Choose Your Own Utopia: What can online simulations teach us about community building?

Kibbutz: The Settlers of Palestine (www.kibbutzgame.com) is an online historical simulation (or “serious game”) designed to complement Chasing Utopia: The Future of the Kibbutz in a Divided Israel, a traditional print-based journalistic account of communal settlements in Israel and Palestine. This web-based “choose your own utopia” allows a participating player to vote on decisions as a member of an imaginary intentional community. First, you must found a kibbutz in one of three geographical regions, based upon one of four political philosophies. Then, faced with a series of social, economic, and/or ethical dilemmas (based on historical incidents), you must make difficult choices that will impact the finances, population growth, internal solidarity and external reputation of your virtual kibbutz across the next 100 years The interaction between your decisions and the rising (or falling) variables of Economy, Population, Solidarity and Reputation encourages players to reflect on the social, political and philosophical compromises that challenged the utopian ideals of the kibbutz movement’s founders and later generations.  This workshop will consist of four parts: a brief introduction to the concept and design of the interactive historical simulation (10 minutes); an online playthrough of Kibbutz: The Settlers of Palestine by workshop attendees as a group (20 minutes); a discussion of the potential benefits (and pitfalls) of using interactive simulations to understand the social and political ecologies of utopian movements and communal settlements i (20 minutes); and tips on how scholars can use interactive media to express their own research and how community members can use serious games and other play-based activities to deepen understanding and open conversations about the challenges of communal life (10 minutes).