Play Theory, Playing, and Culture

© 2008 The AuthorJournal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Sociology Compass 2/3 (2008): 856–869, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2008.00118.x

Play Theory, Playing, and Culture

Patricia Anne Masters*Department of Sociology and Anthropology, George Mason University

AbstractThis article focuses on theoretical approaches to play and their application to playcommunities. It explores the work of pioneers in the study of this importantinteractional form: Johan Huizinga and Roger Caillois. In addition, the seminalwork of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on the play experience and its seductive qualitiesfor individuals is discussed. Briefly introduced is the recent work of Brian Sutton-Smith who proposed that each discipline develops a specific rhetoric in studyingplay and identifies the rhetorics typically employed by scholars in the social sciencesand the humanities. This article provides examples of approaches to analyzing thefunctional outcomes of cultural performances, including parades, and proposesbroadening the scope of research to include not only the outcomes of play butalso the experience of playing, thus illuminating our understanding of the strongbonds that are formed through communal play.

It is through ... playing that society expresses its interpretation of life and theworld. ... In its earliest phases culture has a play character that ... proceeds inthe shape and mood of play. In the twin union of play and culture, play isprimary (Huizinga 1955, 1).

What is the relation between play and culture? What theories inform ourunderstanding of play as an interactional form and playing as experiencedby the individuals and groups who form play communities? How dosociologists and other academics who study culture apply theories ofplay to their empirical work? These questions are the basis of this article,which surveys thinking about play within the social sciences and in otherdisciplines that has emerged over the last half century. My focus is onthree major theorists: Johan Huizinga (1955), Roger Caillois (1961), andMihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1975, 1981, 1990). These three thinkers in thebest tradition of social inquiry have developed distinct theories about playthat taken together define play and explain the seductive quality of theplay experience that bring individuals into groups that cooperate, compete,and have fun.

To discuss the connection of play to culture, it is useful to begin byidentifying the components of culture. Social scientists define culture asboth symbolic and material. Through language, humans communicate

© 2008 The Author Sociology Compass 2/3 (2008): 856–869, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2008.00118.xJournal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Play Theory, Playing and Culture 857

norms, values, and intentions; through conversations and gestures, theyorganize their actions and develop patterns of interaction that over timeemerge as social institutions. These interactions create a life-world, andwithin that world, specific definitions and understandings operate (Schutz1970). These shared concepts shape what individuals acting together createas material culture. Performances, art, and ritual, all of which reflect deeplyheld values, are material culture. Both symbolic and material culture thenare born and structured through group interaction.

Huizinga’s pioneering work on play

In 1938, on the eve of the Second World War, Dutch cultural historianJohan Huizinga wrote what is recognized as the seminal work on playHomo Ludens. Although his work made its way to the United Statesconsiderably later and was first published in English in 1955, it hadspecial significance because Huizinga was the first to assert the linkbetween play and culture. Culture itself, he maintained, was born in andthrough playing. As play evolves, the oral history of the tribe becomesthe folklore and the literature of a literate society; spontaneous andrhythmic movement becomes highly stylized choreography; the beat ofdrums and the simple notes of an early flute evolve into the songs andharmonies of music. As individuals organize their artistic enterprises,they compete with others, and play becomes more elaborate and structured.Huizinga makes an important connection between play and contest,with play now formalized and rule governed taking on a normative role.In the context of competitive play, individuals set norms of fairness, andthose who exemplify the highest standards of playing become heroes androle models to their community.

For Huizinga (1955, 11–12), the vehicle through which play becomesculture is the ‘play community’. Links to the play community are emotional.Its appeal is based on what Huizinga identifies as ‘the feeling of being “aparttogether” in an exceptional situation, of mutually withdrawing from therest of the world.’

What, then, are the distinguishing features of play? Huizinga’s definitionis broad:

• Above all else, ‘play is voluntary. One cannot be compelled toplay. ... play is never imposed by physical necessity or moral duty. It isnever a task’ (7).

• Play occupies a distinct locality and occurs within a limited time. It isbracketed, and as another-worldly experience, play allows individuals tocreate alternative worlds and identities far removed from their everydaylives. The masks and disguises so characteristic of play offer the individualentry into another world, and in rowdy play, a license for misbehavior.Play is liberating, even when it is structured.

