Manuscript for Future of Places, sub-theme “emerging tools and tool kits”
Using Minecraft as a citizen participation tool in urban design and decision
making
Fanny von Heland1*, Pontus Westerberg2 & Marcus Nyberg3
1
Sustainability Performance, Ericsson Research, Färögatan 6, 16480 Stockholm, Sweden
External Relations Office, United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), P.O. Box
30030, Nairobi, Kenya
3
UX Lab, Ericsson Research, Färögatan 6, 16480 Stockholm, Sweden
2
*Corresponding author: Fanny von Heland. Phone: +46 72 583 83 78, Email:
fanny.von.heland@ericsson.com
Abstract
The existence of high quality public space is decreasing in many parts of the world due to rapid and
unplanned urbanization. Once a city is built, its land use patterns and physical form can be locked in
for generations, emphasizing the need for well-designed design and decision making processes.
Citizen participation in political deliberation is needed to create inclusive public space and to provide
planning agencies with the collective knowledge, ideas, and expertise of the population. Information
and communication technology (ICT) offers new opportunities to engage citizens in urban design and
decision making. Drawing on qualitative interviewing, this study examines the use of the computer
game Minecraft to encourage and facilitate the active participation of youth in urban design. The study
builds on a case study of a public space improvement project in the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal and
examines social impacts associated with the use of Minecraft. The results show that Minecraft
increased youth interest in urban design and provided a new venue for youth to frame policy issues
related to urban design. The use of Minecraft was also found to encourage the development of both
action-oriented and intrinsic skills among youth. At the same time, current institutional arrangements
and digital skills were shown to influence whether or not youth could effectively use Minecraft to
increase their representation, participation and voice.
1
1. Introduction
Already today, 54 percent of the world’s population lives in cities, projected to increase to 66 percent
by 2050 (UN 2014). The speed and scale of urbanization brings many challenges, including meeting
accelerated demand for basic services, infrastructure and high quality public space (UN-Habitat 2013).
Public spaces – places of public use which are accessible and enjoyable by all – are crucial for a city to
be well-functioning. In addition, it is widely agreed that dense cities are more likely to be
environmentally sustainable. However, in order to support high levels of density without being
overcrowded, cities must provide high-quality public spaces that are human in scale, sustainable,
healthy, safe and accessible (Gehl 2010). Once a city is built, its land use patterns and physical form
can be locked in for generations, emphasizing the need for well-designed design and decision making
processes that can improve the quality of urban life (World Bank 2013).
It is widely agreed that citizen participation is important for governments to deal with urban
management (Abbot 1996). To create inclusive and sustainable cities, urban planners need to consider
the needs, interests and knowledge of different stakeholders (Amado et al. 2010). This requires
collaborative design and decision making processes where government works together with citizens to
address public problems and create new policies (Purdy 2012). Collaboration is important to provide
government with the collective knowledge, ideas, and expertise of the population (Chun et al. 2010).
Yet, many public policies are determined not through deliberation but rather through the technical
expertise of public officials (Fung 2006) and when deliberation occurs it is usually biased towards
more powerful stakeholders with greater resources (Adams 2004; Leach 2006). From this it follows
that critical interests are not always represented in decision making.
Participation of citizens in design and decision making is a cornerstone of democracy, especially of
marginalized groups which are often excluded from central political and economic processes,
hindering them to influence how goals and policies are set (Arnstein 1969). According to the OECD,
governments need to direct special attention towards engaging groups such as women, youth and
indigenous communities (OECD 1992). When some groups cannot influence agenda-setting and
decision-making, or obtain relevant information to assess how well different policy alternatives serve
their interests, they are more likely to be ill-served by new laws, policies and development plans (Fung
2006; Tahvilzadeh 2013). Lack of citizen participation may translate into a ‘citizenship deficit’ where
the preferences of citizens are less known and reflected in public policy. Over time, this deficit may
lead to an erosion of civil society, civic engagement and social capital among citizens (Nabatchi
2010).
Greater citizen involvement in urban design and decision making is needed to increase knowledge
about complex problems, better mediate divergent interests and promote improved quality of life for
everyone (Nelson and Wright 1995; Irvin and Stansbury 2004; Adams 2004). Citizen involvement
may also help produce policies with greater public acceptability and improve trust in government
(Sousa and Klyza 2007; Yang and Pandey 2011). This is increasingly important due to the present
trend towards increasing intra-urban inequality and stratification in many cities (UN-Habitat 2014).
