Brian Sutton-Smith dared us to remain reflexive about our own research biases, to seek out our own blind spots as we search for truths about play. I write this introduction as I am reading Aaron Trammell's new book, The Privilege of Play: A History of Hobby Games, Race, and Geek Culture, recently published by New York University Press. By the time you read this column, another book on a related subject will also be out, Play and Social Justice: Equity, Advocacy, and Opportunity, edited by our friends Olga Jarrett, Vera Stenhouse, John Sutterby and Michael Patte, available through Peter Lang. These two fine books function as a set of lenses to view this issue's contributions, as reflective mirrored sunglasses.
Australian Duncan McDuie-Ra rolls in with ‘Play space in plain sight: Skateboarding and street trees in lockdown landscapes.’ Catherine Latimer, Karen Winter, and Katrina Lloyd offer ‘An exploration of outdoor play and wellbeing in Northern Irish Primary Schools.’ From Norway, Maja Reinamo-Olsson turns from outdoor access to the inclusion of children's perspectives as a priority with ‘“I Don't Think that It's Play, Because We Have to Play:” Norwegian Six-year-old Children's Understandings of Play When They Start Play in Primary School.’ Access and reflexive inclusion are two keys to making opportunities for play more equitable.
From the United Kingdom, Jonathan Steltzer brings us back to a controversial classic with ‘The Seriousness of Play: Johan Huizinga's Homo Ludens and the Demise of the Play-element.' For those seeking to reexamine the racism in Huizinga's work, see this author's introduction to the special issue on Yrjö Hirn published in this journal, The International Journal of Play, Volume 10.2. How do we reexamine not just utility, but our field's own prejudicial blind spots? One way forward is to make sure our research occurs in a wider range of locations with a greater number of coauthors. See this issue's ‘An Ecological Perspective on Children's Play with Digital Technologies in South Africa and the United Kingdom’ presented here by Fiona Scott, Jackie Marsh, Karin Murris, Dick Ng’ambi, Bo Stjerne Thomsen, Catherine Bannister, Julia Bishop, Kerryn Dixon, Theresa Giorza, Alexander Hetherington, Chanique Lawrence, Beth Nutbrown, Becky Parry, Joanne Peers, and Emilie Scholey.
At the same time, our field aims to find generalizable truths about play. Denmark's Jesper Falck Legaard presents, ‘The Wonder of Play.’ Annabelle Black Delfin and Wenjie Wang bring us ‘Influence of Pretend Technologies on Children's Cognitive Development in Symbolic Play’ from the United States. Here play research falls into an anti agist agenda. For Andrey Vyshedskiy and Edward Khokhlovich, research and advocacy meet with their study ‘Pretend Play Predicts Language Development in Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.’
Elizabeth Tucker offers her rereading of Sherry Turkle's Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet.
We will save our Memories and Reflections of Play for our next issue, a special collection of more than 50 reflective essays, IJP Issue 12.4. As always, the editors welcome your comments via email. [email protected]. [email protected], [email protected]. Let us really challenge ourselves and each other on and off the screen.
Finally, we wished to mark the passing of a long-time play advocate, researcher, and playworker, Bob Hughes. Penny Wilson honors his memory with a crowd-sourced essay here. Stop and take a moment to read some of Bob's many books on playwork. He reminds us that non-interference in children's play is itself a social justice issue.
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Correction Statement
This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.