The Anthropology of Games and Gaming

Anthropology and Games

Anthropology is the study of man or humanity in all imaginable contexts and manifestations. As such, game plays an important role in anthropology.

Traditionally, game was seen as the antithesis of work; work was boring and game was fun; work was productive and game was unproductive; work had real consequences while game had no “real” consequences.

However, in both theory and praxis, the boundaries between the work- and game realm have imploded and these distinctions lost much of their fulcrum. Is a professional tennis or poker player working or playing? When two workers compete for the “employee of the month” title, are they playing or working? Interestingly, many game elements actually seem to improve productivity in the workplace.

Consequently, a new paradigm of Homo Ludens, according to which cultural elements often take the form of game or, at least, possess game mechanics, began to gain popularity in the last 50 years in cultural anthropology.

Structuralism and Game Mechanics

A major paradigm in anthropology is structuralism (although it lost much of its support since the 1980s). Structuralism avers the existence of hidden, deep structures that define behavior. It is through there behaviors that human beings produce and reproduce meaning.

This sounds like many of the games I know. For example, if I play a game for 10 hours and achieve a personal record, that record becomes valuable because of the time I put into getting there. If I send a gift to someone, she becomes my friend (although the meaning of friendship is based on cultural context). In this sense, like other cultural elements, games become systems of significations, or parts of such systems.

In my next post, to be added next week, I will discuss how gifts construct reality…