858 Play Theory, Playing and Culture


• Play can be beautiful. As Huizinga wrote, ‘[I]ts aesthetic impulsegrows out of the order it creates.’ This aspect of play is most apparentin art of all types, where balance and symmetry prevail and in per-formances where order is choreographed. Huizinga elaborates on thisaesthetic quality, writing that ‘play creates order and is order. Into animperfect world and into the confusion of life, it brings a limitedperfection’ (11).

• Over time, however, especially as play grows more complex and engagesmore individuals, it becomes a distinct world that players seek torevisit. Traditions emerge, and play itself acquires characteristics that areritual-like.

• Play, given its spatial and other-worldly qualities, is never ordinary, andunlike work, play offers no material rewards. Rather, play is intrinsicallyrewarding. For individuals and groups, it provides prestige for thosewhose performances are recognized as exceptional.

Huizinga asserts that play and ritual are synonymous – that play is ritualand ritual is play. This correspondence has been challenged, although playand ritual are intertwined. In the context of Huizinga’s work, whichtraces play from earliest human history, the connection is defensible.Religious ritual was magical and transcendent, and rituals were frequentlylinked to feasts or festivals that influenced and assured the security, order,and prosperity of the group. What Durkheim (1965) termed ‘effervescence’is even today found in shared communal rituals in a more secular world.For example, the Olympic Games that trace their roots to ancient Greeksociety are a worldwide spectacle that exemplifies ritualized competition.Yet, few modern scholars of culture and society would agree that ritualand play are identical. Alessandro Fallasi’s (1987) work is particularly usefulin setting out what are common elements in parades, festivals, and otherpublic performances, frameworks within which individuals engage in play(cf. Masters 2007, 118–9).

For most individuals, the worlds of work and play are clearly distin-guishable, although sometimes, the boundaries between the two are fluid.In his identification of the elements of play, Huizinga provides a beginningframework for studying play and analyzing the impact of playful interactionin societies and cultures. Huizinga’s work was, however, only the beginningof theorizing play.

Caillois and games

Providing a slightly different perspective, although not one that contradictsthe essential elements of play that Huizinga identified, notably that play isfree, secluded, and engenders bonds among players, Roger Caillois, in Man,Play, and Games (1961), wrote extensively on games as a social form of play.Groups play games when they engage in public performances and athletic



competitions for which rewards are symbolic. Four categories of gamesallow individuals to satisfy different impulses.

The first category of games is agon. Competitive play engages individualsand groups in tests of skill and ingenuity. Rules that circumscribe agonisticplay are designed to create a level playing field among competitors. Ideally,the individual or group that ‘wins’ does so purely on the basis of merit.Rules provide a normative structure for play, and sometimes within close-knitlong-lived communities, they guide conduct outside of the play environment(Masters 2007, 155–61). Athletic games (non-professional sports) as wellas artistic performances fall within the agonistic category.

The second category of games is alea. Although Caillois applied thisterm to games of chance or luck, it is also possible in competitions to identifyfactors that are not strictly under the control of those who engage ingames. For example, in many competitive events within a festival framework,the order of competition is determined by the luck of the draw. It isaccepted, somewhat superstitiously, that performing first is disadvantageous,but performing last offers a competitive edge (Masters 2007).

The third category Caillois proposes is mimicry. Pretense and illusionare the hallmarks of this category, which applies broadly to artistic per-formances of all kinds. The impulse to mimic others begins in infancyand continues throughout the life cycle, although children make littledistinction between reality and pretense. Although the clown or comic isthe prototypical mimic, any costumed performer or actor taking on a roleof another engages in mimicry.

Caillois’s final category is ilinx, when individuals pursue vertigo,‘momentarily destroy[ing] the stability of perception and inflict[ing] a kindof voluptuous panic upon the otherwise lucid mind’ (Caillois 1961, 23).Stilt walking and mountain climbing exemplify this type of play. But takingrisks by restructuring the conventions or art is risky in another sense,although it is doubtful that Caillois had this kind of ‘taking a chance’ inmind when he set forth his categories.

