Peter Groote

Geoparks are designated areas aimed at promoting geoheritage and fostering sustainable regional development through geotourism. The construction and dissemination of the geopark brand is crucial for the institutionalisation of geoparks, yet academic attention to geopark branding in the framework of place-making is limited. This study explores how tourists perceive and contribute to the construction of place meanings and brand images of geoparks, using Zhangjiajie UNESCO Global Geopark in China as a case study. Employing a mixed-methods approach combining 369 surveys, 346 mental maps, and 57 stakeholder interviews, our results revealed that tourists have limited recognition of the geopark’s scientific and social significance. Spatial analyses of mental maps further show that tourists’ perceptions concentrate heavily on iconic scenic areas while overlooking peripheral, rural communities. The mismatch between tourists’ perceptions and meaning constructions and the geopark’s official branding efforts may undermine the park’s goals of geoheritage conservation and community development. Theoretically, this paper contributes to the literature by reflecting on the intersection of place-making, place branding, and geotourism, emphasizing tourists’ role as place-makers in co-constructing geoheritage meanings. Our findings suggest that effective use of geopark products and branding should move beyond expert-driven narratives and integrate tourists’ perceptions into management and assessment practices.

Body disposition encompasses the practices and processes for handling human remains after death. Israel’s current default, state-funded body-disposition policy is accumulative, perpetual burial. Ac...

Does university heritage appeal to gamers? The commercial success of EA Sports College Football 25 suggests it does. After an 11-year hiatus, NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) college football returned to video game consoles and became the best-selling sports video game in the United States. This article illustrates how universities can be compelling places for worldbuilding in games, by arguing that university heritage is both inherently conflictual and deployable as a tool for conflict. The video game College Football 25 portrays real-world contemporary university heritage through its representation of sports and rivalries with other schools. College Football 25’s success and popularity lie in the framing of selective authenticity, with near-hyperrealistic portrayal of game-day pageantry that fosters a sense of place and celebrates a positive representation of heritage from the 134 American universities included. This conflict-driven heritage shapes university place identity and aligns with common game design principles in which conflict resolution is central to play. The implementation of role-play mechanics in College Football 25 invites fans, (former) students, and gamers, to enact and experience university sports heritage in different interactive ways from the perspectives of athletes and coaches. By applying a close reading analysis to College Football 25 and focusing on its conflict design choices, we argue that interactive digital media, especially with elements of role-play, can effectively preserve and promote conflict heritage, with implied allusions for transformative play to affect players in their out-of-game neo-tribal expressions relating to these universities. Keywords: conflict, heritage, video games, role-play, universities

