Playing Oppression with Mary Flanagan
From Game Design Deep Dive by Dan Bullock
July 9, 2025 · 1h 6m · Season 5 · Episode 3
About this episode
Mary Flanagan discusses her book on colonialist board games and their impact on representation and competitive play.
Mary Flanagan, is a game designer, professor, and an author. She joins us to discuss her book, co-authored with Mikael Jakobson, PLAYING OPPRESSION: THE LEGACY OF CONQUEST AND EMPIRE IN COLONIALIST BOARD GAMES. We discuss representation of non-western cultures, colonialist mechanisms, and whether or not decades of conquest and exploitation based games have calcified to form the bedrock of competitive play. Outro Music: "Funeral for Justice" - Mdou Moctar Public Nominations for the Summ...
People in this episode
Host: Dan Bullock
Guest: Mary Flanagan
Topics covered
- game design
- colonialism
- representation
- board games
- cultural critique
Keywords
- Mary Flanagan
- colonialism
- board games
- cultural representation
- game design
- competitive play
Mentioned in this episode
Books & works: PLAYING OPPRESSION: THE LEGACY OF CONQUEST AND EMPIRE IN COLONIALIST BOARD GAMES
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