Written by Asha Pollard, Daniel Brackstone, Jamila Ferej, Lucy Berrington, Mira Afifi, Nur Norazmi

Our board game is a situational game that invites players to engage with various humanitarian/developmental crisis scenarios, allowing players to collaboratively evaluate a range of potential responses. The game is designed to spark rich discussion and encourage critical engagement with real world challenges in humanitarian aid and development. Drawing inspiration from anthropological readings—both within and beyond the course—players will approach each scenario from the perspective of a different stakeholder; NGO, local community, government, aid worker, etc. For each scenario, there are four potential responses to the scenario which vary across two sets of binaries: emotional/pragmatic, humanitarian/developmental. Players will explore and discuss key debates within development and humanitarianism through navigating the tensions between these binaries, such as, for instance, the urge to provide immediate relief versus the necessity of long-term systemic change. Players will rationalise and discuss their decisions, offering insight into each player’s priorities and judgement style. Each of the four response options translate to a specific point on the compass board. After all players have chosen their response, they will flip the respective solution card that they’ve chosen in order to receive the coordinates corresponding to the response, revealing each player’s placement on the compass.

The game seeks to demonstrate the complexities of humanitarian and development work. Each of the six scenarios presents a real-world dilemma with four possible solutions, categorised along two axes:

• Humanitarian vs. Development: Reflecting the tension between short-term relief and long-term systemic solutions
• Pragmatic vs. Emotional: Highlighting efficiency-driven decision-making versus empathetic, culturally sensitive approaches

This role-based approach encourages players to step into the shoes of their assigned actor, considering decisions from that actor’s unique perspective. While playing their roles, participants must weigh the interests, priorities, and constraints of their actor as they navigate each scenario. For example, in scenario 1, where a cyclone devastates coastal villages in Bangladesh, participants take on the role of the Local Government, and must consider the long-term safety and economic stability of the affected region. Acting as the government, they might prioritise policies that encourage rebuilding resilient infrastructure or relocating vulnerable communities to safer inland areas, even if these choices risk upsetting cultural traditions or displacing livelihoods. By stepping into the stance of the Local Government, players must grapple with ethical trade-offs, such as balancing the immediate need to restore housing and services with the future goal of reducing disaster vulnerability. This role-playing element encourages participants to critically engage with the power dynamics and priorities that influence aid interventions while fostering a deeper understanding of how different actors perceive and address these dilemmas.

In addition to role-playing, the game incorporates a visual component to highlight the diversity of decision-making across scenarios. For each round, all players use the same coloured markers to indicate their chosen solution on the board. For example, in Scenario 1, everyone uses red markers, while in Scenario 2, blue markers are used. This process continues with a new colour assigned for each scenario. By the end of the game, the board becomes a visual representation of how decisions vary not only between participants but also across different challenges. Players will then be able to observe the trends in their decision making throughout the game. This design choice serves two purposes. First, it underscores that different scenarios often demand different approaches, as reflected in the varying placements of markers across the pragmatic vs. emotional and humanitarian vs. development axes. Second, it highlights the not-so inherent apoliticalness of policy making, showing that even well-intentioned decisions are shaped by specific priorities and constraints. By visually mapping these shifts, the game invites participants to reflect on how their own choices align—or differ—across scenarios, emphasising that neutrality is rarely possible when considering humanitarian/development discourses and their subsequent complex ethical dilemmas.

This approach is important as it allows for an open discussion that creates an active environment for critical thinking, ensuring players leave the game with a deeper understanding of their personal stance as well as the complexities that follow humanitarian and development aid work. This unique feature transforms gameplay into a platform for discussion, where participants reflect on their choices, share insights, and challenge each other’s perspectives. The game board serves as a metaphor for a “political compass,” where no decision is inherently right or wrong. This setup emphasises the interdependence of priorities, showing how seemingly simple dilemmas often involve complex trade-offs.

