Tomb Raider’s influence at Angkor Wat perpetuates colonial narratives, altering tourist behaviours and site preservation concerns.
Author
Rukmini Pande, Associate Professor, Jindal School of Liberal Arts & Humanities, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India
Summary
Cultural heritage has been substantively identified as a vital motivator for tourism. An additional significant driver of visitor interest to specific historical locations is the influence of media properties. Among these, the influence of video games is an emerging area of scholarly interest. However, scholarship has not yet adequately addressed the troubling implications of player/tourists being incentivized by game mechanics to “replay” historical colonial extractive logics on real world spaces. As postcolonial video game scholars have pointed out, such game mechanics form the foundation of many adventure-based game franchises. Their extension to real world locations, potentially disrupting the possibility of acknowledgment of colonial histories by visitors, has serious implications. This article addresses this gap by examining the ways in which the influential Tomb Raider franchise continues to affect how visitors to the Angkor Wat Hindu-Buddhist temple complex in Cambodia choose to re/present the site in their personal tourism narratives.
Published in: Feminist Media Histories
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