Playing to Grow: Augmenting Agriculture with Social Impact Games

这项拟议的研究探索了将电脑游戏作为一种讲故事和学习的方法，让城市用户了解印度农村发展的复杂性、农业实践和农民面临的问题。该项目的合作伙伴Digital Green的主要业务是制作和传播与农民共同制作的关于可持续农业实践的视频。这些视频为了解印度小农和边缘农民的世界提供了一扇窗口。在UnBox Fellowship中，最初的研究员与DG合作，重新定义并改进了他们现有的Facebook在线游戏《Wonder Village》，旨在吸引更多用户参与他们的工作，以促进对小农生活的理解。与DG一起，并与农民协商，该团队提出了游戏平台的概念，其中DG视频占据中心位置。拟议的项目将进一步发展这一概念，开发一个游戏平台的数字原型，将DG的视频直接集成到游戏中，并设计和测试游戏机制，以最有效地影响社会变革。虽然小农是印度农村的象征，但他们的生计和存在受到种植者、金融家和食品分销商议价能力不平等的威胁。印度市场主导的经济改革可能会加剧这些不平等，这些不平等与印度农村社会普遍存在的权力等级直接相关，与种姓、性别、宗教和政治有关。印度媒体对农业的报道形式多种多样（例如，不断上涨的食品价格、转基因与有机食品的争论），但人们对城乡差距、农民贫穷和自杀困扰的看法仍然存在（Padney and Kaur 2009）。大多数上网的城市用户对印度农民的现实生活仍然相对不了解和误解。作为UnBox Fellowship项目的一部分，在项目的第一阶段对农民的采访强调了游戏的必要性，即城市用户自身的生存与小农的生存是相互关联的。印度的网民社交活跃度位居世界第三，Facebook用户数量位居世界第五，twitter账户数量达1800万。最近公布的统计数据显示，印度75%的网络用户年龄在35岁以下，其中45%主要来自城市地区，他们通过社交媒体讨论政治（Shrinivasan and Anwer 2012）。最近的研究表明，年轻一代越来越多地使用新的社交媒体工具来娱乐和自我满足，但在危机时刻，他们也利用这些工具调动大量人力和基础设施资源，立即采取干预措施（Shah 2011）。虽然这些用户可能仍然对特定的政治原因持矛盾态度，但该项目旨在通过社交影响游戏来利用这些知识。通过提高他们对印度小农所面临的危机的认识和理解，该游戏旨在激励城市用户采取行动，促进农民、城市居民和印度社会经济的可持续性。

The proposed research explores the use of computer games as a method of storytelling and learning to engage urban users in the complexities of rural development, agricultural practices and issues facing farmers in India. The primary business of the project's partner, Digital Green, is to generate and disseminate videos co-created with farmers for farmers about sustainable farming practices. These videos provide a window into the world of small and marginal farmers in India. Within the UnBox Fellowship, the original Fellows worked with DG to re-conceptualise and improve upon their existing online Facebook game Wonder Village aimed at attracting and engaging a wider audience to their work to promote an understanding of small farmer's lives. Together with DG and in consultation with farmers the team came up with the concept for a game platform where the DG videos take centre stage. The proposed project will take this concept further to develop a digital prototype of a game platform that integrates DG's videos directly into game play with game mechanisms designed and tested to be most effective at influencing social change. While the small farmer is the symbol of the Indian countryside, their livelihood and existence is threatened by inequalities in the bargaining power of growers, financiers and distributors of food. Market-led economic reform in India threatens to intensify these inequalities directly linked to hierarchies of power that prevail across rural Indian society, related to caste, gender, religion and politics. Representation of farming takes a variety of forms in Indian media (e.g., rising food prices, GM versus organic debates), but perceptions persist of an urban-rural divide and of farmers as poor and plagued by suicide (Padney and Kaur 2009). The realities of farmers' lives in India remain relatively unknown and misunderstood by most web-connected urban users. Interviews with farmers during the first phase of this project, as part of the UnBox Fellowship, emphasised the need for the game to promote the message that urban users' own survival is interconnected with that of the small farmer. India has the third most socially active web-connected citizens in the world with fifth most Facebook users and 18 million twitter accounts. Recently published statistics indicate that 75% of web users in India are under 35 and 45% of these are mostly from urban areas and connect on social media to discuss politics (Shrinivasan and Anwer 2012). Recent research has shown that younger generations are increasingly using new social media tools for entertainment and self-gratification, but in moments of crisis, they are also using them to mobilise significant human and infrastructural resources to make immediate interventions (Shah 2011). While these users may remain ambivalent about identifying with particular political causes, this project aims to leverage that knowledge through a social impact game. By increasing their awareness and understanding of their implication in the crisis that is facing small Indian farmers, the game will be designed to motivate urban users to take action that can promote farmers', urban inhabitants' and India's socio-economic sustainability.