Everyday Playfulness: A New Approach to Children's Play and Adult Responses to It

by Stuart Lester, Jeremy Lester (Foreword by), Wendy Russell (Foreword by)

Overview

Seeing play as an important and vital element of life for children and adults alike, this book addresses the ways in which practitioners take account of and act responsibly with moments of children's play and playfulness.

Working with the Playwork Principles, the book draws on alternative concepts to traditional approaches, including ideas from materialist and posthuman philosophy and human geography, to explore playing as process rather than product. Topics covered include play and wellbeing, play and space, and the micro-politics of playing, critical cartography and adult account-ability and response-ability. It concludes by considering the implications for professional practice and offering ways that professionals can develop practices that maintain and co-create favourable conditions in which children's play can flourish.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781784503260
Publisher:	Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Publication date:	12/19/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Stuart Lester worked on adventure playgrounds in the northwest of England for many years before going into playwork training. In 2005 he joined the University of Gloucestershire part time as Senior Lecturer in Play and Playwork, while also working independently.

Wendy Russell has worked in children's play since the mid 1970s. She collaborated with Stuart Lester on many projects and worked alongside him as Senior Lecturer in Play and Playwork at the University of Gloucestershire during his time there.

Jeremy Lester has taught Philosophy and Politics for more than 30 years, first at the University of Leeds and then at the University of Reading. In recent years he has lived and worked as a Visiting Professor at universities in France and Italy.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements; Foreword: Jeremy Lester; Foreword: Wendy Russell; Preamble; 1. An Introduction; 2. Play: A Different Line Of Enquiry; 3. Some Thoughts On Play And 'Well-Being'; 4. Play And Space; 5. The Micro-Politics Of Playing; 6. Cartography And Account-Ability; 7. Critical Cartography And Response-Ability; 8. And Ending That Is Not An Ending; References

Editorial Reviews

This is an extraordinary book which encourages you to think differently about children, their play and playwork practice. It is a joy to take a nomadic wandering and wondering walk with Stuart Lester paying attention to small moments of play and playfulness. Covering a wide and diverse range of perspectives Stuart's is a voice that sparkles.

John Fitzpatrick and Bridget Handscomb

In this skillfully-edited and wonderfully-crafted book, Stuart Lester outlines a critical cartography of play. Weaving empirical and applied insights together with theories of urbanity, enchantment, politics, space and far more besides, he offers no less than an exciting, open-ended, generative and typically generous theorisation of play. Ultimately, this book should interest anyone who wants to know more about why else, how else, and where else play matters.

Peter Kraftl

This book is a 'must read' for those working/researching/studying the field of play/child/childhood. Stuart Lester puts into play Deleuzian posthumanist theories and in so doing he intellectually and practically departs from standard accounts of play and (professional) practice. The book exemplifies how change must and can occur so that normative, hierarchical and inequitable systems of organisation that currently circumscribe children's play can both be resisted and reconfigured.

Liz Jones