PSA from your friendly neighbourhood librarian

If you thought escaping from Castle Wolfenstein was hard, try Woomera Immigration Reception and Processing Centre... With a first person, 3D adventure game we invite gamers to assume the character of, and 'live' through the experiences of a modern day refugee. The effective media lock-out from immigration detention centres has meant that the whole truth about what goes on behind the razor-wire at Woomera, Baxter, Port Hedland, Maribyrnong and Villawood remains largely a mystery to the Australian public. We want to challenge this by offering the world a glimpse - more than that even: an interactive, immersive experience - of life within the most secretive and controversial places on the Australian political and geographical landscape. In this way, Escape From Woomera will be an engine for mobilising experiences and situations otherwise inaccessible to an nation of disempowered onlookers. It will provide both a portal and a toolkit for reworking and engaging with what is otherwise an entirely mediated current affair.

From the 2014 Polygon article discussing this project and its continued relevance:

Eleven years ago a group of developers made a prototype for a game that shone the spotlight on Australia’s shame.

Escape from Woomera, a first-person point-and-click game in which players tried to break out of the Woomera Immigration Reception and Processing Center (better known as the Woomera Detention Center), made its way around the world, and the Australian government – despite its best efforts at limiting information and imposing a media blackout — couldn’t stop it. The news media had covered Woomera extensively. Many people had read or heard about it. Now they could play it. Here was a first-world country that was locking up asylum seekers for indefinite periods of time, keeping them in conditions so harsh it led to suicide attempts, hunger strikes, lip sewing protests and desperate attempts at escape, and word was traveling through a video game.

.......

Research is a process, in which researchers need to make various choices. Making choices is an essential part of planning, and doing research. Mapping Research Methods focuses on showing how the following four key features of a research project are linked to one another within the philosophy of science: research aims, research strategies, data collection and data analysis. Mapping Research Methods is also designed to be an introduction to students to the processes of research and the significance of research ethics.

Mapping Research Methods is also designed to be used by:

students in independent study, to support the planning and writing of theses

teaching staff as a supervisory aid for students who are planning and writing research theses

teaching staff in research method courses

teachers as learning materials, as there are more than 100 exercises designed to increase students’ understanding of research projects.

In my view this skills-based approach misses important points and caveats—both about data literacy and literacy. Specifically, promoting data literacy as a set of skills (such as the ability to perform analyses on data, read graphics, etc.) is grounded in two common misconceptions about literacy.

First, literacy cannot be equated with reading and writing skills. In fact, when defining literacy, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) makes no mention of reading and writing; rather: “[l]iteracy involves a continuum of learning in enabling individuals to achieve their goals (…) and to participate fully in their community and wider society”. Indeed, whereas “at first glance, ‘literacy’ would seem to be a term that everyone understands, (…), as a concept (it) has proved to be both complex and dynamic”. Efforts to promote data literacy must be based on a much firmer understanding of what literacy is and does than is currently the case.

Second, to us educated professionals who read and maybe even write for a living, it seems literacy can only be a good thing. We often think of the Dark Ages, then writing, then Gutenberg, then the Enlightenment, and then Norway.[iii] But this narrative doesn’t really stand the test of history. Reflecting on the historical role of writing, literacy and the fight against illiteracy, the French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss wrote some 60 years ago in his masterpiece “Triste Tropiques”:

“Writing is a strange thing. It would seem as if its appearance could not have failed to wreak profound changes in the living conditions of our race, and that these transformations must have been above all intellectual in character. (…) Yet nothing of what we know of writing, or of its role in evolution, can be said to justify this conception. If my hypothesis is correct, the primary function of writing, as a means of communication, is to facilitate the enslavement of other human beings.

The use of writing for disinterested ends, and with a view to satisfactions of the mind in the fields either of science or the arts, is a secondary result of its invention and may even be no more than a way of reinforcing, justifying, or dissimulating its primary function. If writing was not sufficient to spur knowledge, it may have been necessary to reaffirm domination structures. (…)”.

Further, and “[t]o bring the matter nearer to our own time” (then the late 1950s), and our topic, according to Lévi-Strauss:

“The Europeanwide movement towards compulsory education in the nineteenth century went hand in hand with the extension of military service and the systematization of the proletariat”. During those decades, he concluded, “[t]he struggle against illiteracy is indistinguishable from the increased control exerted over the individual citizen by the holders of power.”[iv]

In other words, Lévi-Strauss argues that literacy campaigns during the Industrial Revolution were not meant to enlighten or empower people, as was and remains often assumed, but to entrench and expand emerging power structures and systems; those of young Nation States and the nascent capitalist economy—by creating soldiers, workers, foremen, tax-payers, and law-abiding citizens. In his view, rather than aimed at enabling individuals “to achieve their goals and to participate fully in their community and wider society”, these literacy campaigns were designed to allow the powerful to exert greater control over the masses who had to know the codes just enough to follow them.

From the [Real]source Center page:

Healthy Relationships 101 - this handout and video is for you if you say:

"I don't do relationships; it's all about the hookups for me."

"Long-term, committed relationships are my jam."

"Eh I'm not into dating, but I do care about keeping things healthy with my friends."

Consent - this handout and education & awareness campaign is key if you say:

"Everyone keeps talking about consent, but idk what that is."

"I know consent is required, but won't that ruin the mood?"

"I know what consent is, but explaining it to my friends is a whole other story."

Boundaries - this handout is your go-to guide if you say:

"I have literally no idea how to set boundaries."

"Setting boundaries makes me v uncomfortable."

"What do you mean set boundaries? I'm not sure I get it."

"I'm good at setting some boundaries, but it would help to have examples to tell my friends."

Freedom And Space - this handout and video is your one-stop-shop if you say:

"I feel suffocated in my relationship, but I don't want to upset my bf/gf by asking for space."

"How can I balance my friends, schoolwork, family, AND partner?"

"It seems like I can't do anything without my bff and sometimes I just want to be by myself."

Breaking Up - this handout and video is for you if you say:

"I want to break up with my partner, but I wouldn't know where to start."

"I'm not happy in my relationship. Should I break up with them?"

"I just broke up with my bf/gf and I'm feeling down."

Dating Apps & Safety - this handout is a must read if you say:

"I am never not on Tinder."

"I chat with people online all the time, but sometimes things are creepy."

"My friends meet up with people from apps, but I worry about keeping them safe."

Defining LGBTQ* - this handout is for you if you say:

"Wait, I thought the acronym was LGBTQIA?"

"I know what the letters mean, but not the asterik."

"I'm trying to learn more so I can be a better ally."

Preferred Gender Pronouns (PGP) - this handout is key if you say:

"What is a PGP?"

"I've seen people say their pronouns are they/them, but I'm not sure what that means."

"Why is respecting someone's preferred gender pronouns important?"