Session 25 summary
Participation of Communities in Policy Making through Play
What do they actually do at Fields of View? When they started Fields Of View the question they came up with was when talking about public policies everyone talks about public participation, the people need to participate in the policies and know about the government policies. There is an important need in the democracy for the different kinds of people to meaningfully participate in policy making. Like the different kinds of planning that happens for a city or village planning. How can the government make sense of all the information that is already present? The answer is in Play. By playing you engage in the complexity of the world in a fun way. In a play you can fail, there is a space for us to fail and learn from the failure. Play is a space with no real right answer. There are different ways FOV has used games. Some of the games and how they come up and design the games are: City Game– in this game people form a group and build a city. The only rules are to build a structure at a time and the structure cannot be removed. Usually everyone builds what they like and build in response to what others are building. From one person building a city to a group building a city, data is received on what are their needs from a certain locality, what are the priorities needed to be focused on. These games bring them out. Usually when it is asked to write down the needs of the locality it appears to be a difficult task. On the other hand in a game these needs come out tacitly. They have also observed some interesting things like the background of the people greatly affect the creation of structures. When the planners play this game it is called Tape City as they see the city as networks. In the end, the game does not tell what to do but it brings out what needs to be done in a more constructive manner. Kattu Kathe– it is a game of stories. In this game there are 4-6 booths with a theme, the people playing the game tell stories in each booth. Each person has a different experience of a city or location. Through this game stories are gathered and also what we are going through together, like the issues of the community. By sharing stories the fact that other people are also facing the same issues is realised. In the latter phase of the game they sit together and prioritize the issues and see how they can build solutions for them. People are happy to share and find solutions. The data which is difficult to gather through surveys is easily gathered through games. Game as Role play (rubbish) – in this game you step into the shoes of the dry waste collectors. Every data for this game is real, hence, the game offers a place to try and test possibilities and understand the consequences.
The crucial context in which the games are played greatly affects the impact of the game. The games for entertainment is for the general audience, anyone can play it, the main motive is to keep the audience interested in it through points and levelling up. But the games for participation are tailored for a specific context and the more specified it is the more impact it has. They need to have a visual language that is understood by all (have pictographs). The games of entertainment can be played again and again but the games of participation can be played once and its use is done. When using Play for a particular objective the objective with which creating the play becomes very important. Gamification in real world seems interesting at first but it cannot be sustained for long as there cannot be a point system for everything. The question that is Play really linked to points comes up, but Play is an emotional experience, it can be linked and unlinked with the point system. A game is not a standalone thing one needs an ecosystem around it to make it work.
In the end, Sruthi states that, life is not a path with only yes and no in two directions but instead it is more like rowing a boat and navigating through the currents, and this is the experience that should be given through games.
About the Speaker
Sruthi Krishnan
Researcher
Fields of View
Bengaluru, India
Sruthi Krishnan is a writer and a designer, with a focus on participatory media. She is the co-founder of Fields of View, a non-profit organisation that designs tools to make better public policy. Fields of View has been listed among top think tanks worldwide and over the past decade has designed and implemented tools such as games and simulations to improve public participation and evidence-based planning. She has co-authored ‘We are Not Users: Dialogues, Diversity, and Design’ that was published in February 2020 by MIT Press, USA. The book is about how participatory design is at the heart of tackling the complex social issues we face today.
