Fibreculture Journal (Dec 2013)
FCJ-160 Politics is Serious Business: Jacques Rancière, Griefing, and the Re-Partitioning of the (Non)Sensical
Abstract
This article contextualises certain elements of ‘griefing’ as a form of political action in virtual world by drawing on the political philosophy of Jacques Rancière. A small but growing number of scholars are starting to view griefing as an avant-garde, anarchist, or hacktivist political activity. I suggest that Rancière offers a more specific articulation of what constitutes political action and activism for griefing collectives because his understanding of politics is entirely grounded in relationship to the types of communities and individual political equality. The article focuses specifically on the Patriotic Nigras activities in the Great Habbo Raid of 2006 in an attempt to understand how a Rancièreian framework can provide some analytical tools for articulating politics in virtual worlds. I conclude that the PN do not ultimately realise a Rancièreian framework. They challenge not partitions of the sensible, but partitions of the nonsensical specific to the different operation of politics and community formation in virtual worlds.