The work of Caillois and Huizinga is clearly complementary, but Cailloisintroduces an important distinction within games that reflect variationsin the spirit of play. He proposes that play exists along a continuumbetween paidia, which is free unstructured, impulsive, and exuberant, andludus, which is structured and circumscribed by rules and conventions.Play oscillates between the two poles, with tension between freedom andstructure and between the liberating pleasures of play and the reining inof the play impulse to conform to group requirements. At both ends ofthe spectrum, individuals play, but they also recognize that structuredcompetitive play imposes restrictions that have the potential to underminethe sheer fun of playing. In making this distinction, Caillois recognizesthe contradictions and ambiguities of play and provides insight into thedisparate activities – sometimes rowdy, sometimes reverent, sometimessacred, sometimes profane – that are embraced by the term ‘play’.



Csikszentmihalyi and flow – or ‘fun’

Both Huizinga and Caillois propose definitions of play that certainly implythat part of play’s enchantment rests in the pleasure that it provides. Theirwork on play was abstract and left open the question of how individualsexperience playing. The work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1975, 1981,1990) is crucial to answering these questions: What draws individuals toplay? What about play impels individuals to join play communities? Whydo individuals seemingly work very hard to play? Csikszentmihalyi haswritten extensively on ‘flow’, or peak experiences. The characteristics offlow are given below.

• Positive experiences [flow] are those in which the individual’s attentionis concentrated; absorption in the task at hand adds pleasure. ‘Peoplebecome so involved in what they are doing that the activity becomesspontaneous ... they stop being aware of themselves as separate fromthe actions they are performing’ (1990, 53). In the midst of play, timeis suspended. There are parallels between this description of flow andHuizinga’s observations that individuals and groups become totallyimmersed in play.

• Concentration of this sort is possible because the task has clear goalsand its performance leads to immediate feedback. Although certainactivities that provide the flow experience may take a long time tocomplete, Csikszentmihalyi asserts that goals and feedback are centralto flow. Specifically, ‘in creative activities, a person must develop astrong sense of what she intends to do’ (1990, 56). Huizinga identifiedthe goal of perfection in performance as meeting some aesthetic ideal.Flow is not only experienced by individuals engaged in play, but alsoin groups as they sense the enthusiasm of an audience or a curbsidecrowd. In the case of a group, a standard develops through comparisonwith other groups or through the use of explicit scoring criteria.

• Positive experiences occur when the individual acts with ‘a deep andeffortless involvement that removes from awareness of the worries andfrustrations of everyday life’ (1990, 49). Typically, the flow experience‘is described as involving a sense of control – or more precisely as lackinga sense of worry about losing control that is typical in normal life’(Caillois 1961, 59). Individuals are aware of penalties for mistakes ormisjudgments in everyday life, but in play, a separate world, failing isinconsequential. And in competitive play, there is always the ‘next time’when victory is possible.

• As the individual experiences flow, the concern for self is absent orsuspended. In group play, the individual literally merges his or herefforts with those of others. All are equally invested in achievingperfection and the success of the performance relies on a seamlesscoordination of actions. Although Csikszentmihalyi’s ideas are based on



individual perceptions, the close ties within a play community suggestthat the group so closely attuned to each other’s emotions acts as one.

The intensity of play is clearly evident in Csikszentmihalyi’s descriptionsof flow. But what occurs within this framework is not entirely ‘free’.Caillois’s theories of games move toward structure, and Huizinga’s workstresses the organization of play. One paradox embedded in play is thecontradiction between play and structure. This apparent contradiction isresolved by Csikszentmihalyi who proposes that play and the play experi-ence take individuals into an extraordinary world where play becomes aparamount reality (Schutz 1970). Adult play differs from children’s play inthat adults are fully aware of shifting from pretense to reality. Thus, theyare adept at juggling realities and at different times giving full attention toone reality over another. This helps individuals to work hard at play becauseit is the non-coercive quality of play that defines it. As Csikszenmihalyi(1981, 14–15) writes:

But I don’t think we need to define one reality only to substitute anotherabsolute reality in its stead. The point is not to demonstrate that play [forexample] is more real than work. ... Wisdom does not lie in becomingmesmerized by that glimpse of reality that our culture proclaims to be ultimate,but in the discovery that we can create various realities by alternating betweendifferent goal structures. Only then can we free ourselves from the determiningforces of any single system of constraints. We still need to adapt to the rulesthat govern that particular reality, but we always know that the rules are freely[emphasis added] chosen. When this happens, the distinction between play andnon-play ceases to exist.

