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- Convenors:
-
Konstanze N'Guessan
(Mainz University)
Alastair Mackie (Friedrich Schiller University Jena)
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- Discussant:
-
Anne Dippel
(Braunschweig University of Art (HBK))
- Format:
- Panel
Short Abstract:
The panel explores the use of play and games in ethno- and anthropology as alternatives to dominant logocentric methods and practices. We invite researchers who creatively engage with ludic ethnographies to share insights and reflect on epistemological challenges and opportunities of this approach.
Long Abstract:
Transferring ethno- and anthropological knowledge—whether through pedagogy, museums, or other public spaces—tends to be heavily logocentric. From writing essays, and exposés as students to engaging in textual academic practice as scholars, ethnographers often adhere to practices that: a) seem to contradict the multimodal, embodied, and sensory nature of ethnographic fieldwork, and b) fail to engage with the collaborative dynamics of field communities, which frequently rely on knowledge forms beyond the written word (Kockel 2011). In the digital era, however, there is an increasing urgency to embrace new designs and multimodal approaches, encouraging more playful, interactive methods of doing ethnography (Mackie 2024).
This panel explores the use of games as a tool to encourage critical ethno- and anthropological thinking. Games offer an alternative perspective on ethnographic practice, allowing for simulations and re-enactments of a world shaped by contingencies within co-laborative settings (Dippel 2022, Petridis 2021) - as seen in Anna Tsing and Elizabeth Pollman’s “Global Futures” (2005). Unwriting our disciplines through play and games thus offers an opportunity to develop fresh, interconnected perspectives that move away from dominant, and at times distorted, approaches.
We welcome contributions from researchers who creatively and playfully engage with their interlocutors and audiences—in classrooms, museums, and public spaces—especially those who draw from their research fields to transform perspectives and explore new modes of (un)writing embedded narratives. We are particularly interested in projects that foster co-participation in anthropological knowledge and convey the multiperspective, multisensory dimensions of ethnography.
Come, join us – and play!
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper Short Abstract:
Building on our Arcana of Inquiry tarot reading performance at EASA2024, followed by a collaborative project inviting anthropologists to design cards, we will showcase the Ethnographic Tarot and explore how it can be used to enhance ethnographic practice and anthropological knowledge-making.
Paper Abstract:
The Ethnographic Tarot Project merges the ancient practice of tarot with contemporary anthropological inquiry, ethnographic practice, and restorative community building, creating a dynamic, multifaceted resource for thinking, teaching, uplifting each other, and playing. While not a game in the conventional sense, tarot—rich in symbolism, narrative, and multisensory engagement—invites an exploratory and interpretive ethos. This ethos disrupts the hierarchical boundaries of academic knowledge production, making room for collaborative, embodied, and reflexive modes of inquiry. Emerging from the Arcana of Inquiry performance at EASA2024, the Ethnographic Tarot reinterprets traditional tarot archetypes through ethnographic lenses. Each card offers an interpretive space where anthropology’s recurring dilemmas—power, precarity, relationality—are refracted through layered symbolism and narrative play.
In this presentation, we explore how the Ethnographic Tarot can be used as a pedagogical device to foster imaginative and interactive learning experiences. By introducing playful methodologies into teaching, the tarot encourages students to engage with anthropological concepts in ways that transcend textual analysis, inviting them to draw connections between abstract ideas and their sensory, lived realities.The act of drawing and interpreting a card becomes a moment of rupture and possibility, unsettling conventional epistemologies and foregrounding the relational, contingent nature of ethnographic knowledge. This project demonstrates how ludic methodologies invite anthropology into new forms of collective meaning-making, resisting the textual hegemony of the academy. The Ethnographic Tarot is not merely a teaching tool but a provocation: an invitation to rethink what it means to do anthropology in playful and transformative ways.
Paper Short Abstract:
The paper reflects on experiences in using ludic approaches to anthropology in classrooms by playing, modding and hacking boardgames and by supervising students in using AI to develop TTRPG games to break epistemic logocentricity.
Paper Abstract:
Teaching anthropology to undergraduate students we often rely heavily on logocentric practices: reading texts, writing essays or reading responses, discussing and debating emerging topics in class. In two recent anthropology seminars, I have tried to break these traditions with epistemic disobedience and playfulness. I have made use of ludic approaches to anthropology by playing, modding and hacking boardgames dealing with anthropological topics (such as (neo)colonialism, politics, gender) and by supervising students in developing TTRPG games dealing with anthropological method and representation (making use of game-based story-telling). As part of our efforts to understand anthropology as playful and through play we have also intensely used AI (in particular Notebooklm) in the making of games based on academic texts. In my talk I will present the outcomes of these supervised student experiments with AI, reflect upon how we can use (or misuse) AI in order to break epistemic logocentricity and the gain and risks of playing with science in such a way. I will also use the case do discuss the thorny question of authorship, collaboration and co-participation in making use of AI in classrooms and in ethnography.
