Play, childhood, and playthings in Bor, South Sudan, 2009-2010

Bibliographic Data

ID4485877
AuthorsBrendan Tuttle (0000-0003-4370-7412, The Graduate Center, CUNY, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume7
Issue2
Pages161-187
Publication date2018-05-04
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal of Play (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2159-4937 • E-ISSN: 2159-4953
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/21594937.2018.1495992
OpenAlexW2884340528
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited15

This essay contributes to the comparative ethnography of play by reporting on children's descriptions of play in Bor, South Sudan. By situating play within the socio-political and economic structures that organize Bor Town society it describes children's everyday lives, critical imaginations, and experiences in a place where playfulness has been neglected by a focus on armed violence. By attending to the playful side of children's lives in Bor, this essay does not set out to minimize the insecurities that people all ages face there, but rather to counter ideas of Dinka society as particularly prone to violence – an idea that has often served to elide the role of governments, petroleum companies, and international NGOs and financial institutions in entrenching inequality and instability in South Sudan by attributing violence to local cultural forces

Ethnography · Focus group · Inequality · Political instability · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Children's Rights and Participation · Gender Studies · Law · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare