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A Game-Based Method in the Re-Design of Migration Infrastructure

Lorenzo Olivieri and Annalisa Pelizza introduce their paper just published in Action Research.

“Imagine landing in a foreign country. Everything feels unfamiliar and, before you can even think about settling, you are told that, if you wish to stay, you need to obtain a document by filling out a form. The forms asks information about yourself, your family and your professional life, about the travel that brought you there and even about your religion.

This is the initial scenario of My Documents, check them out, a collaborative game for role-playing. It’s paper-based and designed to spark reflection about migration control.

This scenario, far from being uncommon, is the one experienced by people arriving at European borders as they try to settle in Europe. After their arrival, they need to fill out forms.  How comfortable are people with the way these forms frame their identities? What would they write if they were free to choose? What information about themselves would they like to include, different from questions reflecting European values, biases and assumptions.

To explore these questions, our game introduces a crucial twist. Instead of filling in standardized forms, players must create, from scratch, unique application forms based on the stories of the fictional characters they embody. Along the way, players can receive help and suggestions from the other players, they can enrich their stories through specific cards, but they are also subjected to some of the administrative hurdles that shape migration control. When a player feels ready to submit their applications, a decision is delivered by a web-interface.

In designing the game, we were inspired by the idea that playing provides opportunity for learning, reflecting and experimenting.  Playing pushes people to make decisions and face the consequences. It allows them to encounter the power relations and knowledge asymmetries defining specific social realities, but also to invent alternative configurations of those realities.

We observed that our game worked in a similar way: players – be they “people on the move”, students, lawyers or activists – approached the game in different ways, depending on their familiarity with the mechanisms of migration control.

Those who had experienced border-crossing perceived the game as a meaning-making and learning activity, whereas other actors mobilized their own professional skills. We argue that games are sites where marginalized communities develop knowledge, skills and resources for reflecting about and changing the technologies that affect their lives.” 

Full paper details

Lorenzo Olivieri and Annalisa Pelizza (2026) My Documents, Check Them out: A Game-Based Method to Engage Border-Crossers in the Re-Design of Migration Infrastructures. Action Research.

Lorenzo Olivieri, University of Bologna, Via Zamboni 38, Bologna 40126, Italy. Email: lorenzo.olivieri3@unibo.it

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14767503261439679