An mm affiliate! work in conversation and dialogue with the Material Matters team - individual projects and material explorations conducted in our labs.

Shruti Gupta (Author)

Emily Carr University of Art + Design Graduate Studies (Degree Granting Institution)

Hélène Day Fraser (Thesis Supervisor)

Deborah Shackleton (Thesis Supervisor)

Board games, Abused women, Feminism, Social justice

India, Women's empowerment, Design research

Abstract: The global climate of #MeToo and #TimesUp has forced us to recognise that violence against women has a long and dark history that needs to be acknowledged. Antithetical to this are the number of crimes against women recorded by the India National Crime Record Bureau (thirty nine per hour) (NCRB, 2016). The brutal rape of Nirbhaya shocked countries world over. It forced Indians to take notice - this had more to do with the breeding of a culture of violence than a case of a one-off incident. In this context, the objective of this dissertation and its outcomes have been to expose a few examples of where this violence towards women potentially stems from. Within a research framework grounded in design and material praxis, this thesis used a narrative based enquiry along with embodied ways of knowing to develop a series of interventions that cite historical and contemporary examples. These informed three rounds of redesign of the well known game Snakes and Ladders. User participation and testing were used to refine schemas of chance to choice within the game. Throughout this design process I have aimed to challenge behaviors and provide spaces to have discussions about problematic biases that subjugate women. Moving forward this work will continue to be developed. It will shift, with care and attention, to India where it will be further developed to better reflect the nuances of the context it is meant for.

Link to thesis