Understandings of play
tional interactions and sensuous dispositions’
play frame; Sutton-Smith (1999) suggests that
(Lorimer 2005: 84).
children can recreate a parallel world alongside the real one, one that is either less mundane or
Given the right environmental conditions,
less scary.
children’s play can appear anywhere and everywhere (Ward 1990) and will involve the use
Sobel (2002: 39) describes visiting a playhouse
of everyday spaces and the unremarkable and
under the shade of a tamarind tree in Carri-
mundane materials that they find. Rather than
acou, West Indies:
requiring a specific designated location, a play space is created through children’s shifting and
Around the outside, defining the walls,
dynamic interactions with each other and the
were carefully placed branches of broom, a
materials and symbols present in any space;
resiny shrub used for sweeping. There were a
children’s performance of play both takes and
flattened cardboard box “mattress”, a three-
makes place.
legged chair, and a box of doll paraphernalia. The feeling was spare and a bit destitute … But the girls were proud of their space.
Oke et al.’s (1999) study of children’s play in
Valerie swept it clean with a broom and
Mumbai notes the ways in which children
made sure I had somewhere to sit.
appropriate space and materials including ‘plastic bags, bottles, rings, wooden planks,
Sobel notes that the ‘real’ living conditions of
broken coconut shells, empty tins and boxes,
the children were dilapidated and disordered
thread/string, scraps of paper, candy/choco-
and ‘it felt like the playhouse … [was] their
late wrappers, etc.’ Even though children
means of making order in a chaotic world’.
may be engaged in domestic chores, or contributing to local economic production,
For children whose daily lives are chaotic,
they will still find some way of playing (Katz
unpredictable or violent, play may represent a
2004), even in something as apparently mun-
time–space in which they can establish a sense
dane as a ‘child helping her mother wash
of order and predictability through repetitive
vessels or clothes lingers during the task at
play patterns – a way of coping with envi-
hand, playing with the water, splashing it
ronmental disturbance. Over time, these may
with her hands or feet’ (Oke et al. 1999: 212).
become stereotypical, limited and limiting, focused on immediate survival but closing down openness to other possibilities. Trying
It is important to note that the restructuring of
to prevent children from performing adaptive
the ‘real’ world through play can create as well
stereotypic acts, without addressing the envi-
as subvert order. Lindquist (2001) notes how
ronmental causes of such behaviour, may
the powerless can become powerful within the
actually cause further harm (Burghardt 2005).
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