IMAGINATION: A Playbook was designed to materialize the recommendations set forth in Ruha Benjamin’s Imagination: A Manifesto by serving as a succinct and accessible instruction manual for “seeding an imagination grounded in solidarity” (Benjamin 8). Culled from an array of sources and spaces, the games and exercises in this playbook have been tested and proven effective for cooperatively engaging people from diverse identity backgrounds and cultural experiences.

The pedagogical power of play is undeniable. Through play we learn about ourselves, each other and develop cultural literacies while creating new worlds from that reservoir of knowledge. Most of these activities have been implemented in elementary and college classrooms, summer camp programs, and intergenerational fellowships. Others have been used in community organizing spaces, professional development trainings, and board meetings. Some have even been used as nonviolent direct action tactics. Almost none of the activities located within this manual are original as each has been shared, modified, and passed down across generations. Wherever I can, I attempt to recall the context in which I learned a specific game.

Directly aligning with Imagination: A Manifesto, the objective of each activity is twofold: 1) build people’s powers of speculation; 2) imagine tools & worlds that break with current social hierarchies.

Meeting both of these objectives will enable us–people who commit to be in authentic relationship with each other–to carve out those spaces “where energies of love and imagination are understood and respected as powerful social forces” in real time wherever we are (Benjamin 27).

Play is a way of placing everyone in dialogue with each other through the body, rather than through the word. The body contains histories of oppressive ideologies, and putting us in dialogue directly with and through our bodies seems to be, at least potently, more expedient toward the goal of liberation. A body is something we all have and share.

Play as a critical literacy within a culturally sustaining pedagogy preserves lifeworlds while creating the grounds for larger, societal lifeworlds that are rooted in love-based ethics. This playbook is the culmination of that which has been studied, practiced, facilitated, and enjoyed with love.

IMAGINATION PLAYBOOK

DR. ARIANA BRAIZER