Play it our way

In traditional outdoor games, such as tag and hideandseek, children play in groups, and typically changes to the rules are negotiated fluidly, without disrupting the game flow. In contrast, games that are supported by interactive technology are usually rather static, not allowing for easy adaption towards the children's narrative and desired rules. We present an iterative design process in which 65 children aged 512 participated in different iterations, concluding with the design of GameBaker. GameBaker is an application that allows children to modify game rules for Head Up Games, outdoor collocated games supported by interactive handheld devices. We show how children: understand how setting different game rules allows them to modify the game, are able to relate these to how the game is played, and enjoy doing so. This research paves the way towards allowing children to take control of outdoor game technology, to create their own variation of games as they have done for centuries in traditional games

Famine in Bengal: a comparison of the 1770 famine in Bengal and the 1897 famine in Chotanagpur

Famine research has gained ground in both Asia and Africa in recent times and it is well known that British India experienced a series of subsistence crises particularly in the latter half of the nineteenth century. However, analyses of these famines by historians have rarely included a study of environmental changes. A knowledge of the ecological basis of different peasant economies is crucial to an understanding of the capacity of certain communities to withstand drought and other famine related hazards. It is argued in this article that modernisation and commercialisation were accompanied by pauperisation and vulnerability to famine in large parts of India but the process affected regions differently as the evidence from Bengal shows. It was only by the later nineteenth century that the drastic effects of taxation, modernisation and ecological transformation caught up with outlying areas of Bengal and Bihar resulting in a permanent destabilisation of tribal society in the region. That these processes had occurred in central Bengal over a century previously emphasises the fact that the transition from pre-modern to modern was affected in India, differentially, and a regional focus reveals the uneven nature of development, local resistance to the forces of modernisation and the survival of husbandry techniques and coping strategies in times of scarcity that withstood the threats of modernisation well into the nineteenth century