ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concept covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The main agenda of this book, however, exceeds the traditional question of what play is the studies turn the quest around and in the inverse direction. Play is good and should be optimized play is a plus-word. Play is what people do by practice. The practice of play is of special importance in the fields of pedagogy, planning, and technology. Three aspects of play have therefore aroused an especially intense interest: learning, space and place, and technology. These areas were therefore chosen as objects of critical research at the University of Southern Denmark. Educators, engineers, architects, and planners who work in these fields often presuppose play as an un-complicated positive activity. The anthropology of play informs the cultural relativity of definitions. The difference between play and game casts light on linguistic problems of definitions, too.
