refugees in different settings. This study presents an innovative active learning methodology centered on the use of videogames to approach graduate students to the everyday life and practices of border crossing. The study uses quantitative and qualitative information provided by the students to explore the usefulness of the educational activity. This research shows how graduates through this method can use critical geopolitical lenses to examine their own biases, reflect beyond the established categories, adopt a problem-solving approach as reflexive thinkers and geopolitical actors regarding forced migration, and acquire key cognitive, skill-based, and affective learning outcomes. University students symbolize a segment of society that is eager to challenge dominant geopolitical representations and produce counter-hegemonic discourses to that end. In this context, their agency and emotional understanding can assist others in advancing towards a greater humanization of how global migration processes are comprehended.