Playing the Archive: From the Opies to the Digital Playground revisits the trailblazing work of Iona and Peter Opie, who documented children’s playground games, rhymes, and traditions in mid-20th century Britain, and brings their research into the digital age. Through a major new study, this book explores how children’s play has evolved, drawing on fresh ethnographic research, digital storytelling, and interactive media to compare past and present-day playground cultures.
By making the Opie Archive publicly accessible and involving children through digital interfaces, the project opens up new ways of understanding play as a dynamic, ever-changing practice. The chapters offer novel theoretical insights into the shifting landscapes of play, considering the role of archives and digital media in shaping children’s cultural expressions. Playing the Archive questions stereotypes about childhood in the digital era, positioning children as active creators of their own play cultures.
Table of Contents
List of figures
List of contributors
Preface
Acknowledgements
1 Play: archive, interface, repertoire
Andrew Burn
PART I: The people in the archive
2 Folklore, friendships and reciprocity: hearing the epistolary relationships in the multi-vocal archive of Iona and Peter Opie
Catherine Bannister, Julia C. Bishop and Alison Somerset-Ward
3 Hopscotching the Opies: playing (with) the archive in Bloomsbury
Michael Eades
4 Half-belief and ‘belief play’ in the haunted primary school: children’s supernatural play in a digital era
Catherine Bannister, Julia Bishop and Kate Cowan
PART II: Capturing play
5 Research as play
Kate Cowan, John Potter and Valerio Signorelli
6 Play and digital media: laminates, frames and lifeworlds
John Potter and Kate Cowan
7 From interfaces to memories: re-constructing and transmitting memories of play
Valerio Signorelli, Leah Lovett, Andy Hudson-Smith and Duncan Hay
PART III: Play in space and time
8 Spaces for play: beyond streets and playground
Helen Woolley and Alison Somerset Ward
9 Meshwork, playlines and palimpsests: a tracing of play over time
Jackie Marsh and Julia Bishop
10 Crossing the generational divide in play: individual and collective memories in conversation
Julia Bishop
PART IV: Future play
11 Ludic time travel: from the archive to the digital playground and the Play Observatory
John Potter and Kate Cowan
Index