The dynamics of play - back to the basics of playing

Bibliographic Data

ID5113674
AuthorsJ Holst (0000-0002-5949-1727, Universidad San Jorge, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume6
Issue1
Pages85-95
Publication date2017-01-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal of Play (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2159-4937 • E-ISSN: 2159-4953
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/21594937.2017.1288383
OpenAlexW2588200485
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited11

In his seminal work Homo ludens the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga laid out the pieces for a theory of play rooted in anthropological and cultural analysis, but he did not gather the pieces into a systematic account of the dynamics of play. Starting out from Huizinga's observations of a common pattern in how play is designated and expressed in different languages, the paper argues that we need a deeper phenomenological analysis of what goes on at the most basic level of playing in order to draw out the specific characteristics of play. The paper bases its phenomenological analysis on Hans-Georg Gadamer's condensed reflection on play as an on-going, alternating movement to-and-fro, observable in many kinds of play, and it proposes to tap deeper into the dynamics of play with the aim of offering a systematic investigation of little-explored facets of playing, primarily displaying, testing and risking

Dynamics · Interpretative phenomenological analysis · Reflection · Child Therapy and Development · Embodied and Extended Cognition · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism