At British DiGRA we are increasingly aware that in order to maintain the kind of community we want to foster, we need not only a continuously improving Diversity and Inclusivity Policy, but also clearer processes in order to maintain and improve our work and our spaces.Therefore, we subscribe to the DiGRA Code of Conduct, while focusing on the following principles that we hope to abide by as part of our DEI Processes:
- Open avenues for feedback and change. This will ideally ensure a diversity of voices contributing to change without putting the burden and labour on the diverse voices we strive to support. This will also ensure a constantly improving environment for UK games researchers.
- Accountability but not blame. We mean to foster an environment that allows for change and long-term accountability in order to maintain a community that is safe but also learns from its own failure. This is meant to allow those members who have fallen short of the expectations of the community are encouraged to share and learn. Ultimately, DEI requires constant work and improvement and we want all of our community to take part in this process, and thus learn from failure as much as from success.
- An environment that is always safe, but not necessarily always comfortable. We want our community to always be safe for our members. At the same time, we want to allow for views to be challenged in ways that may be uncomfortable, especially when views may negatively affect the rights and safety of other members of historically disadvantaged and oppressed communities.
A few measures we want to implement as part of the DEI feedback form in order to uphold these principles are:
- Allow members to direct their feedback to specific committee members, including the possibility to both exclude and include members for any reason.
- Allow members to suggest ideal solutions to the issues they face, ask for possible solutions, and/or ask to have a conversation about the issues with either the committee or larger community. Should the solutions prove unfeasible, a conversation about the issue may need to be proposed.
- Allow the community to propose changes to both the DEI policy and its implementation at any time. British DiGRA will aim to review changes annually or sooner. We will also aim to be as transparent as possible with the changes that we make, while also protecting any information that may be considered sensitive regarding specific cases, feedback, or other suggestions that have informed our policies and processes.
- Allow the community to propose DEI policies applicable to not only BDiGRA events but other games-related academic events in the UK. Any games-related academic community is invited to contribute to these policies and processes, adopt and modify them as they see fit, and create a more cohesive and inclusive British academic community.
- Provide a point of contact for issues faced by the community in the UK. We suggest this to be two members of the current DiGRA Board but not its president. At the moment, please contact Andra Ivanescu (andra.ivanescu@brunel.ac.uk) and/or Charlie Hargood (chargood@bournemouth.ac.uk) regarding any DEI issues.
We see the continuous development of ambitious but sustainable DEI policies as essential to the growth of British DiGRA.