by Anna Henkel
Serious games in Denmark - analysed with Foucault and Luhmann
The workshop with Niels Akerstrom Anderson was intensive work on both the concepts and their application. Firstly, Niels Akerstrom introduced the material: In Denmark, games - literally - have been used for a number of years to politically encourage a healthy lifestyle. What was outlined in the previous evening's lecture as a diagnosis of the present, namely the use of games as a political regulatory instrument in a heterogeneous present, became clear in this way with a concrete example. Health games are introduced into the private sphere via schools and school lessons. They consist, for example, of making a "contract" as a family to eat fruit every day and visualising this by sticking a sticker on a weekly schedule in the kitchen for each piece of fruit eaten. The special thing about these games is that they oscillate between "play" and "order": Anyone who invites people to play such games can always fall back on the fact that it is just a game - or that it is not just a game, but is for the sake of health.
Based on this case, the discussion centred on methodology as a link between a genealogy of the present and empirical material. Akerstrom argued in favour of a genealogy inspired by systems theory in the style of Foucault. The premise here is that an institutional-semantic framework in the broadest sense influences a set of concrete practices (which also includes architecture, etc.) in a certain way, but that the application of this framework also has an effect back on it. It was discussed to what extent a micro-perspective of resistance is relevant in this context and what significance a concept of semantics has.
Finally, it was discussed how such a concept can be made fruitful for an interdisciplinary working group. Akerstrom reported from his Department for Management, Politics and Philosophy that the collaboration is particularly fruitful because although different topics are dealt with (such as management, health policy, school policy or education), these are related to the common question of the relationship between politics and management.
I experienced this workshop as an intensive and enriching discussion - from which hopefully perspectives for a conference on genealogy in Copenhagen will emerge!