Matthew Thompson (University of Liverpool, UK) published in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research Volume 43 Issue 6 (November 2019)
Abstract
Innovation is perhaps the buzzword in local economic development policy. Associated narrowly with neoliberal ideas, conventional notions of innovation – like its capitalocentric counterparts, enterprise and entrepreneurialism – may promise higher productivity, global competitiveness and technological progress but do not fundamentally change the ‘rules of the game’.
In contrast, an emerging field reimagines social innovation as disruptive change in social relations and institutional configurations. This article explores the conceptual and political differences within this pre‐paradigmatic field, and argues for a more transformative understanding of social innovation.
Building on the work of David Graeber, I mobilize the novel constructs of ‘play’ and ‘games’ to advance our understanding of the contradictory process of institutionalising social innovation for urban transformation. This is illustrated through a case study of Liverpool, where diverse approaches to innovation are employed in attempts to resolve longstanding socio‐economic problems. Dominant market‐ and state‐led economic development policies – likened to a ‘regeneration game’ – are contrasted with more experimental, creative, democratic and potentially more effective forms of social innovation, seeking urban change through playing with the rules of the game.
I conclude by considering how the play–game dialectic illuminates and reframes the way transformative social innovation might be cultivated by urban policy, the contradictions this entails, and possible ways forward.
Full text (25pp)
Showing posts with label play. Show all posts
Showing posts with label play. Show all posts
Tuesday, 10 December 2019
Monday, 8 October 2018
Is computer gaming a craft? Prehension,* * Sennett, R. (2008). The craftsman. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. View all notes practice, and puzzle-solving in gaming labour
an article by Tom Brock and Emma Fraser (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK) published in Information, Communication & Society Volume 21 Issue 9 (2018)
Abstract
This article applies sociological theories of ‘craft’ to computer gaming practices to conceptualise the relationship between play, games, and labour.
Using the example of the game Dota 2, as both a competitive esport title and a complex game based around a shared practice, this article examines the conditions under which the play of a computer game can be considered a ‘craft’. In particular, through the concept of ‘prehension’, we dissect the gameplay activity of Dota 2, identifying similarities with how the hand practices craft labour.
We identify these practices as ‘contact’, ‘apprehension’, ‘language acquisition’ and ‘reflection’. We argue that players develop these practices of the hand to make sense of the game’s rules and controls. From this perspective, it is the hand that initiates experiences of craft within computer gameplay, and we offer examples of player creativity and experimentation to evidence its labour.
The article concludes with a discussion on the need for future research to examine the quality of gaming labour in the context of esports.
Abstract
This article applies sociological theories of ‘craft’ to computer gaming practices to conceptualise the relationship between play, games, and labour.
Using the example of the game Dota 2, as both a competitive esport title and a complex game based around a shared practice, this article examines the conditions under which the play of a computer game can be considered a ‘craft’. In particular, through the concept of ‘prehension’, we dissect the gameplay activity of Dota 2, identifying similarities with how the hand practices craft labour.
We identify these practices as ‘contact’, ‘apprehension’, ‘language acquisition’ and ‘reflection’. We argue that players develop these practices of the hand to make sense of the game’s rules and controls. From this perspective, it is the hand that initiates experiences of craft within computer gameplay, and we offer examples of player creativity and experimentation to evidence its labour.
The article concludes with a discussion on the need for future research to examine the quality of gaming labour in the context of esports.
Friday, 28 September 2018
Playing work, or gamification as stultification
an article by Chris Bateman (University of Bolton, Manchester, UK) published in Information, Communication & Society Volume 21 Issue 9 (2018)
Abstract
The contrast between work and play as activities collapses if play is seen, following anthropologist Thomas Malaby, as a disposition towards the indeterminate. Once play is positioned as a state of mind, activities that constitute work need not be disjunct from playful behavior.
Yet for most workers, work is rarely if ever playful, and attempts to import play behavior into the workplace (‘gamification’) do not result in greater playfulness. Part of this problem results from specific aesthetic values for games having dominated both work and play.
As Roger Caillois warned half a century ago, sport-like values have increasingly saturated the culture of the overdeveloped world. Meanwhile, gamification processes have only been able to export task-focussed reward structures from the domain of play – practices that descend from Dungeons & Dragons, but that have been denuded of their playful qualities.
In parallel to the gamification of work has been the gamification of games, namely an increasing emphasis on tasks to structure video game play (e.g., achievements), and thus make them more compelling yet less playful. In so much as this entails forcing particular patterns of understanding onto both players and workers, this makes gamification a parallel to Jacques Rancière's stultification in education: a binding of wills instead of an emancipation.
