Disrupting monopoly: homelessness, gamification and learned resourcefulness

ABSTRACT

In 2019 a pilot project called ‘Homeless Monopoly’ evolved in Coventry to investigate how arts methodologies, dramatic scenarios and gamification could be used to raise awareness in young people regarding homelessness. This article investigates the origins and collaborative development of this project, but specifically focuses on how piloting the game in schools, colleges and universities has raised questions about the ways in which resourcefulness and resilience might be taught as adaptive and sustainable strategies through processes of rehearsing and discussing unpredictable challenges, vulnerabilities, support mechanisms and different life outcomes rooted in ‘real-world’ scenarios.

KEYWORDS:

• Homelessness
• gamification
• collaboration
• resilience
• rehearsal

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 https://england.shelter.org.uk/what_we_do/our_strategy/strategy[accessed 14 May 2020].

2 Available to download at https://www.coventry.gov.uk/downloads/82/housing [accessed 30 April 2020].

3 See http://www.coventrycyrenians.co.uk/ [accessed 6 May 2020].

4 Email from James Forsyth to the author, 19 February 2020.

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nadine Holdsworth

Nadine Holdsworth is Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Warwick. She researches theatre and marginalised communities, popular theatre practitioners and amateur creativity. Her books include English Theatre and Social Abjection: A Divided Nation (2020) and the co-written The Ecologies of Amateur Theatre (2018).