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[ecrea] Playfull Participation. Call for papers and practice-bases papers and projects

Mon Feb 23 16:38:58 GMT 2015




Conjunctions: Transdisciplinary Journal of Cultural Participation

I am happy to announce a double call for papers on "Playful Participation". This issue will not only include academic papers, but also practice-based papers and projects. It is our hope that this initiative will further the dialogue between academics and the many people who engage with participatory and playful processes and practices in their everyday life and work.


Call for papers: Playful Participation

Deadline: Papers must be submitted by August 7, 2015

Play is a powerful source in people’s encounters with their everyday life, surroundings and society. Furthermore, play is increasingly intertwined with a range of different fields, from learning, exercising and city planning to creative work relations. Identities are built through playful interactions with games (Sutton-Smith, 1997) and social media, playful learning engages students’ abilities and competencies, and organisations use play as a motor for innovation and engagements.

The attempts to utilise playful behaviour in cultural, educational as well as organisational contexts reveal tensions when rational social organisation meets forms of playful participation that are less bound by instrumental obligations. The tensions between play and socio-political constraints have been a central theme for artists, designers and architects throughout the 20^th century. The Dutch artist Constant Nieuwenhuis, for instance, worked on his utopian city, New Babylon, for over a decade. In New Babylon play was intended to liberate man from work and the capitalist constraints of everyday life. In a similar vein, Flanagan (2009) has shown how play and games have been used, as ‘critical play’, to disrupt and subvert systems of power and authority. In relation to the lucid city, Quintin Stevens has argued that play often involves ‘unfunctional, economically inefficient, impractical and socially unredemptive activities which are often unanticipated by designers, managers and other users’ (Stevens 2010). Following this, we draw on the notion of counterplay as a ludic or playful vitality that, as argued by Tom Apperley and Michael Dieter, holds transformative expressions and ‘speaks directly to the disruptive creation of the new through the reiterations of gaming’ (Apperley and Dieter 2010).

In this special issue we call for papers that investigate these inherent contradictions of playful participation, for instance by asking the fundamental question: What exactly is playful participation? But also: How might playful encounters motivate participation? To what extent can playful participation be utilised for e.g. cultural or educational purposes without losing sight of ‘being playful’? And how does playfulness challenge pre-established norms of participation? Papers might address questions of playful participation in relation to fields such as, but not limited to, playful culture, playful learning, playful cities and playful organisations.

8,000-word papers must be submitted by August 7, 2015. Please refer to www.conjunctions-tjcp.com <http://www.conjunctions-tjcp.com> for author guidelines.

Call for practice-based papers and projects: Playful Participation

Deadline: Practice-based papers must be submitted by August 7, 2015

/Conjunctions: Transdisciplinary Journal of Cultural Participation /aims to create a forum in which academics and practitioners can share reflections regarding the possibilities and difficulties involved in participatory practices. In this special issue we therefore seek practice-based papers and projects that report experiences with playful participation. Papers might report and document projects related to fields such as playful culture, playful learning, playful cities and playful organisations. Besides reporting on specific projects, the papers might discuss and reflect on how playfulness is utilised with or without success to motivate participation, as well as reflecting on how playful participation can be evaluated: When is playful participation successful?

Practice-based papers and projects can be in the form of 4,000-word papers or primarily visual documentation.


Please visit www.conjunctions-tjcp.com <http://www.conjunctions-tjcp.com>

All the best
Camilla

Camilla Møhring Reestorff
PhD, Assistant Professor
Dep. of Aesthetics and Communication
Aarhus University
Jens Chr. Skous Vej 2, 1485/536
8000 Aarhus C
(norcmr /at/ dac.au.dk) <mailto:(norcmr /at/ dac.au.dk)>

// Editor-in-chief of Conjunctions: Transdisciplinary Journal of Cultural Participation
www.conjunctions-tjcp.com <http://www.conjunctions-tjcp.com>





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