If we want a world where work could be more playful, we must begin by breaking the cultural dominance of sport-like and task-like aesthetics of play, and endeavour to overcome the underlying fears that prevent work from being played.
Abstract
The contrast between work and play as activities collapses if play is seen, following anthropologist Thomas Malaby, as a disposition towards the indeterminate. Once play is positioned as a state of mind, activities that constitute work need not be disjunct from playful behavior.
Yet for most workers, work is rarely if ever playful, and attempts to import play behavior into the workplace (‘gamification’) do not result in greater playfulness. Part of this problem results from specific aesthetic values for games having dominated both work and play.
As Roger Caillois warned half a century ago, sport-like values have increasingly saturated the culture of the overdeveloped world. Meanwhile, gamification processes have only been able to export task-focussed reward structures from the domain of play – practices that descend from Dungeons & Dragons, but that have been denuded of their playful qualities.
In parallel to the gamification of work has been the gamification of games, namely an increasing emphasis on tasks to structure video game play (e.g., achievements), and thus make them more compelling yet less playful. In so much as this entails forcing particular patterns of understanding onto both players and workers, this makes gamification a parallel to Jacques Rancière's stultification in education: a binding of wills instead of an emancipation.
If we want a world where work could be more playful, we must begin by breaking the cultural dominance of sport-like and task-like aesthetics of play, and endeavour to overcome the underlying fears that prevent work from being played.
Friday, 11 May 2018
Gamification: What it is, and how to fight it
an article by Jamie Woodcock (London School of Economics and Political Science, UK) and Mark R. Johnson (Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK) published in The Sociological Review Volume 66 Issue 3 (May 2018)
Abstract
‘Gamification’ is understood as the application of game systems – competition, rewards, quantifying player/user behaviour – into non-game domains, such as work, productivity and fitness.
Such practices are deeply problematic as they represent the capture of ‘play’ in the pursuit of neoliberal rationalization and the managerial optimization of working life and labour.
However, applying games and play to social life is also central to the Situationist International, as a form of resistance against the regularity and standardization of everyday behaviour. In this article, the authors distinguish between two types of gamification: first, ‘gamification-from-above’, involving the optimization and rationalizing of work practices by management; and second, ‘gamification-from-below’, a form of active resistance against control at work.
Drawing on Autonomism and Situationism, the authors argue that it is possible to transform non-games into games as resistance, rather than transferring game elements out of playful contexts and into managerial ones. Since the original ‘gamification’ term is now lost, the authors develop the alternative conception as a practice that supports workers, rather than one used to adapt behaviour to capital.
The article concludes with a renewed call for this ‘gamification-from-below’, which is an ideal form of resistance against gamification-from-above and its capture of play in pursuit of work.
Full text (PDF 17pp)
Abstract
‘Gamification’ is understood as the application of game systems – competition, rewards, quantifying player/user behaviour – into non-game domains, such as work, productivity and fitness.
Such practices are deeply problematic as they represent the capture of ‘play’ in the pursuit of neoliberal rationalization and the managerial optimization of working life and labour.
However, applying games and play to social life is also central to the Situationist International, as a form of resistance against the regularity and standardization of everyday behaviour. In this article, the authors distinguish between two types of gamification: first, ‘gamification-from-above’, involving the optimization and rationalizing of work practices by management; and second, ‘gamification-from-below’, a form of active resistance against control at work.
Drawing on Autonomism and Situationism, the authors argue that it is possible to transform non-games into games as resistance, rather than transferring game elements out of playful contexts and into managerial ones. Since the original ‘gamification’ term is now lost, the authors develop the alternative conception as a practice that supports workers, rather than one used to adapt behaviour to capital.
The article concludes with a renewed call for this ‘gamification-from-below’, which is an ideal form of resistance against gamification-from-above and its capture of play in pursuit of work.
Full text (PDF 17pp)
Thursday, 23 February 2017
The playful newsroom: Iterating and reiterating the news and its publics
an article by Maxwell Foxman (Columbia University, USA) published in First Monday Volume 22 Number 1 (January 2017)
Abstract
The crisis in the journalism industry, intensified with the popularization of the World Wide Web, warrants radical rethinking of the professional identity of journalists and their role in society.
This paper first suggests replacing the Habermasian public sphere with Dutch historian Johan Huizinga’s magic circle of play to describe the relationship between the press and its audience. Within this new model, the writer configures the rules and boundaries in which the reader is free to respond and subvert, an interplay that increasingly shapes both current news production and expectations of the public.
