How games become heritage : A case study of cultural heritage production in practices of Play Beyond Play at Tekniska museet

This research explores games as cultural heritage. The purpose of this study is to contribute with knowledge about how games as cultural heritage is made. The study seeks answers to which principal museum practices that are being carried out in the work with games as cultural heritage and what constitutes them. Furthermore this study explains how these practices influences the making of games as cultural heritage. The analysis has been carried out on Play Beyond Play, a game exhibition made at Tekniska museet in Stockholm 2018, where practices is being understood and analyzed from a practice theory perspective with the use of games as boundary objects. The empiric data was collected through semi-structured qualitative interviews with people working with the content of the exhibition and an place-based observation of the exhibition itself. The concept of ”anchoring practices” has been used as an analythic method to find and sort which principal practices that were carried out. The analysis resulted in six principal practices in the work of knowledge and mediation of games as techinchal development, the role of playablity, the matter of thinking ctitically, the effect of practical limitations and possibilities, the implementation and use of research, and the certification of games as cultural heritage. These practices influence the making of games as cultural heritage by defining games, how knowledge about games should be carried out and why games is important as cultural heritage through the location, role and area of focus at Tekniska museet. The study contributes with explanations and reinforces the connection between practices and the use of objects to create and mediate knowledge about games, where the knowledge carried out is affected by the context where it is being created through a longer period of time. This is a two years master’s thesis in Museum and Cultural Heritage Studies