Legacy games: playing colonial themed board games as a form of decolonising work in museums

This thesis explores playing board games as a method of critically engaging with decolonising work at Leeds Museums and Galleries, primarily as a form of staff continuing professional development. Building on the established museum practice of object-based learning, it utilises a novel and iterative participatory play-based methodology. This research project was prompted by a combination of my work for Leeds Museums and my frustration at the continuing, uncritical use of colonial histories as thematic settings in my favourite hobby – modern board gaming. Many games present playing the role of a colonial oppressor as a fun form of entertainment. This thesis questions how to flip this narrative, using these games to critique the real-world histories they portray and specifically, the role of museums in those histories.
To this end, I brought museum professionals and academic researchers together to play a modern colonial-themed board game and engage in discussions stemming from the game and the play experience. The discussions were initially broad, but became focused on the Collection at Leeds, including the acquisition, cataloguing and display of specific objects and human remains, and the colonial legacies encoded into existing museum processes. Each participant brought their own experiences and cultural understandings to the sessions, creating rich opportunities for knowledge exchange. Building on the trust established in the play sessions, I recorded three podcast episodes with participants. By enabling further reflection and sparking organic conversations, podcasting became a research method in its own right.
I am a White, western-educated, female researcher working in the museum sector, and this thesis makes extensive use of reflexive autoethnography to address my positionality. The methodology highlighted the potential for causing trauma through (re)playing colonial violences, and the ethical implications of the approach are discussed, with careful recruitment, staff training, and researcher transparency being critical for mitigating risk.
This thesis demonstrates that play, currently a considerably under-used research method in this field, is a valid and valuable approach to engaging with museum decolonising work. Facilitating discussions through the game enables honest and reflective conversations that can both transcend staff hierarchies and foreground voices often under-represented in museum work. Many western museums were built on beliefs of White supremacy, using imperial ideals to foster ideas of nationhood and legitimise colonial expansion. In confronting and understanding this past, we can work to decolonise current processes and practices to build a more inclusive museum that acknowledges diverse epistemologies and authentically represents its communities.