The game integrates anthropological theories derived from key readings from the semester to encourage critical reflection. Drawing from Foucault’s (2002) concept of governmentality, it prompts players to consider how aid interventions shape lives in ways that extend beyond immediate relief, often embedding power structures into communities. Li’s (1999) insights into cultural sensitivity and local agency are incorporated to emphasise the importance of aligning interventions with local values and histories. Additionally, Naomi Klein’s (2005) work on disaster capitalism highlights the pressures to privatise industries during crises, challenging players to engage with the ethical implications of such actions. These perspectives encourage participants to reflect on how their decisions within the game may reinforce or disrupt existing inequalities, balance urgent needs with long-term goals, and align with cultural and ethical values. Ultimately, the game pushes players to think critically about their own opinions and assumptions regarding humanitarian and development aid.

The game transforms discussions and debates into interactive learning experiences. By situating players in the roles of key actors, it cultivates empathy, critical thinking, and an appreciation for the trade-offs inherent in every decision. For our group, Rethinking Development, the game embodies our belief that there are many ways to mediate a crisis, and no single solution fits all situations. It challenges players to “rethink” by exploring the diverse options available and critically considering which approach is best suited to the specific context of each scenario. By fostering a discussion-based environment, the game encourages players to debate their stances and reflect on the complexities of humanitarian and development work, aligning with the anthropological goal of creating meaningful conversations around global challenges.

Bibliography

Foucault, M. (2002) ‘Governmentality’, in Faubion, J.D. (ed) Power: Essential Works of Foucault 1954-1984. London: Penguin, pp. 201-222.

Klein, N. (2005) The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Available at: http://www.thenation.com/article/rise-disaster-capitalism.

Li, T. (1999) ‘Compromising Power: Development, Culture, and Rule in Indonesia’, Cultural Anthropology, 14(3), pp. 295–322.

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Written by Nobusuke Akaike, Charlotte Antilogus, Bethany Croucher, Natalie, Kaza, Tilly Neville, Samson Page, and Madeleine Raggett.

Aims

By the end of the lesson, students will understand:

• That who people choose to help is based on their political assumptions of who they see as ‘in need’
• That we all have these biases and they have a considerable impact on our understanding of important ideas such as compassion
• That these biases and the choices based upon them are informed by global unequal power relations
• That this unequal power relation does not simply span between nations, but also within each nation, and can come in many forms
• That anthropology’s look at compassion is important in exposing these kinds of power relations and denaturalising the way we look at humanitarian action as a top-down viewpoint

Resources

• Example Google Docs Presentation – compassion SOAN beyond dev
• Computer, Projector and Screen
• Access to PowerPoint
• Mobile phone and access to wifi
• Mentimeter website (menti) – this is a website that allows students to input their answers anonymously to pre-designed questions. Answers can be made into mind maps or graphs which enables easy discussion about the question and encourages collaborative work.
• YouTube

Background (for teachers)

Scholars in anthropology and beyond complicate our understanding of compassion by relating it to the concepts of ‘pity’ and ‘inequality’, for example.

Political philosopher Hannah Arendt argues that compassion exists in a face-to-face situation and that pity arises in a more public, distant situation (Boltanski 1999). In other words, Arendt suggests that distance creates pity and not compassion.

Social anthropologist Didier Fassin (2012) argues that humanitarianism is always a mix of assistance and domination, of solidarity and inequality. In other words, Fassin shows that the compassion central to humanitarian action inherently consists of domination, inequality, and power.

Political and legal anthropologist Heath Cabot (2012) analyses how the process of becoming an asylum seeker in Greece is filled with uncertainty, with some being favoured unfairly over others. This humanitarian aid takes place in Greece which is seen as a ‘developed country’ and this reading therefore complicates the assumption humanitarianism only happens in developing countries.

Social anthropologist Miriam Ticktin (2006) ethnographically shows that medical aid reproduces inequalities, as migrants purposefully infect themselves with HIV to qualify as ‘good’ victims who deserve humanitarian compassion. Like Cabot’s work, this aid takes place in France, a developed country.

These two ethnographic examples illustrate the theoretical claims made by Fassin and Arendt. They show how compassion is political – it is enmeshed in global power relations and produced by cultural and political assumptions of who is ‘in need’ (and who is not).

