A3 Refereed book chapter or chapter in a compilation book
Heritagization and heritage conflict: The finnish afrikan tähti board game and its change to contested heritage, 1951-2021
Authors: Sivula Anna, Suominen Jaakko
Editors: Mochocki, Michal
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Publication year: 2023
Book title : Heritage, Memory and Identity in Postcolonial Board Games
Journal name in source: Heritage, Memory and Identity in Postcolonial Board Games
First page : 90
Last page: 108
ISBN: 978-1-00-091803-8
eISBN: 978-1-00-335631-8
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003356318-7(external)
Web address : https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003356318-7/heritagization-heritage-conflict-anna-sivula-jaakko-suominen?context=ubx&refId=1cae8390-801b-48b1-9cc5-f61928df18c0(external)
A Finnish publisher Kuvataide released the Afrikan tähti (The Star of Africa) board game, designed by Kari Mannerla, in 1951. The game board layout was a drawn map of the African continent with depictive elements inspired by colonial adventure stories. Players’ objective was to discover the Star of Africa jewel and bring it back to the game's starting point. In Finland, Afrikan tähti sales reached a total of four million copies by 2013. In the framework of critical cultural heritage studies, we study the heritagization process of Afrikan tähti. How did it become a board game classic in Finland? How did the public reception of the game change? How did it become a subject of antiracist and postcolonial academic discussions? And finally, did this cultural heritage conflict affect African tähti's heritage value? Heritagization is a socio-cultural process of the identification of cultural heritage and the creation of cultural heritage value.
