Infrastructuring Critical Data Literacy through Role-playing: a Retrospective Study of the Game 'Datopolis'

Organisations require diverse technological infrastructures to create value from data. Because these infrastructures are often haphazardly developed, they cause frictions between the socio-technical agencies of the involved stakeholders. Datopolis is a role-playing game consisting of cards, tiles and tokens that was specifically designed to support such stakeholders to experience, understand and reflect on how data infrastructures should be developed and maintained. Although the game has reached more than 20 organisations in 8 different countries since its original release 8 years ago, little is known about how its resources and rules actually elicit critical reflection among its players. By conducting a retrospective qualitative study consisting of 27 interviews with stakeholders, we uncovered that the prototypical role-playing narrative drives critical reflection through 3 facilitation approaches and 3 play strategies that are anchored in organisational contexts shared among players. We are thus able to present three contributions: 1) a retrospective study grounded in interviews with actual stakeholders being affected by the game; 2) an overview of play strategies and facilitation approaches that enacted the infrastructuring processes through role-play; and 3) critical considerations to operationalise how role-play supports learning, situated in real-world contexts and shaped by facilitation. This study calls for a critical examination of the role of interpretation during learning activities to empower stakeholders in reclaiming control over organisational practices.