ABSTRACT
While play is a well-considered phenomenon in childhood, it is largely ignored in old age. However, ethnographic case studies reveal that play is present as both a mode of experience and an activity across the life course. This chapter asks what is to be gained analytically by situating play as a topic of inquiry for life course studies. To do so, we begin first by showing that play's association with children in the West stems from the influence of developmental psychology, which situates play as a life stage out of which children must age. We suggest that Western developmentalist assumptions behind play inappropriately presume that it is an un-evolved activity that is undertaken by the immature. We then turn to cross-cultural case studies of play in childhood and old age to show that play is, instead, a powerful and contingent social experience across the life course that can instigate social solidarity, cultural transmission, and transgressive freedom. In doing so, we suggest that there is much to be learned by ageing scholars from childhood anthropologists who study play and playfulness, and vice versa, including that the meaning of play is socially shaped by context and by age. We end by highlighting that the phenomenon of play underscores the need for anthropology to undertake comparison not just cross-culturally, but also across the life course.
