DEVELOPMENT MONOPOLY

Abstract

DEVELOPMENT MONOPOLY is a simulation game that allows players to experience how power relations influence the agency of different socioeconomic groups, and how this can induce poverty and inequality. Players alter the original rules of the MONOPOLY board game so that they more accurately reflect social stratification and inequalities in the context of developing countries. After the game, the players reflect on how they could be made more inclusive and pro-poor. In an individual debriefing, they are invited to think about the connections between game dynamics and contemporary evolutions in developing countries. In a final collective debriefing phase, participants discuss the ways in which the simulation experience enhanced their understandings of poverty and inequality.