Information and communication technology (ICT) offers new opportunities to engage citizens and
improve the quality of political deliberation and decision making (Conroy and Evans-Cowley 2006;
Howard and Gaborit 2007; Wang and Bryer 2012). For example, ICT can be useful in providing
technical information and enhancing understanding of context (Appleton and Lovett 2005), providing
public access to information previously available only to experts and officials (Al-Kodmany 2000;
Elwood 2002), and gathering real-time feedback from citizens (Han and Peng 2003). Visualization
through ICT may also help to build shared understanding and facilitate interaction among citizens and
government (Bryson et al. 2004). Yet, there have been few efforts to study the social impact associated
with the use of ICT on citizen participation in urban design and decision making.
This study responds to the identified need to establish innovative means of facilitating and
encouraging active participation of youth in decision making (OECD 1992). It examines the use of the
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computer game Minecraft as a tool to enhance youth participation in urban design and is based on a
qualitative case study of a public space improvement project in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. The aim
of the study is twofold: First, it explores the potential of Minecraft to foster greater citizen
participation in urban design and decision making. Second, it examines social impacts associated with
the use of Minecraft, both at and individual and community level.
2. Background
Kirtipur is an ancient city in the Kathmandu Valley, approximately 5 km south-west of Nepal’s capital
Kathmandu. UN-Habitat is supporting Kirtipur Municipality, Center for Integrated Urban
Development (a local NGO) and local communities to conserve and upgrade existing public spaces for
better community utilization through a people-centric process where the computer game Minecraft has
been utilized to integrate youth into the design process surrounding the revitalization of public spaces.
In Nepal, public spaces play an important role in many cultural activities and for maintaining
community resilience as well as for recreation. Public water bodies occupy a central position in many
public spaces and are important resources for women who are often responsible for water-related
household activities. However, the existence and quality of public space in Kirtipur is rapidly
decreasing because of unplanned urbanization and lack of management, and several of the public
water bodies are in poor condition.
Figure 1: Kirtipur
Minecraft is one of the world’s most popular computer games with over 100 million players
worldwide. In Minecraft, players interact with the game world by placing and breaking various types
of colored blocks – similar to a ‘digital Lego’ – in a three-dimensional environment with the purpose
of building creative structures, such as buildings, cities, or whole worlds. Minecraft is often played
online on multiplayer servers, or in single player worlds, across multiple game modes.
In February 2015, UN-Habitat and Center for Integrated Urban Development organized a three-day
Minecraft design workshop to initiate a participatory design process and develop design suggestions
for the revitalization of a park area. Before the workshop a digital version of the public space was
created in Minecraft using google maps, plans and images. Youth then created their design suggestions
3
in the digital version of the park. In total, 37 people, primarily youth from Kirtipur, participated in the
workshop (men=26 and women=11). Participants were divided into ten groups, each group having
three to four members (most groups had one female participant). During the first two days of the
workshop youth designed in Minecraft and on the last day the design proposals were presented for a
broader audience of inhabitants, community leaders, officials and experts. A Minecraft expert from
UN-Habitat facilitated the design process. Before developing their designs, youth were given
presentations about the importance of public space, participatory decision making and the Minecraft
tool. After the workshop, youth’s Minecraft designs will be used as input to the
architectural design and construction process.
Figure 2: Part of the park which will be upgraded
4
Figure 3: Minecraft design by one group of participants
3. Methods
3.1 Data collection
The study is based on empirical data generated through qualitative interviewing (Kvale and
Brinkmann 2009) and a smaller questionnaire in Kirtipur and Kathmandu in April 2015. In total, 23
interviews were conducted with people who had participated in the Minecraft workshop (men=16 and
women=7). Seven of the interviewees were representatives of other groups than youth (NGOs= 4,
municipality=1 and community leaders=2). A group interview with four women involved in the public
space revitalization project was also conducted. Appendix A lists all interviewees. The study aligns
with the UN definition of youth as people between the ages of 19 and 24 (UN 2015). All interviews
were semi-structured and recorded when respondents gave their consent. The quotations that appear in
the results section are from the transcripts but interviewees are kept anonymous. The majority of
interviews were conducted in English, except for a minor number of interviews that were conducted
with the help of a Nepali interpreter. Qualitative interviews were focused on conceptualizing issues
around the participation process, perceptions of the Minecraft tool, and making connections between
the use of Minecraft and various social impacts (Appendix B). All youth participating in the interview
study were also asked to complete the questionnaire aimed at summarizing the viewpoints of the
individual participants (Appendix C). The questionnaire was completed by all youth participating in
the interview study (men=10 and women=6). The diagrams presented in Section 4 are based on the
results of the questionnaire.
3.2 Data analysis
The study is descriptive and the focus of the data analysis was to investigate social impacts associated
with the use of Minecraft as a citizen participation tool in urban design and decision making. Interview
transcripts were coded to organize the data. Coding is “the process of breaking down, examining,
comparing, conceptualizing and categorizing data” (Strauss and Corbin, 1990: 61). Social impacts of
interest were labeled with codes (i.e. a word or short phrase) aiming to find regularities in viewpoints
and experiences of the interviewees. The aggregated results of the coding are presented in Section 4
and structured around a series of key social impacts.
4. Minecraft: an emerging citizen participation tool?
4.1 Voice and representation
12
10
8
6
Designing in Minecraft
improved youth involvement
in descision making
4
2
0
strongly
disagree
strongly
agree
5
In Kirtipur, there had been few previous initiatives to facilitate and encourage the active participation
of youth and women in decision making around urban design. Planning experts and local officials
perceived Minecraft as a useful way of bridging the gap to youth and considered the computer game
an effective tool for generating interest and engagement among youth for urban design. Among local
officials, Minecraft was also valued for providing an easy way of complementing the work of
engineers and architects. In the words of a local official:
“In our social context women and youth don’t have much influence. Here they were at the front line. […]
Minecraft helped to start a discussion at the grassroots level. We [the municipality] are very weak in this
regard – to create participation among youth and women. Minecraft boosted communication and participation
in a way we have not seen before. […] It created a platform for discussion” (Male local official. Interview
20).
Designing and presenting the Minecraft models were for the majority of youth the first time they
publically expressed personal opinions about public affairs. There was common agreement between
youth that Minecraft made it much easier to start a dialogue and speak about individual and group
interests associated with the use of public space. This way, many youth felt that they could share
knowledge about their situation and interests with a larger audience. Accordingly, youth valued
Minecraft for enabling them to communicate interests and new ideas, while at the same time
increasing youth engagement and ownership of the design process. The following two quotations
illustrate the position of youth:
“It totally impacted on our involvement in decision making, we had to think about what we wanted to see in
the park and then give shape to it in our design. This means that we could define not only the problem but
also the solution” (Female university student. Interview 12).
“It was my first time to express ideas in public. It was a good experience and it made me excited. I felt that
we had an impact on decision making by standing up for and showing our ideas. We gave knowledge about
youth to the rest of the community” (Female university student. Interview 7).
4.2 Learning
10
8
6
Designing in Minecraft
increased knowledeg of
other people's needs and
interests
4
2
0
strongly
disagree
strongly
agree
6
10
8
6
Minecraft helped to create a
meaningful dialogue
4
2
0
strongly
disagree
strongly
agree
Regardless of age and profession, many workshop participants felt that designing in Minecraft helped
to generate new thinking and learning. Whereas a large number of youth joined the workshop because
of their interest in gaming, learning was described as a positive and unexpected side effect of team
work and community input on youth’s Minecraft models. According to many youth, the workshop
made them aware of the importance of creating inclusive designs and that Minecraft provided a useful
means to thinking about and visualizing the needs of different genders and age groups, as described by
a student:
“One thing that I learned was that children are now playing in the road because of lack of space. As playing
in the road can be dangerous we needed to build something for them – a playground. Old people wanted us
to build a garden. I didn’t think you could actually use this land for this purpose. The Minecraft workshop
forced us to think about the community. I learned a lot. It also made us aware of gender because boys and
girls wanted to build different things […] so Minecraft made us start speaking about new things and aware of
our differences” (Male university student. Interview 2).
In terms of gender, many male workshop participants emphasized that Minecraft helped to increase
knowledge about women-specific problems, for example related to public water bodies. Spending
longer hours helping their mothers and elders with household activities, female workshop participants
played an important role in contributing knowledge about the interaction between gender and public
space into the design process. Knowledge about cultural heritage was another area where youth felt
that learning occurred as the discussion around their designs put divergent interests and conflicts on
the table. A common feedback from community leaders on youth’s Minecraft models was that they did
little to preserve important aspects of culture and did not address the role of cultural heritage in
sustaining social identity and community resilience. On the other hand, community leaders expressed
that the visualizations helped them to better understand the interests and aspirations of youth:
“Youth involvement was a great achievement and learning process for us elders. We community leaders are
old-fashion-people and we have old ideas in our minds. Youth created design with wifi, solar panels and ecotoilets. These are ideas and designs for the future. They learned from us and we learned from them” (Male
community leader. Interview 10).
However, a substantial number of youth expressed that learning would improve with broader
community participation and more time for dialogue. A number of youth perceived the feedback as
focused on identifying flaws rather than creating a constructive and engaging dialogue between the
different groups. Many youth felt that improving community participation would be important to learn
more in-depth about community needs as well as to strengthen social cohesion, as illustrated in the
below quotations:
“I think it was mostly one-way communication during the last feedback session with the community. We
didn’t get much room for speaking about the background to the design to improve understanding. There was
two-way communication between youth but there was little time for youth to exchange ideas about our
7
designs and discuss the designs from a broader perspective. So this is something that needs to be improved,
to not only have time for designing but also for discussing” (Male university student. Interview 24).
“Broader community participation is important and will lift our models. This will also improve ownership of
the design. Now youth feel strong ownership but maybe not everyone else in the community. A common
feedback from the community was that “why didn’t you design that?” but how could we have known”
(Female university student. Interview 13).
8
4.3 Communication and creativity
10
8
6
Designing in Minecraft
improved my ability to
communicate important
viewpoints
4
2
0
strongly
disagree
strongly
agree
The reason why Minecraft was understood to be a good learning and participation tool was that
visualization was seen as particularly helpful to express and present opinions, as well as for increasing
understanding between different groups. In addition, youth felt that they became more creative and
could generate more ideas when using Minecraft, as voiced by a student:
“You can say that Minecraft helped building our thoughts. [...] Minecraft was helpful because it visualized
our ideas and then it was easier to explain our thinking. I think it even developed our creativity” (Male
university student. Interview 2).
The opportunity to work creatively with design and problem solving while building in Minecraft was
believed to generate ideas that could not be born out of just talking about public space. Another
appreciated feature was that Minecraft made it easy to try ideas out and easily change them. According
to youth, this kind of creative and intellectual flexibility allowed experimenting with different ideas
and visualizing different scenarios. A common remark was that visualization was crucial to start the
discussion around the public space and that Minecraft was an important medium for facilitating not
only the conversation about space but also visioning about space. As many youth had little previous
experience of speaking in public they also felt that Minecraft was a social mobilizer with potential to
catalyze awareness about youth interests. The subsequent quotations are illustrative:
“Minecraft became like a bridge between thought and reality” (Male university student. Interview 19).
“Through the power of the visual we could have a bigger impact than by just speaking about our ideas”
(Male university student. Interview 24).
While Minecraft was useful in catching the interest of youth and making the process more engaging, a
number of youth experienced that the use of Minecraft provided limited opportunity to express
personal viewpoints (as compared to the opportunity for youth as a group) because of insufficient
computer skills, as expressed in the below quote:
“The first workshop day was a headache. The second day was a bit better because then I could design a little
bit. The third day when I started to understand the workshop was over. I had limited opportunity to express
my ideas so for me Minecraft didn’t help” (Male university student. Interview 4).
9
4.4 Gender and digital skills
10
8
6
When designing in Minecraft
people with more computer
skills had more influence
4
2
0
strongly
disagree
strongly
agree
Many interviewees describe that women and men are often subject to sex segregation and are given
very unequal opportunities to engage in the public sphere as well as to develop their digital skills.
