Play It Till You Make It: The Potential of Playful Role Enactment to Foster Digital Agency

Technology use is always gendered: ideas about a person’s abilities shape their approach to technologies and thus their digital agency. Yet, approaches towards fostering digital agency often focus only on competencies, falling short of accounting for the relationality and situatedness of agency. Based on a survey with 411 persons, we assessed gendered stereotype threat and agency-related experiences. We designed a workshop concept for providing spaces for agency exploration. We developed roles that address various gender-related stereotypes and embedded the workshop in a playful sci-fi setting. Through participant observations and group interviews, we analysed its potential. Our results show the relevance of understanding gendered notions and the need for a nuanced understanding of digital agency beyond dualistic thinking. Addressing stereotypes in digital agency must acknowledge the sociality and relationality of gender. Moreover, gendered aspects of identity can even serve as a basis for playful agency enactment and exploration, particularly through making.