International Journal of Role-playing Issue 19 Table of Contents: "Editorial: TPI Seminar 2025: Games, Conflict, and Education"Kjell Hedgard Hugaas, Sarah Lynne Bowman, and Josefin Westborg-- This issue of the International Journal of Role-playing is based on the proceedings of the Transformative Play Initiative (TPI) ROCKET seminar on “Games, Conflict, and Education” in Visby, Sweden, June 12th and 13th, 2025."Asteria and Neurodiversity in Role-Playing Games: Inclusion or Tokenism? Examining Community Conflicts Over Autism Representation"Kevin Rebecchi-- This article examines how representations of autism in games can polarize gaming communities. It explores inclusion of neurodiverse characters can foster meaningful representation or constitute tokenism and virtue signaling."Masculinity at the Table: Untangling the Male Preserve in Indie and Mainstream Gaming"Irene Hilman, Alula Hirst, Wescott (Scooter) Flanagan, and Diana J. Leonard-- This article looks at how the differences in values and practices between mainstream RPGs and indie games allow indie games to serve as a space away from the male preserve, and can provide players with a stronger sense of real-world agency.From Digital to Analog: Disco Elysium’s Conflict Transformation Mechanisms for Educational LarpsMinyue Wu-- This article looks at the narrative and mechanical elements of the role-playing video game Disco Elysium (ZA/UM 2019). It looks at the “character sheet” and internal monologue as tools for self-reflection, and it discusses the character arc of the NPC Cuno in particular."Transformative Play for Building Resilience to Misinformation"Lars Konzack and Chris Coward-- This article explores how transformative play can be used to build resilience against misinformation. Through the educational escape room – The Euphorigen Investigation – it shows how this type of gameplay can foster critical reflection, emotional engagement, and epistemic growth. "Press Start for Heritage: Representing University Sports Rivalries in EA Sports College Football 25"Guus van Tilborg and Peter Groote-- Focussing on the video game EA Sports College Football 25, this article illustrates how universities can be compelling places for worldbuilding in games, by arguing that university heritage is both inherently conflictual and deployable as a tool for conflict."Aesthetic Conflict in the Musical Role-Playing Game Runic Soundscapes"Tom Blancarte-- This article examines the concept of aesthetic conflict, both in relation to role-playing and improvised music. It focusses on the musical role-playing game piece Runic Soundscapes and how aesthetic conflict can be a valuable lens for role-playing game designers."Bleed as Intrapersonal Conflict: Understanding Bleed Management and Resilience as Parts of a Homeostasis Recovery Process"Kjell Hedgard Hugaas-- This article explores how the instability and imbalance that are associated with bleed experiences can be explained with the theory of physiological and psychological homeostasis."Let’s Do It Together!: Why Participatory Design and Co-Creation Are Promising Approaches for Designing an EduLarp"Olivia Fischer-- This article looks at benefits of participatory design approaches when designing edu-larps, including the quality of the edu-larp, the empowerment of students and working towards societal transformation."Larp with Erasmus: A Quantitative Study of Live Action Roleplay Projects Funded by EUs Erasmus+ Program Between 2014-2022"Karin Johansson and Mafalda Morganti-- This article presents and analyzes a database of 111 larp related projects that have received funding from Erasmus+ between 2014-2022. It showcases how the EU gives substantial funding to larp related projects.

Geoparks aim to conserve areas of geological significance and achieve sustainable endogenous regional development via geotourism. The management of geoparks requires the involvement of all relevant stakeholders and authorities. However, the strategies when establishing geoparks are often based on the visions of scientists and policymakers. Other stakeholders, such as local residents, often have relatively limited opportunities to become involved in the identification and communication of geoheritage values. Yet, across different social contexts, people's attitudes toward heritage may manifest differently. This adds to the complexity of building cohesive partnerships among stakeholders with the common goal of sustainable development. With a qualitative study of Zhangjiajie UNESCO Global Geopark in China, which has attracted considerable attention due to the conflicts between tourism development and heritage conservation, we aim to understand how the concept of geoheritage is institutionalized in the management of the geopark. Data were collected through interviews with government officials at different levels and various local tourism practitioners, supplemented by a policy document analysis. Results show that geoheritage management in Zhangjiajie Geopark lacked dynamism and inclusivity. The reason was the presence of dissonant understandings among various authorities regarding what constitutes geoheritage. These dissonant understandings were not negotiated strategically because of the embedding of the geopark in a highly convoluted multi‐level governance system related to natural resource management and tourism. The findings underscore that geoheritage research should shift away from an objectivist understanding of geoheritage. Perceiving geoheritage as a power‐loaded construct transforms our comprehension of geopark management dynamics.

Political-administrative reorganizations are often underpinned by spatial and historical narratives to tap into people’s sense of place and, this way, justify the new territories. Using a mixed-methods study of the recently amalgamated municipality Het Hogeland (Netherlands), we studied how sense of place is politically mobilized and in what sense this corresponds with residents’ associations with their living environment. While inter-municipal collaboration had an administrative-jurisdictional logic, during the merger preparation, Het Hogeland mobilized the residents’ sense of place through references to the area’s landscape, its vernacular name and music. It also devised a participatory process involving citizen panels, polls and civil society input. Resident respondents showed strong merger support, and we found similarities between their sense of place and the municipality’s marketing. We conclude that political strategies that mobilize locally embedded socio-cultural narratives and add co-constructive elements can bridge the gap between citizen and politics that regularly occurs following territorial reorganizations.