According to the municipality, women often have many ideas but no platform to express them, as a
consequence of which female participation in policy making is very low. Female interviewees
described that women seldom speak in public meetings because of gender stereotypes (with women
depicted as running the house) and few female workshop participants knew how to design in
Minecraft at the first workshop day, as compared to the large number of men who were already
familiar with the computer game. As emphasized by the vast majority workshop participants,
differences in women’s and men’s computer skills influenced both process dynamics and process
outcomes:
“Boys participated more because they generally had more computer skills and many of the boys were ITstudents and they generally play more computer games. Boys were more active in front of the computers but
all girls were active in contributing ideas but still there was a bit of a mismatch” ( Female NGO officer.
Interview 11).
“Computer skills helped a lot. Skilled people could spend more time in front of the computer and design
ideas while people who couldn’t design first had to learn how to use the tools. So skilled people got an
advantage. They could take the lead. Learning took away focus from the ideation process. Many times we
gave feedback on their ideas” (Female university student. Interview 12).
Whereas the majority of youth thought that computer skills affected the ease by which individuals
could share their ideas, resulting in an advantage for men, a number of youth appreciated the
Minecraft workshop for triggering collaboration between the sexes.
“Boys and girls have not before been asked to create and communicate ideas together. In this workshop we
worked together and presented together. This is important to break with old traditions that preserve male
superiority. Here we had a female influence. This can be very good for breaking gender stereotypes” (Male
university student. Interview 22).
In accordance with the above interviewee, the municipality perceived Minecraft as a possible means of
introducing youth to new gender roles that could possibly help encouraging greater gender equality.
Many female workshop participants also expressed that designing in Minecraft had increased their
interest in technology and that they now would like to explore how to make better use of technology
for both leisure and skills development.
10
4.5 Capacity building and social cohesion
10
8
6
Designing in Minecraft
improved my confidence to
speak in groups
4
2
0
strongly
disagree
strongly
agree
A considerable number youth perceived the Minecraft workshop as important in terms of capacity
building. For the majority of youth the final presentation at the last day of the workshop was their first
time to speak in front of a large audience and few youth had any previous experience of participating
public meetings. Most significantly, youth experienced that by designing in Minecraft their selfconfidence and communication skills improved and many youth felt proud over their personal
achievement and contribution to the revitalization project, as expressed below:
“Designing in Minecraft improved my confidence and belief in myself – we can do the same job as
architects. It gave a sense of empowerment. It was fun to present the design. I felt happy because I could
express my ideas and other people could see it” (Male university student. Interview 3).
“I now have a little bit better confidence to convince other people about my own ideas. I also developed my
skills to interact with other people” (Female university student. Interview 8).
According to many youth, designing towards a common mission and with the purpose of creating
something good for society was important in terms of strengthening group identity. Another outcome
of the teamwork incited by Minecraft was the opportunity to make new friends, and for a number of
youth the interest to engage more actively in other forms of community work was triggered. With the
help of Minecraft, youth experienced that they could seize the role of change agents and help enabling
the kind of change they wished to see in society. This way, many youth, especially men, appreciated
Minecraft for empowering them to utilize their time and skills for doing something good for society,
rather than just ‘roaming around’. A participant describes:
“At first I just wanted to play the game but then as time passed it got me engaged in so many other ways, for
example how we can bring change and new things to that area. It was a about producing change and being
the change we want to see. That was a big motivator” (Male university student. Interview 19).
4.6 Expectations and tensions
Youth’s expectations on the implementation process are a potential area of controversy and tension.
NGO officials voiced that youth may expect big things and that this may create disappointment and
distrust, especially as only some design suggestions will be endorsed due to budget limitations, social
desirability and urban form. A number of youth thought of their design as feasible to implement,
whereas an equally large number of youth had more moderate expectations. In the words of an NGOofficial:
11
“Most of the designs were not compatible with field conditions. They would be too expensive to build.
Youth, including myself, got overexcited. There are no limitations to what you can build Minecraft – there is
no budget reality” (Male NGO officer. Interview 5).
