Playful Futures
Began:
My role: Research Assistant
LARPs (Live Action Role Play) are games where players physically portray their characters, and interact with other characters as if they are inhabiting the world their characters do. Online LARPs are LARPs played by means of computer networks, such as the Internet. They involve all components of in-person LARPs except the physicality. They have grown in popularity during the pandemic years. Using online LARPs as a participatory research methodology together with digital ethnography is innovative and can set a precedent for new application of interactive, playful tools in citizen science.
Playful Futures encourages participants to question the economic foundations of society. The aim of the project is to test the potential of online LARPs to increase the ability of citizens to imagine their lives in economies and societies radically different from our own. This is useful in addressing problems such as climate change and sea level rising, which require substantial change to become tractable. This methodology applies most naturally to young adults, who often have limited access to formal decision making processes.