Learning about how politics works through game playing

The notion of social justice goes beyond people’s legal rights, to encompass one’s active and informed participation in decision making processes within society. For example, through voting and by expressing one’s views within their communities, people can contribute to the kind of society they wish to live in, such as a more equitable and/or sustainable society. However, in order to fully participate in the decision making processes of society, people need to understand the mechanisms and functioning of politics in their country, many of which can be very hard to understand.

Social justice is at the heart of Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy. Freire (1972) described education as the ‘practice of freedom’ – which involves people’s ability to deal critically with reality, through their active participation in the transformation of their world. Freire (1972) asserted that “only dialogue, which requires critical thinking, is also capable of generating critical thinking. Without dialogue there is no communication, and without communication there can be no true education” (p. 65).

In this blog post, we introduce Fast Food da Politica (FFDP), a not-for-profit organization that promotes social action in Brazil. FFDP embraces Freire’s ideals of education as the ‘practice of freedom’, and it works to empower all—the young and the old and both men and women—to take hold of their own futures. In a recent book chapter and at the 2020 Networked Learning Conference, we discussed intriguing aspects of this organization, which we analyzed as a learning network.

For over 5 years, FFDP has been (re)purposing popular (board) games as pedagogical tools to support teaching and learning in a complex arena, the mechanisms and functioning of Brazilian political structures. FFDP takes these repurposed games to game-playing sessions across the country, hosting sessions in a range of venues including schools, government organisations, open market-street events, and public protests. FFDP has created many different games, which are shared as open learning resources through their website. At the website one can gain access to their blueprints and manuals, which offer detailed explanations about the many ways a game can be played, with downloadable kits and suggestions for customization and reuse.

How did this idea emerge?

In 2014, a graphic design student set out to create a game that would teach ordinary people about the complex workings of political structures in Brazil. Like many others, Julia Carvalho was deeply concerned about a growing political unrest in her country, which she saw as producing an increasingly polarized society. FFDP emerged as a project in 2015, when a group of game designers started questioning if board games could help people quickly review their political stances, including their understanding of political processes and the consequences of the impending presidential impeachment in Brazil. These designers conceptualized a new game, using a simple basketball format – a game that would invite players to reflect on the structure of the Brazilian government (Figure 1).

Since then, many different games have been created, each with the aim of generating ideas for discussion about people’s civil rights, gender discrimination, or current politicians including their positions and roles in government and their party alliances. A recent game invites players to think about labours’ rights, and challenges players to question inequality and social justice in Brazilian society.

A game about Labour’s Rights

The Association of Labour Justice Magistrates XV (AMATRA XV) is a not-for-profit civil society, formed by members from the judiciary sector (judges and retired judges), working to promote the understanding of citizenship and labour laws in public schools across the State of São Paulo (Brazil). Recently, FFDP in partnership with AMATRA XV, developed a new boardgame called the Game of Work.

The Game of Work (Figure 2) invites players to balance the scales, foregrounding the importance of Labour Courts in guaranteeing strategic rights such as combating modern slavery and child labour, and promoting work regulation. Through carefully selected cases that represent everyday scenarios in the world of work, the game challenges players to assume the role of civil society. Players must decide how to efficiently allocate time and effort, and how to challenge the Ministry of Labour to take action where justice has not been well served.

The game structure ensures teamwork is essential if players are to reach the end of each round, and to reach the end of the game everyone must understand the laws governing the Game of Work. The game mechanics also take players into the complexities of particular problems, establishing a constant need to prioritise due to time constraints. In other words, the game ‘forces’ players to make choices, and in so doing, players need to set aside some rights to secure a balance in order to win the game. What is revealed through the game is that in our ‘social imagination’ some rights are actually more valuable than others. For example, in several game sessions, the rights of domestic workers were the first to be “sacrificed”. This reflects social norms in Brazilian society where, in spite of Brazil having the largest number of domestic workers in Latin America (International Labour Organization, 2013), it was only in 2013 that Brazilian domestic workers were granted access to social security, thereby officially recognising their rights as workers in Brazil (International Labour Organization, 2020). As such, the Game of Work offers players a way to discuss existing rights, and to question inequality in society. It invites players to think about hidden values and structures, and to understand official or seemingly open structures that act on our societies in ways that are not always easy to see.

By adapting games like basketball, Who is Who (Figure 3), and jigsaws, FFDP creates opportunities for discussions about the mechanisms and functioning of politics, which are fun to engage in. The FFDP games have been tailored to the Brazilian context, but these games could easily be adapted to suit other political landscapes, facilitating open communication and dialogue in other countries—inviting all who play to critically engage in thinking about civil rights in their own context.

Note:

All images were sourced from “Fast Food da Politica. Manual dos Jogos by Fast Food da Politica” under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

AMATRA XV (2022). http://www.amatra15.org.br

Carvalho, L., Yeoman, P., & Carvalho, J. (2020). Education in the open: Building a network for social action. Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Networked Learning. Kolding: Denmark.

Carvalho L., Yeoman P., Carvalho J. (2021) It’s Your Turn! Supporting Social Change Through Networked Learning and Game Playing. In Dohn N.B., Hansen J.J., Hansen S.B., Ryberg T., de Laat M. (eds) Conceptualizing and Innovating Education and Work with Networked Learning. Research in Networked Learning. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85241-2_7

Fast Food da Politica (2022). https://fastfooddapolitica.com.br

Freire, P. (1972). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Penguin.

Biographies:

Júlia Carvalho is a researcher and game developer at Fast Food da Política (Brazil). Júlia has been working with information design and data visualization, gamification of public issues and social mobilization since 2013. The main aim of Júlia’s work is to contribute to the redesign of the logic of the systemic violence that keeps Brazil in the past. To learn more about Fast Food da Política, visit— http://instagram.com/fastfooddapolitica or http://fastfooddapolitica.com.br

Lucila Carvalho is an associate professor at the Institute of Education and co-director of the Equity Through Education Research Centre, Massey University, New Zealand. Lucila’s research interests are at the intersection of design, digital technologies and learning (in both formal and non-formal settings)—where she explores how knowledge and social structures shape the design and use of technology, and how technology influences social and educational experiences.

Pippa Yeoman is a senior lecturer, working in the Portfolio of the Deputy Vice Chancellor of Education at the University of Sydney, Australia, tasked with the responsibility of translating university strategy into the designed environment for learning. Her research explores the interplay of learning theory, educational design, and teaching and learning practice and it has been published in a number of well-regarded journals including Design Studies, The British Journal of Educational Technology, The British Educational Research Journal, and Learning Environments Research International. Pippa’s personal webpage is at https://pippayeoman.wordpress.com