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

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.