A number of workshop participants, both professionals and youth, experienced a tension between
embracing creativity and the unknown budget reality of the whole revitalization project. On the one
hand, many youth felt that it would be desirable with more information about budget issues, and, on
the other, they feared that having such information could compromise creativity. In the view of NGO
officials, tension could also arise because of a mismatch between youth expectations and the time
frame for implementing the project. An NGO official also drew attention to the fact that when
designing in Minecraft you are not limited by urban form meaning that many design suggestions may
be impossible to construct because of the physical terrain. Designing in Minecraft also illustrated the
delicate balance between supporting cultural preservation as opposed to innovation. Whereas all youth
recognized the important of preserving important aspects of culture, some youth felt that there was a
big gap in understanding between the different groups and that addressing this gap would be both
necessary and challenging. A lot of times, youth felt that the feedback of community leaders was
focused towards discussing the importance of tradition rather than also looking at other essential
aspects, for some youth a source of disappointment. A student explains:
“We didn’t share the same perceptions of the area. Its original meaning has been forgotten by our generation.
The area has not been used for such a long time other than for waste dumping. […] Community leaders
wanted us to add more traditional things and focus in our designs. In one way this is good, but we also need
to embrace modernity and look at what youth think is exciting and relevant for the future” (Female university
student. Interview 12).
Like youth, community leaders also felt that there was a gap in interest between the two groups:
“Youth are busy with their own style – with modern things. We had to explain the meaning of our culture
that was not very present in the designs. We also had to explain about traditional building patterns. Youth are
losing ground with tradition. They don’t know about it anymore” (Male community leader. Interview 10).
Trust in the process and in the municipality was another key concern for a number of youth who
expressed a fear for an implementation failure. This fear was partly a consequence of the existing lack
of public management and a feeling of being neglected, as well as a reflection of the very limited
involvement of the municipality in the workshop. In the words of a participant:
“I don’t think the new park will be built. I don’t trust the municipality. We have to organize and send people
there every week in order for something to happen” (Male university student. Interview 6).
5. Discussion and conclusions
Given the marginalized position of youth in decision making, organizations and governments should
establish innovative procedures, projects and services that facilitate for and encourage youth to
actively contribute knowledge and perspectives to policy making (OECD 1992). As a response to this
need, this study has examined the use of the computer game Minecraft as a citizen participation tool to
strengthen youth involvement in urban design and decision making in Kirtipur, Nepal. The study
shows that Minecraft 1) increased youth interest for urban design, 2) provided a new venue for youth
to influence the political agenda and frame policy issues related to urban design, 3) helped youth to
develop important skills and networks, and 4) that existing institutional arrangements and digital skills
influenced individuals’ representation, participation and voice. In the below paragraphs these insights
are elaborated to increase understanding of the use of Minecraft as a citizen participation tool as well
as of possible social impacts.
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First, addressing the marginalized position of any group in governance requires understanding of the
mechanisms that may incite group engagement (Lowndes et al. 2006). ICT is becoming an important
life style factor for an increasing number of youth and their interest in embedding new technology in
their daily life is often higher than among the average public. This means that an increasing number of
youth on a daily basis make decisions about everyday life with the help of technology
(Voxburner/YouGov 2014). As illustrated in this study, organizations and governments can capture
the interest of youth to engage in political deliberation by embracing ICT and by learning about how
young people value and use (or aspire to use) technology. With regard to Europe and the US, the
opportunity to use ICT to develop new incentive mechanisms is increasingly important given concerns
over a reduction in civic engagement among youth (Bakker and de Vreese 2011; Abrahamsson 2013).
At the same time, there is lack of scientific knowledge about what procedural challenges and social
conflicts that ICT-based participation tools, including gamification, may generate.
Second, designing in Minecraft allowed youth to discuss and consider the merits of various urban
design alternatives as well as visualize their aspirations and needs for a wider audience. As the design
and visualization process helped to bring in new and different types of information to the discussion,
the participants could explore and develop their interests and perspectives, and to some extent call
these into question. The opportunity for youth to visualize their interests and express visionary ideas in
Minecraft was experienced as instrumental in facilitating youth participation. Drawing on Latour
(1996) and Mosse (2004), visualization can be instrumental in framing how individuals and the public
perceive and communicate about reality, thus essential in establishing value and prescribing certain
solutions and policy orientations. The discursive power that stems from the ability to influence how
information is presented is particularly important in participation processes as they require the
participants to not only negotiate, but also develop common meanings (Huxham and Vangen 2005).
By providing youth with the opportunity to frame and convey information to officials and expert, to
some degree influence public opinion, and communicate with other citizens, we think that the use of
Minecraft may serve an important democratic function by offering a way to address the citizenship
deficit (Nabatchi 2010) among youth.
