BUILDING TIES IN A STRATIFIED SOCIETY

Abstract

BUILDING TIES IN A STRATIFIED SOCIETY is a collective action game that allows participants to experience how different social classes face both opportunities and constraints in securing their livelihoods through the construction of social networks. Participants receive a knot with six strands (length depends on their social stratum) and connect themselves with others by tying their strands to each other. A score is calculated for each participant, dependent on the type of connections he or she is able to establish. Connections with better-off categories have a higher value than those with poorer categories. The resulting network and the scores of the participants are analyzed during the debriefing. The game allows participants to assess critically the ways in which different social classes (also those at the lower end of the societal scale) exercise “agency” in the construction of their networks, although this agency may be constrained in various ways.