Child's Play :Myth, Mimesis and Make-Believe - Explorations in Anthropology

5.00 ( 1 Ratings by Goodreads)
Child's Play

Child's Play :Myth, Mimesis and Make-Believe - Explorations in Anthropology

(Author)
5.00 (1 Ratings by Goodreads)
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Published: 1 March, 1998
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Description

This innovative book finally takes seriously the need for anthropologists to produce in-depth ethnographies of children's play. In examining the subject from a cross-cultural perspective, the author argues that our understanding of the way children transform their environment to create make-believe is enhanced by viewing their creations as oral poetry. The result is a richly detailed ‘thick description' of how pretence is socially mediated and linguistically constructed, how children make sense of their own play, how play relates to other imaginative genres in Huli life, and the relationship between play and cosmology. Informed by theoretical approaches in the anthropology of play, developmental and child psychology, philosophy and phenomenology and drawing on ethnographic data from Melanesia, the book analyzes the sources for imitation, the kinds of identities and roles emulated, and the structure of collaborative make-believe talk to reveal the complex way in which children invoke their experiences of the world and re-invent them as types of virtual reality. Particular importance is placed on how the figures of the ogre and trickster are articulated. The author demonstrates that while the concept of ‘imagination' has been the cornerstone of Western intellectual traditions from Plato to Postmodernism, models of child fantasy play have always intruded into such theorizing because of children's unique capacity to throw into relief our understanding of the relationship between representation and reality.
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More Details

Type Book
ISBN13 9781859739181
ISBN10 1859739180
Number Of Pages 324
Item Weight 453 g
Publisher / Reseller Taylor & Francis Ltd
Format paperback
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Media Reviews

'Goldman's book is a significant contribution to the anthropological study of play. His examination of Huli play is thorough and includes a unique and systematic examination of naturally occuring play uninfluenced by adult presence. Goldman's book includes an extensive review of the literature, thus allowing the reader the benefit of placing the study within the context of the relatively ignored literature of children's play ... L. R. Goldman's book will stand out in the literature as a stimulating and noteworthy work.'American Anthropologist'Goldman's culture, the Huli, is ripe for study, and the analysis offered is excellent... Highly enjoyable.'Child's Play is an excellent addition to the growing number of rich empirical studies of children's lives and peer cultures. It demonstrates the importance of entering children's worlds and gaining their perspectives for understanding childhood and children's socialization in ways 'like you can't imagine'.'APA Revie

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Author's Bio

Laurence R. Goldman University of Queensland

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