Voyage scientifique dans le jeu de rôle en ligne

Abstract

World of Warcraft is the online roleplay game most widespread in the world. The gamer evolves in a medieval-fantastic world, inspired by Tolkien, in which archaeology plays an unforeseen role. The dwarfs, who are part of the figures that can be played, are represented as a people of archaeologists and adventures in which they involve you often have an archeological character. But what is archaeology according to World of Warcraft ? What is its function in a world always threatened with destruction and where predominates magical forces ? What are the objects collected on archeological excavations ? Through the game a philosophy of history takes shape, opposing the object and the narrative as two modes of constitution of historical knowledges.