Paper short abstract:

Kampala Yénkya is a storytelling / tabletop roleplaying game customized for Uganda, which embeds learning and debate around just climate transition. It draws on the worldbuilding of SF writer Dilman Dila, while also empowering players to imagine the future of Kampala in many different ways.

Paper long abstract:

UNESCO highlight the importance of futures literacy to a just climate transition: “Democratizing the origins of people’s images of the future opens up new horizons in much the same way that establishing universal reading and writing changes human societies. This is an example of what can be called a ‘change in the conditions of change.'”

In the Global North, games and science fiction have longstanding links with futures research, and more recently have developed a strong connection with climate futures specifically. By contrast, African speculative cultures are underutilised and under-theorised in the context of adaptation to and mitigation of climate change.

Kampala Yénkya is a storytelling game for Ugandan youth developed in 2022 by a UK-Uganda team. The game embeds learning and debate around climate change, and involves mapmaking and collaborative storytelling. It draws on the worldbuilding of science fiction writer Dilman Dila, while also empowering players to imagine the future of Kampala in many different ways.

This paper introduces the game, and in the next session participants will have a chance to try out Kampala Yénkya themselves. Some positive visions of sustainable futures are now relatively well-known, but lack detail, vividness, and localisation — can you make them more concrete? What risks, unexpected side-effects, or political and ethical implications might be revealed by playful, freewheeling exploration of these themes? Or can you challenge yourselves to come up with visions beyond the edge of dominant imaginaries? Or maybe you just want to play to win?

Links

bit.ly/ImagineAlternatives

sadpress.itch.io/kampala-yenkya

kleineberg.co.uk/project/kampala-yenkya/