This paper then explores play and playful attitudes in newsroom practices and output through semi-structured interviews with journalists, game designers and educators. The “Game Team” at the news and entertainment Web site BuzzFeed acts as a primary case study of a group of journalists who make a variety of playful products – from full-fledged games to interactives – which they iterate and improve over time, in response to readers’ feedback.
Full text (HTML)
Abstract
The crisis in the journalism industry, intensified with the popularization of the World Wide Web, warrants radical rethinking of the professional identity of journalists and their role in society.
This paper first suggests replacing the Habermasian public sphere with Dutch historian Johan Huizinga’s magic circle of play to describe the relationship between the press and its audience. Within this new model, the writer configures the rules and boundaries in which the reader is free to respond and subvert, an interplay that increasingly shapes both current news production and expectations of the public.
This paper then explores play and playful attitudes in newsroom practices and output through semi-structured interviews with journalists, game designers and educators. The “Game Team” at the news and entertainment Web site BuzzFeed acts as a primary case study of a group of journalists who make a variety of playful products – from full-fledged games to interactives – which they iterate and improve over time, in response to readers’ feedback.
Full text (HTML)
Wednesday, 10 June 2015
Lessons down a rabbit hole: Alternate reality gaming in the classroom
an article by Shira Chess (University of Georgia, USA) and Paul Booth (DePaul University, USA) published in New Media & Society Volume 16 Number 6 (September 2014)
Abstract
Alternate Reality Games can be used to reinforce classroom knowledge by encouraging collective learning practices and focusing on new media literacy skills. An Alternate Reality Game creates a game space from real-world locations by relying on information, both online and offline, to physically involve players in a game “space.”
While the majority of large Alternate Reality Games, to date, have been used as part of marketing campaigns, an increasing number of faculty teaching topics in digital media, technologies, and game studies have begun to employ the alternate reality game in the classroom.
We argue that the affordances of Alternate Reality Games are best integrated within a “play-revise-design” format. By appropriating this emerging format in classroom spaces, we hope to teach students concepts such as new media literacies, the values of “safe failure,” and social learning, while giving students the tools for interactive storytelling.
Abstract
Alternate Reality Games can be used to reinforce classroom knowledge by encouraging collective learning practices and focusing on new media literacy skills. An Alternate Reality Game creates a game space from real-world locations by relying on information, both online and offline, to physically involve players in a game “space.”
While the majority of large Alternate Reality Games, to date, have been used as part of marketing campaigns, an increasing number of faculty teaching topics in digital media, technologies, and game studies have begun to employ the alternate reality game in the classroom.
We argue that the affordances of Alternate Reality Games are best integrated within a “play-revise-design” format. By appropriating this emerging format in classroom spaces, we hope to teach students concepts such as new media literacies, the values of “safe failure,” and social learning, while giving students the tools for interactive storytelling.
Tuesday, 15 November 2011
Gutter to Garden: …
Historical Discourses of Risk in Interventions in Working Class Children’s Street Play
an article by Jane Read (Roehampton University) published in Children & Society Volume 25 Issue 6 (November 2011)
Abstract
This article investigates interventions in the gutter play of British working class children in the first decade of the 20th century through their re-location within Free Kindergartens. In contemporary literature, the street child was viewed through a binary lens, as both ‘at risk’ and ‘as risk’, reflecting wider societal discourses in a period of rapidly developing social policy. The paper interrogates the motivations of free kindergarten activists from the standpoint of a range of theory and builds on recent papers discussing 21st century urban childhoods. The findings suggest both historical continuities and discontinuities in the theorisation of risk, which have implications for current social policy, urban design and early childhood education. The questions raised include issues of children’s rights, citizenship, inclusion and cultural diversity.
an article by Jane Read (Roehampton University) published in Children & Society Volume 25 Issue 6 (November 2011)
Abstract
This article investigates interventions in the gutter play of British working class children in the first decade of the 20th century through their re-location within Free Kindergartens. In contemporary literature, the street child was viewed through a binary lens, as both ‘at risk’ and ‘as risk’, reflecting wider societal discourses in a period of rapidly developing social policy. The paper interrogates the motivations of free kindergarten activists from the standpoint of a range of theory and builds on recent papers discussing 21st century urban childhoods. The findings suggest both historical continuities and discontinuities in the theorisation of risk, which have implications for current social policy, urban design and early childhood education. The questions raised include issues of children’s rights, citizenship, inclusion and cultural diversity.
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