You already know about play
Why keep saying "play!"
The word is not important.
We used to climb trees.
Having spent the last year trying to visualise and define Playful Research, I wonder if we've been coming at it all wrong.
OK, not all wrong. Necessary stuff. But potentially stuff that doesn't quite get to the heart of what we're trying to say.
I've had a lot of conversations recently with our research team about our proposed methodology, and whilst there have been use cases for it, there seems to be a generally lingering question - how do I do play in my research? Is this playful? Am I doing "play" right? There seems to be a general feeling that play can be implemented in a way that is "correct" - which of course, means that people are worried about getting play wrong.
Part of this, I suppose, is self-inflicted. We have spent a year digging around in theory, trying to work with the original proposal to design a "methodology of play" that works for everyone. We have been trying to share what we have learned, and what our understanding of play is, and how we might use it in research. This, coupled with the understanding of play as a central part of the wider Medicine Without Doctors project, has led to people trying to "do" play.
This, I think, might be where the disconnect is happening. The overwhelming majority of people understand play; not academically, but humanly - the in-the-moment feeling and doing of playing. So, we already know play in our own unique and individual ways. If that's true, instead of trying to tell people what we mean by play, perhaps we need to support people to recognise when and how they are playful; what that looks and feels like; the conditions that allow that to happen. Then it's not about people trying to add play into their research, but nurture and practice their play as part of their research.
Perhaps promoting a practice of play is not about telling people what play is, but reminding them that they already know.