Rhetorics of play

Interest in play is not confined to the social sciences. In fields fromeducation to psychology, from art to biology, from sociology to anthropology,scholars approach play from different starting points. Each discipline developsa distinctive rhetoric of play. Brian Sutton-Smith (1997, 10–11)) definesrhetoric as ‘being a persuasive discourse or implicit narrative ... adoptedby members of a particular group affiliation or discipline to lend validityto their beliefs and interpretations.’ This does not mean that scholars fromdifferent disciplines cannot learn from one another as they examine playin their fields. It suggests, however, that play as an interactional form hasmultiple outcomes and purposes, some of which are more relevant to onediscipline than another. Sutton-Smith proposes seven rhetorics of play. Inthe interest of brevity, only those that relate to sociology, anthropology,and psychology are discussed in this article. They are described below.

• The rhetoric of play as ‘a representation of conflict and as a way tofortify the status of those who control the play or are its heroes’ (10)has wide currency among sociologists.



• The rhetoric of play as identity is often used in studies of ‘traditionaland community celebrations and festivals ... when the play tradition isseen as a means of confirming, maintaining, or advancing the power ofidentity of a community of players.’ (11)

• The rhetoric of the self, ‘in which play is idealized by attention tothe desirable experiences of players – their fun, their relaxation, theirescape – and the intrinsic of aesthetic satisfactions of play performances.’(11) Particularly related to this rhetoric and the next is Csikszentmihalyi’swork on flow.

• The rhetoric of play as the imaginary ‘usually applied to playfulimprovisations of all kinds in literature and elsewhere [that] idealizes theimaginations, flexibility, and creativity of the animal and human playworlds.’ (11)

The first two rhetorics are applied widely in studies of group interactionwithin communities and societies. The last two, on the other hand, areoften absent in sociological studies that apply play theories. This makesthe point that sociologists are much more interested in the outcomes ofplay for social relationships than in the experience of play for individualsand groups. However, research on play communities is enriched by anunderstanding of individual motivations and purposes in playing together.And a broader approach to play honors the intellectual tradition of MaxWeber, who espoused verstehen (Gerth and Mills 1958, 56). Humans canand do understand their actions through introspection, and the task of thesociologist – indeed of any scholar who studies culture – is to take intoaccount the motives of the individual in terms of his or her professed orascribed intentions.

Applying play theories to the real world

Play from a functionalist perspective

Scholars have a long-standing interest in festivals and parades. Morespecifically, in the social sciences, Fallasi (1987, 2) wrote:

[The definition of festival] that can be inferred from the works of scholarswho have dealt with the festival while studying social and ritual events fromthe viewpoints of ... disciplines from comparative religion, anthropology, socialpsychology, folklore, and sociology indicates that festival commonly means aperiodically recurrent social occasion in which, through a multiplicity of socialforms and a series of coordinated events, participate members of a wholecommunity, united by ethnic, linguistic, religious, [and/or] historical bonds andsharing a world view. Both the social function and the symbolic meaning ofthe festival are closely related to a series of overt values that the communityrecognizes as essential to its ideology and world view, to its social identity,to its historical continuity, and to its physical survival, which is ultimately whatfestivals celebrate.



Festivals are understood as communal play, and they are characterized by‘generic gaiety, conviviality, [and] cheerfulness’ (Falassi 1987, 2). Competitiveperformances fall within the framework of festivals, and these performancesare play as well.

In this section of the article, play theory is applied to an ethnographicstudy of the Philadelphia Mummers Parade and the community that createsand produces it (Masters 2007). The term festival is used rather than paradebecause the parade itself is one component of a series of events that com-prise the community rituals of Mummery.

