Who’s in the Game?: Identity and Intersectionality in Classic Board Games

Some board games-like Candy Land, Chutes & Ladders, Clue, Guess Who, The Game of Life, Monopoly, Operation and Payday-have popularity spanning generations.But over time, updates to games have created significantly different messages about personal identity and evolving social values. Games offer representations of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, religion, age, ability and social class that reflect the status quo and respond to social change. Using popular mass-market games, this rhetorical assessment explores board design, game implements (tokens, markers, 3-D elements) and playing instructions. This book argues the existence of board games as markers of an ever-changing sociocultural framework, exploring the nature of play and how games embody and extend societal themes and values.Who’s in the Game?: Identity and Intersectionality in Classic Board Games is written by Terri Toles Patkin and published by Mc Farland. ISBNs for Who’s in the Game? are 9781476642116, 1476642117 and the print ISBNs are 9781476676913, 1476676917.