KIMCRAIG

DOXA was created by Kim Craig and Rabeka Ali as final project for ANTH 501: Introduction of Anthropological Theory in the Spring of 2019. Professor Joshua A. Reno assigned the class to create a game that taught at least 3 different theories. The theories we have attempted to incorporate in the game's play include: 1) Pierre Bourdeiu's Habitus, 2) Nancy Krieger's Embodiment and 3) Gender Theory.

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The game's name refers to Pierre Bourdieu's term which he defines as the things that are taken for granted in a particular society and the experience by which "the natural and social world appears as self-evident". When Josh first introduced us to this term and it's associated diagram (below), I couldn't help but compare it to the structure of ANY basic board game where players are free to move in any direction in order to obtain their goals (opinion) but are confined to the board itself (doxa), the unspoken, undisputed reality of the game's world.

HOW TO PLAY: 

The game begins at birth, where each player is randomly assigned a race, gender, and socioeconomic status. Each player's turn is equivalent to one year of game time which is monitored and announced to the group by a single player (Father Time) after every turn. 

During the first five years of life all players learn about their own unique societal expectations by drawing cards at random. These cards determine each players objectives for the game in terms of health, wealth, children and power. These values are bestowed onto them from their cultural surroundings early in life and shape the decisions they will make throughout the game (their life). 

WINNING THE GAME:

The player to adherence closest to their societal expectations by the end of the game (their death) wins. 

THEORIES IN PLAY:

This recreation of cultural standards exemplifies Bourdieu's concept of habitus which refers to the physical embodiment of cultural capital, to the deeply ingrained habits, skills, and dispositions that we possess due to our life experiences.

The concept of embodiment is designed into the board's layout. Nancy Kriegier notion of embodimentcan be summarizes as a the way our social conditions, practices and realities are physically expressed in our bodily health which is usually framed as poor health being the result of unequal social structures. This inequality is exhibited by the location of different resources on the board. For example, wealth tokens are in close proximity to health tokens, making it easy for those who acquire money to also acquire good health. Meanwhile those whose are focusing on acquiring  large families will experience difficulties in obtaining health or wealth as those limited resources are located at the opposite end of the board. 

The game utilizes gender theory, or how individuals become gendered in society, and how sex-linked characteristics are maintained and transmitted to other members of a culture by disadvantaging female players at birth. In DOXA, male players are given a wealth token at birth (inheritance) to symbolize the gender pay gap. Meanwhile female players are given no inheritance and are forced to start the game in a location further away from the central board, requiring them travel an extra 5 spaces to catch up to their male counterparts.   

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*UPDATE Sept 2019: DOXA was featured in the SUNY Binghamton's school newspaper.

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