Experiencing Culture Through Board Games

There are two things I’m as passionate about now (at age 31) as I was when I was 10, one of those things is Star Wars, and the other is board games. Both of these things have helped me meet fun and interesting people and make new friends in my life, however board games more than anything else have allowed me the chance to really connect with people and find a common foundation from which we can relate to one another. Sometimes those people are individuals whom I don’t think I’ll have anything in common with upon first meeting them, only to discover that despite our outward differences we’re more alike than we realize.

Moran, Abramson, and Moran (2014) write that “there are many different anthropological approaches to cultural analysis, and many prefer to use a coordinated systems approach as an alternative to understanding other cultures”. One of these “systems to approach cultures” is referred to as the “recreational system”, which entails how recreational activities (such as sports) are viewed within a particular culture. Moran, Abramson, and Moran (2014) explain that “certain types of entertainment, such as a form of folk dancing, seem to cut across cultures”, and while board games may not be as universally treasured as folk dancing, they are certainly a recreational activity that is enjoyed all over the world within many different cultures. Analyzing the board games of a particular culture can provide us with a unique opportunity to learn about that culture based on their attributes (for instance, do the games have a cooperative style of play or a competitive one) and allow us to actively participate in a tangible aspect of that culture.

My personal experience in using board games as an entryway to experiencing the recreational system of a culture (different from my own) happened a few years ago. The company I worked for just hired on a new associate who hailed from Ukraine named Tsveta, who one day mentioned to me that her brother had sent her a new board game that was just released in her home country. As an avid (and curious) board gamer, I asked her question after question about this new game from Ukraine until she laughed and said she would bring it in to the office so I could see (and play) it firsthand. The games was called Містеріум (I wasn’t sure how to pronounce it either) and it played like a cross between the classic board games Clue and Guess Who? The game’s mechanics require the players help each other (what is called a ‘cooperative’ in game board speak) and our little group (the game allows up to seven players) had a great time trying to solve the game’s puzzles together.

The artwork for the game was like nothing I had ever seen before (in US based games) and the way the game was based on a loose set of rules (as opposed to more rigid American-style games like Monopoly) made me feel like I was examining an artifact taken from some distant culture. According to Kluckhohn’s (1951) definition of  culture, it “consists in patterned ways of thinking, feeling and reacting, acquired and transmitted mainly by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups, including their embodiments of artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e., historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values”.  This definition, in my opinion, with its mentioning of symbols, achievements, and artifacts, encapsulates what a good board game can be, a window into another culture.

While board games are probably not the first thing that someone thinks of when they analyze a particular culture, like art, board games are created from an individual (or group of individuals) who carry with them their cultural traditions and experiences which can then find their way into their “art”. Like any powerful piece of art, these games can transcend their place of origin and bring meaning to people all over the globe. This game, Містеріум, became so successful in Ukraine and Europe, that they decided to publish it in the US, and changed its name to Mysterium.  I purchased this game and play it often with my friends, and while I’ve never told them of its Ukrainian birthplace, every time we play they are interacting with a small piece of Ukrainian culture.

References

Moran, R., Abramson, N., and Moran, S. (2014). Managing cultural differences. (9th ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.

Kluckhohn, C. (1951). The study of culture. In D. Lerner & H.D. Lasswell (Eds.), The policy sciences ( pp . 86–101). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.