Traffic boardgames and played mobilities

In this article, we examine ten traffic‑themed boardgames published in Finland between the 1950s and 1970s. We introduce our novel concept of played mobilities as an analytical category of imagined mobilities. The concept of played mobilities refers to the active and performative manners of imagining traffic within a framework suggested by any game but also to the potential ways a player can stretch and break a game’s established rules. Our study demonstrates how traffic games were specifically used to teach children and young people about how to behave within a traffic system that was primarily dictated by automobility. These games’ introduction was driven by an increase in the number of cars, changes in traffic regulations, and the rise in traffic accidents in Finland. However, these games also inspired an understanding of traffic as something playable and a highly individualist notion of participating in traffic. During the 1970s, the games increasingly acknowledged other forms of mobility as well. At the same time, their depictions of traffic shifted from futuristic sociotechnical imaginaries towards more realistic traffic scenarios and environments as the car-centric traffic system had, by then, transformed into a mundane aspect of everyday life for most Finns.