Did you or someone you know ever encounter a wild animal face-to-face in a place where you feel it ‘should not have happened’? Maybe it has been a wild boar ploughing through the fringes of your garden, a marten chewing on your car’s electric cables or a gaggle of geese populating a sunbathing lawn in your favourite park? While potentially annoying it might not have been particularly dangerous or costly to you or your acquaintances.

There are, however, multiple areas in the world where people and wildlife meet and compete for space and food with severe consequences for both parties. Just ponder about people living close to a national park in India home to Asian tigers or elephants tramping over crops and endangering humans. Tiger or elephant attacks are not uncommon and affect people and their livestock and other property. On the other hand, the expansion of human dwellings into the sanctuaries drives the already rare animals at the edge of extinction. Micro-insurances are one potential mitigating option to allow for a more peaceful co-existence of people and wildlife. They are, however, complex and limited in supply.

In this workshop Anna, Andy and Prokriti introduce you to a board game they have recently developed that aims at explaining the benefits of micro-insurances in the context of human-wildlife-conflict (HWC) to first-time buyers. The board game intends to mimic some decisions local smallholders and pastoralists must make on a regular basis to help protect their lives and livelihoods.

They invite you to join forces with them to test-play their game prototype and value your feedback. They believe your participation will make an important contribution to its completion. They aim to use the final version of the game during focus groups/field experiments in later stages of their research project.

You do not need to be an expert on Human Wildlife Conflict by the way. Some general interest in games will suffice. You do not need to bring anything with you except some good mood. The project team would like to thank you for your time with a small voucher after the event.

Developing the game prototype has demanded quite some time investment by the project team who owns the respective copyrights. We would thus like to politely ask you not to share game details beyond the circle of workshop attendees. Thank you for your understanding.

The workshop will be delivered by Dr Anna Dubiel from King’s Business School and Andy Merritt from Somerset House Studios, who collaborate as part of the King's x Somerset House Studios artist-researcher programme. Their project, Live and Let Live, will develop an interactive boardgame to help explain how micro-insurance to cover the cost of wildlife-related damage to crops or property can help humans and wildlife to live together in greater harmony in countries with frequent instances of human-wildlife contact.

Bios

Dr Anna Dubiel is Lecturer in Marketing (Assistant Professor) at King’s Business School, King’s College London, UK. She received her Ph.D. from the WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management, Vallendar, Germany. Her research interests lie in the field of international innovation and R&D management. She has published in the Journal of Product Innovation Management, International Marketing Review, Industrial Marketing Management, and contributed to edited volumes of the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA).

Andy Merritt is one half of Something & Son who explore social and ecological issues via everyday scenarios criss-crossing the boundaries between the visual arts, architecture and activism. Through permanent installations, functional sculptures and public performance that provide a framework or foundation for communities and ecologies to build upon. Works mimic the everyday to act as familiar starting point and then take the subject into new realms. 

Dr Prokriti Mukherji is Lecturer of Marketing at King’s Business School, King’s College London, UK. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA. Her research interests include marketing strategy, health and pharmaceutical marketing, high-technology marketing, peer to peer marketing, and issues pertinent to emerging economies. She has published in the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Product Innovation Management, the Journal of Business Research, and Journal of Advertising Research among others.

This workshop is part of King’s Edge, a hub of activities and events that seek to inspire university experience and enrich students’ life at King's.