With that said, many youth called for a more genuine dialogue between themselves, community
leaders and officials as well as broader community participation to further improve learning between
different groups. Whereas Minecraft was recognized to create some new, common ground for youth
and community leaders, additional deliberation mechanisms were called for to start bridging
generational knowledge gaps and build consensus about urban design. As emphasized by Wang
(2002), the use of multiple participation methods is positively correlated with stakeholder consensus,
responsiveness and trust in experts and authorities. This stresses the importance of looking at how
ICT-based participation tools can be combined with other deliberation methods to support the
emergence of principled agreement, build trust among participants and produce outcomes with
widespread public acceptability. However, even though designing in Minecraft did not achieve to
transform or reconcile divergent preferences, discussion around youth’s visualizations generated new
understanding among the participating groups, and perhaps also new tolerance for opposing views
because individuals were pushed to think beyond their own self-interest (Nabatchi 2010). Seen from a
community-wide perspective, this could lead to a greater concern for others (Cooke 2000; Gutmann &
Thompson 2004).
Third, perhaps equally important as the ability of youth to participate in urban design and decision
making was the opportunity to develop new action-oriented and intrinsic skills. Action-oriented skills
are skills that help individuals to efficaciously contribute to social change (Fisher 2006). Whereas
intrinsic skills refer to intangible impact resulting from participation, such as a sense of personal
fulfillment, heightened self-worth, or a stronger identification with one’s community (Fisher 2006).
The deliberative process that emerged when designing in Minecraft encouraged youth to experiment
with and develop more holistic understandings of their surrounding environment, speaking in public
with greater confidence and build new social networks. Many individuals also emphasized that
designing in Minecraft helped them to cultivate skills such as eloquence and imagination. Mastering
13
such skills is essential for any individual to achieve personal goals, engage in critical thinking and
contribute to social and political change. Such skills could also have a positive impact on social
cohesion by increasing relational bonds between community members and by improving
understanding of diversity. This suggests that ICT may not only provide critical resources for
participation processes, but also foster important skills and networks from which resources for civic
engagement can be drawn (Vitak et al. 2011; Gursoy 2014; Dolnicar and Fortunati 2014).
Forth, citizen participation is always constrained by a series of political, social, economic, and
individual factors (Yang and Pandey 2011). Participation processes therefore need to be carefully
designed and implemented to manage power dynamics and avoid causing disappoint among
participants, or an erosion of trust (Adams 2004). In Nepal, different forms of gender-based
discrimination make the society unjust and unequal in many respects (UNDP 2014). When using
Minecraft as a participation tool differences in digital skills linked to gender have a significant impact
on group dynamics and participants’ ability to participate in the design and visualization process. As
shown in this study, young men are at an advantageous position to use a tool such as Minecraft to
increase their voice. Young women often have fewer opportunities for learning about and using ICT
because of deeply entrenched gender roles and the division of labor within the household, often
constraining young women to the domestic sphere. There is a risk that initiatives that use ICT as
participation tools end up engaging the easily recruited – young men who are reasonably comfortable
with using ICT, while it may be more difficult to recruit female participants. Considering reports about
low levels of female participation in science, technology and innovation even in the wealthiest nations
(OWSD 2012), this risk is probably valid beyond Nepal where it manifests in the predominantly male
gender of workshop participants. Raising the interest of females to use ICT by designing Minecraft is
therefore an important impact in terms of capacity building and bridging the gendered digital divide
(even if at a small scale). There is a need to actively consider how power dynamics associated with,
for example, gender and digital knowledge influence how women and men can participate in design
and decision making (Forester 2009), especially when utilizing a tool such as Minecraft. Without such
consideration the use of ICT risks reproducing or even strengthening the position of more powerful
groups. Organizations that use ICT to encourage and facilitate participation processes therefore have
to think extra carefully about which participants are recruited as well as design participation processes
which are highly inclusive and can engage diversity productively (Irvin and Stansbury 2004; Bryson et
al. 2012). Without such consideration the potential of ICT to promote democratic outcomes will be
seriously undermined (Min 2010). In relation to this, we call for more research on how ICT-based
participation tools and gamification are adopted by different demographic groups.
