Africa, Traditional Play in

Bruce Josephson

In 1974, the Association for the Anthropological Study of Play began. In 1977, they published a book of articles: The Study of Play: Problems and Prospects , with David F Lancey and B. Allan Tindall acting as editors. It contains an article by Helen B. Schwartzman and Linda Barbera, which presents an overview of what scholars, and particularly anthropologists, wrote about traditional play among children in Africa. They stated that anthropologists of Africa wrote about play in four ways: play as imitation or preparation for adult life, play as a game or sports activity, play as projection or expressive activity, and play as unimportant or as a miscellaneous pastime. It is said that these models are western models of play, not African ones. In the same book, two articles dealt with play, one describing religion as play, the other referring to playing and an African kingdom. Both examples are of ...

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