Thursday, December 10, 2009
An ecology of play
I was reading a publication of the Association for the Study of Play called Transactions at Play and thumbed my way to an article by Avigail Morris on the game of "Nine a Side Basketball" as played in the Kingdom of Tonga. The focus was on "a case study in negotiating gender roles." It was about how the women of Tonga - who spend most of their lives engaged in very genteel, feminine activities - adapted a game of competitive basketball to reflect their own values.
Aside from all the keen insights of the paper, and the fascinating study of how culture is reflected in sport, there was one of the things she said (Vol. 9, p. 25), almost in passing, that struck me as particularly poignant. "As in many other Pacific Islands," she writes, "international sport has replaced many of the traditional games played only a few generations ago."
Games disappear. One of my favorite sites, Street Play, has been devoted, for many years now, to saving at least the memory of stick ball, box ball, stoop ball - all those games that captured a whole culture of inner city life in the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s. Then there are the children's games I described in my article Near Myths, where I first publicly began to explore the idea that games are a form of literature, as profound as a theater piece, as culturally and psychologically relevant as a Shakespeare. Any of these games, as they disappear from the collective memory, become lost to us, and we become a little more lost without them.
I don't mean to appear recidivist. I welcome new games in any form - especially those that give us new opportunities to play. But until I encountered that observation about the passing away of traditional games, I don't think I properly mourned that loss. There's an ecology of play, whole species of games that at one time prosper and multiply, and later get displaced by the new. They are living things, cultural treasures that bring life and understanding, and their loss is ours.
We should play them again, some time. The old games. We should give them life again, from time to time. They were fun then, and they are as much fun now. And as relevant. And as deep. We should play them again, before they are gone, and something dies in us, forever.
from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith
Aside from all the keen insights of the paper, and the fascinating study of how culture is reflected in sport, there was one of the things she said (Vol. 9, p. 25), almost in passing, that struck me as particularly poignant. "As in many other Pacific Islands," she writes, "international sport has replaced many of the traditional games played only a few generations ago."
Games disappear. One of my favorite sites, Street Play, has been devoted, for many years now, to saving at least the memory of stick ball, box ball, stoop ball - all those games that captured a whole culture of inner city life in the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s. Then there are the children's games I described in my article Near Myths, where I first publicly began to explore the idea that games are a form of literature, as profound as a theater piece, as culturally and psychologically relevant as a Shakespeare. Any of these games, as they disappear from the collective memory, become lost to us, and we become a little more lost without them.
I don't mean to appear recidivist. I welcome new games in any form - especially those that give us new opportunities to play. But until I encountered that observation about the passing away of traditional games, I don't think I properly mourned that loss. There's an ecology of play, whole species of games that at one time prosper and multiply, and later get displaced by the new. They are living things, cultural treasures that bring life and understanding, and their loss is ours.
We should play them again, some time. The old games. We should give them life again, from time to time. They were fun then, and they are as much fun now. And as relevant. And as deep. We should play them again, before they are gone, and something dies in us, forever.
from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith
Labels: games
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