Last, the power of a technology like Minecraft to cultivate eloquence and imagination may also,
paradoxically enough, be its Achilles heel by raising participants’ expectation level on outcomes and
the capacity of officials or informal leaders to mobilize support for youth’s design proposals. Another
possibly negative outcome is that the tool itself is so powerful in creating attractive visualizations of a
possible future that it is seen as the ‘final’ outcome and not as a proposal for further discussion.
Without careful communication about resources, divergent interests, time frames and physical
constraints, participation tools like Minecraft may lead to disillusionment among citizens and reinforce
the disconnect between citizens and their government (Adams 2004). This emphasizes the need for
organizations and governments to openly acknowledge and share where uncertainty exists and provide
clarity about the external environment affecting decision making and implementation outcomes
(Friend and Hickling 2005; Bryson et al. 2012). It also stresses the need for research on the interplay
between technology and participants’ perceptions of process outcomes to improve understanding
about potential social impacts of ICT-based citizen participation tools. Likewise, we identify a need
for studying how gamification influences participants’ perceptions of urban space.
14
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Appendix A: List of Interviewees
1. NGO officer, male, workshop participant
2. Youth representative from Kirtipur, male, workshop participant
3. Youth representative from Kirtipur, male, workshop participant
4. Youth representative from Kirtipur, male, workshop participant
5. NGO officer, male, workshop participant
6. Youth representative from Kirtipur, male, workshop participant
7. Youth representative from Kirtipur, female, workshop participant
8. Youth representative from Kirtipur, female, workshop participant
9. Community leader from Kirtipur, male, workshop participant
10. Community leader in Kirtipur, male, continuously involved in the revitalization project
11. NGO officer, female, workshop participant
12. Youth representative, not from Kirtipur, female, workshop participant
13. Youth representative from Kirtipur, female, workshop participant
14. Youth representative from Kirtipur, male, workshop participant
15. NGO officer, male, workshop participant
16. Youth representative from Kirtipur, male, workshop participant
17. Youth representative from Kirtipur, male, workshop participant
18. Youth representative from Kirtipur, male, workshop participant
19. Youth representative from Kirtipur, male, workshop participant
20. Local official, male, workshop participant
21. Women’s group from Kirtipur, two of four women participated in the workshop at the last day
22. Youth representative from Kirtipur, female, workshop participant
23. Youth representative from Kirtipur, male, workshop participant
24. Youth representative, not from Kirtipur, male, workshop participant
Appendix B: Semi-structured interview templet
(All questions in bold very covered. Follow-up questions depended on the reply of the interviewee.)
1. Can you describe the Minecraft workshop?
- What was you motivation to participate in the workshop?
- What were your expectations on the workshop?
- Had you ever played Minecraft before?
2. Did Minecraft influence the ability of your group to communicate and visualize common
interests?
- Was this your first opportunity to express these interests, or have you been involved in other
participation processes?
- How would you describe the atmosphere within your group and between the groups? Competitive or
collaborative?
3. Did you learn new things?
- Do you think that the workshop led to a better understanding of other people and the community?
- Did you gain any other new skills?
4. Do you think that building with Minecraft improved youth involvement in decision making?
- Can you describe how you feel that you had an impact?
- Was Minecraft central in this process?
- Did you feel that the other groups listened to your ideas?
5. Do you feel that building with Minecraft affected your trust in the Kirtipur municipality and
other youth? (unchanged/positive/negative impact)
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- Do you think that this is a feeling that you will bring with you after the workshop?
- Does the workshop change how you view the other youth/community groups?
6. Did Minecraft improve your ability to express important viewpoints?
- Was it easier to express your opinions through the game or was the game a limitation?
- Did you feel that you in fact had very limited opportunities to express your views?
- Was it an exciting or unpleasant experience to express your views in front of the other participants?
- Do you think that the Minecraft workshop will affect whether or not you express your viewpoints in
the future?
7. Do you feel that people with more computer skills had more influence?
- Can you describe the impact of people’s different computer skills?
8. Did you think that age and gender influenced participants’ involvement?
- Can you described in what way you noticed that age and gender had an impact?
- Did you feel that your age and gender affected your contribution?
10. Do you think that Minecraft made it easier or more difficult to create a dialogue?
- Can you describe how the Minecraft models influenced the discussion?
11. From your perspective, what was the most important outcome of the workshop?
20