Agonistic Games: Multiperspective and Unsettling Games for a Social Change

Historical narratives of conflict typically revolve around heroes and villains or perpetrators and victims. However, this dichotomy of events and people into good and evil greatly reduces the extent to which the past can be analysed, explained, and understood. To truly understand the actions that lead to conflict, one must appreciate the dense network of relationships between social agents, each with their own personal motivations and ideals. A contemporary political viewpoint capturing this multiperspectivity is that of Agonism. Focusing on the characters and events, Agonism emphasises the socio-cultural interactions and relationships between all agents involved including bystanders and, crucially, perpetrators. We discuss two ‘Games for a Social Change’ that we have developed to promote an Agonistic view: Endless Blitz and Umschlag ‘43. We describe the games themselves, and the framework of memory studies that informs our work