Paper Short Abstract:
This paper presents ethnographic fieldwork with curators and artists involved in the 'jijiji' internet art exhibition, curated by the Bárbara Soberana collective in Barcelona. Blending the roles of artist and anthropologist, I developed a postdigital publishing project as a fieldwork device to engage with the process of a digital folk art exhibition.
Paper Abstract:
"jijiji" was a collective exhibition featuring over 30 artists who specialize in the amateur expression of irony. Tricksters and goblins engaged with meme creation, internet culture, and DIY dynamics. During my fieldwork on meme-making, I was invited to participate as an artist in this exhibition, offering me the opportunity to engage directly with the dynamics of an exhibition centered on digital folk art.
In this paper, I recount how a creative and playful approach allowed me to grasp the creative dispositions of the exhibition’s curators and artists. This ironic and playful lens deepened my understanding of the curatorial and artistic processes, revealing the ambivalent tactics employed by the collective to both navigate and critique contemporary art and digital culture. By participating as both an artist and an ethnographer, I was able to observe and embody the playful experience, underscoring the potential of ludic methodologies to enrich both ethnographic research and artistic practice.
The creative process materialized in an installation that explored uncreative writing and fanfiction, featuring a promotional shelf filled with AI-generated Harry Potter fanzines. Through this creative process, I delved into themes of authorship, amateurism, fakery, and the uncanny aesthetics of digital folklore.
Paper Short Abstract:
Play is a fundamental cognitive and social mechanism that fosters learning, creativity, and exploration across species. This presentation explores play’s profound role in shaping knowledge and culture. We are only scratching the surface of what play can do for us.
Paper Abstract:
Play is everywhere. Found across life forms, play is as fundamental as it is misunderstood. Too often dismissed as trivial entertainment or relegated to childhood, play is, at its core, the ability to hold true what is not true. It allows us to explore, adapt, and connect—shaping our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
Play is an evolutionary tool. Animals use play to develop vital social skills, sharpen cognitive and physical abilities, and prepare for adulthood. It serves as a vehicle for transmitting knowledge and the emergence of culture. In the human world, play has sparked extraordinary outcomes. A passenger with no flying experience successfully landed a plane after countless hours playing Microsoft Flight Simulator. Gamers have solved complex scientific puzzles that have stumped experts for decades. Research reveals that doll play fosters empathy and social understanding, while games like Tetris can alleviate trauma and prevent PTSD. Play, it turns out, is far more profound than we realise.
As a concept, a tool, and an experience, play can transform how we engage with knowledge, creativity, and culture. It inspires us to collaborate, embrace uncertainty, and uncover meaning in the ordinary. In today’s complex and ever-changing world, we need play more than ever.
Paper Short Abstract:
In this presentation we will explore the practice of doing ludic ethnography with the help of a card deck, conceptualized as a tool supporting fieldwork on environmental and social sustainability of video game development. Our research is conducted within the Horizon Europe project STRATEGIES (Sustainable Transition for Europe’s Game Industries).
Paper Abstract:
Our research focuses on the socio-cultural and environmental implications of video game development. We are specifically interested in how European game studios navigate the map of relations between games and the natural environment and how they address the environmental and human cost of making games.
In our ethnographic fieldwork we are using a dedicated card deck “Game Studios vs Climate Crisis”, designed by Trevin York as a tool to be used in collaborative settings of “miniature ethnographic engagement” (York 2022). Such a method allows to incorporate cooperation directly into the research process - not only within the fieldwork but also during interpretation and meaning-making (Campbell & Lassiter 2010). Both game and ethnography deploy similar strategies of discovery - puzzle solving and making sense of unfamiliar logics and experimentation with an open-ended approach allowing for serendipity. We hope that the deck can help us curate “re-enactments” (Dippel 2022) of key problems, and better cater to “situated knowledges” (Harraway 1988) emerging from this ludic “kindred practice” (Taylor 2022). In this ludic set-up, the ethnographer does not enter the field as the instance from above but becomes part of the playing situation.
This presentation will comprise two parts - in the opening act we will introduce the card deck and provide insights from the playing field. In the second part, we will discuss the dynamics of using the ludic ethnographic method.