Embodied virtual capital: The neoliberal rationality of aspiring electronic athletes
Date
2025
Authors
Alberto, Roberto
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Abstract
Esports entail competitive video game play for cash prizes and thus have become a career choice. Whereas once video games were strictly a leisurely activity, today, for elite gamers, they have become a viable profession. This thesis documents aspiring electronic athletes who seek to fashion professional careers playing video games. This thesis uses the concept of neoliberal rationality to analyze the embodied practices and forms of self-discipline in which aspiring electronic athletes engage. Using a combination of methods, including ethnography, interviews, surveys, and autoethnography, this thesis develops the concept of embodied virtual capital to document the techniques and practices aspiring electronic athletes undertake in their pursuit of careers as professional gamers. Building on Michel Foucault’s analysis of the centrality of human capital to neoliberal rationality (Foucault 2008), embodied virtual capital captures the embodied practices undertaken by electronic athletes as they work the interface between physical technologies and virtual worlds on the pathway toward earning future livelihoods.
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Keywords
esports, anthropology, ethnography, video games, electronic sports, neoliberal rationality, economic anthropology