The Listening Deck: Gamification for Ecosystemic Democracy

2025–2026

Researcher:

Ignacio Cardona

Institution:

Intendencia de Maldonado; Ambá;

Spatial Opportunity Lab (SOLAB); Wentworth Institute of Technology

Research Context:

Gran Parque Carapé, Maldonado, Uruguay

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The Listening Deck is a participatory planning tool developed to integrate more-than-human voices into spatial decision-making. Grounded in Ecosystemic Democracy and Ecological Diplomacy, it uses gamification to bring species, ecosystems, and ecological processes into territorial deliberation.

The deck includes 21 cards representing Non-Human, Productive, and Cultural Ecologies. Through role-playing, participants become diplomats for other actors—a developer may represent a Margay, a farmer a Ranita Mono—negotiating priorities from perspectives beyond their own. This “trans-engagement” transforms ecological knowledge into an experiential process of empathy and negotiation.

Participants organize cards by compatibility, conflict, and priority, revealing tensions and synergies between conservation and development. The resulting agreements inform Land Suitability Analysis and territorial planning, transforming gamification into an instrument of Ecological Diplomacy.