Student Brief

Anthropology is the cross-cultural study of human society and culture. Its main aim is to question assumptions we may have of the world in order to understand ourselves and others better. Within this lesson we will look at compassion in relation to humanitarian aid anthropologically. Humanitarian aid is the material and logistical assistance offered to those in need of help and is often assumed to be given to developing countries from developed countries. The concept of ‘developing countries’ refers to countries with a low quality of life, less developed economy and diminished technological infrastructure relative to other more industrialized countries. Meanwhile ‘developed countries’ are considered to have a high quality of life, a developed economy and developed technological infrastructure. Using anthropological work on compassion we plan to complicate the assumption humanitarian aid only takes place in developing countries.

To prepare for this lesson, start thinking about how you understand ‘compassion’ and what other things you associate it with.

Sections 1 – 4

Section 1 – Outlining objectives

• Revisit Aims section.
• Briefly go over and clarify ‘developing’ vs ‘developed’ countries (BBC bitesize definition).

Section 2 – Exploring compassion

• Exploring how the class understands and defines compassion using the menti task below:
  • Menti Task 1: Each student comes up with three words for what they understand ‘compassion’ as (see below mind map with potential answers). You might expect answers such as love, sympathy, giving, kindness, etc.
  • Menti Task 2: group discussion – where does compassion come from? You might expect answers such as ‘from a feeling’, ‘from the heart’, etc.

• Then show that compassion is more that a ‘natural’ impulse or feeling:
  • Menti Task 3: group discussion, how would we choose to show our compassion? The students will debate how they would distribute £100? You might expect answers such as Oliver Twist and Annie receiving more of the £100 and Tony Stark and Homer Simpson receiving less. Teachers can change the characters to accommodate the specific interests of their students.
• Teachers will root these activities and the complication of compassion as natural in Arendt’s and Fassin’s understandings of the concept. Through this, students should reach the understanding that the decisions they have just made were based on preconceived ideas of what compassion is, and that this idea is more complicated than that.

Section 3 – Compassion beyond the developing world

• Now that the students have been introduced to how compassion is entangled within problems of inequality, use Ticktin and Cabot’s ethnographic examples to expand their understanding, by situating compassion within the developed world.
• To further illustrate Arendt and Fassin’s ideas in an age-friendly way, use the examples from the “barbiesavior” Instagram (below). This should engage them in how top-down patterns of aid may be problematic, or deemed patronising, as compassion is given to those considered in the poorest conditions. It also introduces them to colonialism, a key topic addressed in anthropology, as aid is often seen to be given to ‘third-world’ countries, despite being needed even within the UK.

 

    

Source: Instagram 2019

• Teachers should encourage the students to research and apply this to real-word topics, such as with the European migrant crisis. Note, this may contain distressing material so should be approached sensitively.

Section 4 – Summary

• Revisit the key points and learning objectives: repeat Menti task 1 to show how class understandings of compassion might have changed from their initial thoughts on the subject.
• Get into small groups to discuss how their understandings have changed, with each group then sharing with the class what they have learnt and taken away from the lesson. 

Bibliography

BarbieSavior (2021). Instagram. [online] www.instagram.com. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/barbiesavior/.

BBC Bitesize (2021). ‘Differences in levels of development between developing countries’. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zt666sg/revision/1

Boltanski, L. (1999). Distant Suffering. [online] assets.cambridge.org. [online] Available at: https://assets.cambridge.org/97805216/59536/excerpt/9780521659536_excerpt.pdf.

Cabot, H. (2012) ‘The Governance of Things: Documenting Limbo in the Greek Asylum Procedure’, Political and Legal Anthropology Review (PoLAR), 35(1), pp. 11–29.

Child Poverty Action Group (2020). ‘Child poverty facts and figures’. [online] CPAG. Available at: https://cpag.org.uk/child-poverty/child-poverty-facts-and-figures

Fassin, D. (2012) Humanitarian Reason: A Moral History of the Present. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Paul, R. and Elder, L. (2001) Critical Thinking: Tools for taking charge of your learning and your life. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Ticktin, M. (2006) ‘Where Ethics and Politics Meet: The Violence of Humanitarianism in France’, American Ethnologist, 33(1), pp. 33–49.

UnicefUK (2012). ‘Pupils speak out about UK child poverty’. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBVYA-3ASt0

 

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