Today’s Mummers Parade is a lavish spectacle. Four distinctive groupsorganized into clubs perform in the parade: Comics, Fancy Clubs, FancyBrigades, and String Bands. Their expenditures range from a few hundreddollars for the comic costumes to over $75,000 for string bands and fancybrigades. All of this money for playing together is generated by the clubsthrough performances and fund raising in the neighborhoods where theclubs reside. Performers and marshals who handle the logistics and stagingnumber in the thousands, with the figure of 10,000 to 12,000 participantsquoted in local newspapers for recent parades.

The Mummers Parade is the longest running folk celebration in theUnited States, with the possible exception of Mardi Gras, and it isinteresting that both of these celebrations can trace their tradition back tothe late 1800s. For Philadelphia, however, the Mummers Parade actuallywas born in 1901 when the Mummers were invited to participate in theCity’s celebration to the twentieth century. Today, the City of Philadelphiaappropriates roughly $300,000 in prize money and more funds for servicesassociated with staging the parade, which is actively promoted as a touristattraction. In a city where many groups have small celebrations of ethnicity,the Mummers are exceptional because of the prize money.

The early celebrations were multi-ethnic and multi-racial. Immigrantsin the areas south of the Old City celebrated the New Year and Christmasseasons in ways that reflected their ethnic practices in the countries theyhad left; for black Philadelphians, some of the holiday practices from thesouth shaped the celebrations. The blending of many different traditionsis discussed at length in Masters (2007). The disparate traditions all sharedcommon elements of rituals, both sacred and irreverent, and all fit neatlyinto the definitions of play discussed earlier in this article.

On January 1, 1901, when the Mummers moved to City Hall, thesymbolic center of the City, they began to craft a distinctive identity, pri-marily based on class rather than on race or ethnicity. The City’s invitationwas based on more than a desire to provide entertainment, for the oftenrowdy play of large groups of immigrants in South Philadelphia had begunto challenge public order. In Parades and Power: Street Theatre in NineteenthCentury Philadelphia, Susan G. Davis (1985) compares the respectable androwdy public performances of Philadelphians highlighting the class struggleimplicit in such ostensibly playful celebrations of culture and heritage. The



neighborhood groups were marginalized in Philadelphia, and they struggledfor recognition and respect. They worked toward respectability throughconventional paths such as work and education, but they used play as awedge to gain recognition as ‘the good working people of Philadelphia’who were the creators and custodians of a parade that increasingly showcasedtheir artistry and industry.

Some of the key research questions underlying the study of the Mummerscommunity were:

• What accounts for the longevity of the Philadelphia Mummers Parade?• What are the outcomes of this playful tradition for the Mummers play

community?• From the individual participant’s perspective, what rewards does parading

provide? More simply, why do several thousand individuals work allyear long to produce the spectacle that is the Mummers Parade?

Several of the rhetorics associated with play are useful in understandingthis long-running festival. Immediately apparent in looking at the historicalevolution of the Mummers Parade the chaotic and rowdy celebrations ofits earliest days to its transformation into a structured parade is the rhetoricof play as conflict. Davis’s work suggests and Master’s work echoes thisfinding that the earliest days of the celebration were marked characterizedby not only peaceful visiting, but also rowdy and drunken carousing thatchallenged public order. Play for some of the residents of South Philadelphiaoffered the opportunity to move out of their small, frequently crampedhomes into the streets where they could play. Their play was free, disor-ganized, impulsive, and exuberant. It was not a game, and it was notcompetitive. By the late 1890s, the City of Philadelphia began to mandatepermits for parading in the neighborhood streets, thereby attempting toimpose respectable standards on rowdy processions. Thus, within thisstruggle to control the boundaries of play, the class dimension is obvious.However, it was also true that at the same time as licensing was imposedthe neighborhoods had begun to change the nature of play to competition.Neighborhood merchants offered prizes to the play groups (small cashprizes, silver cups, and the like), and the groups organized themselves intocompeting ‘clubs’. The elaboration of play had begun, although no officialrules were put into place. In the categorization suggested by Caillois (1961),play had begun the transformation from unstructured to structured – frompaidia to ludus. Yet pockets of resistance remained in the play of the comics,who to this day evade the rules. (One of the most interesting aspects ofthe Mummers today is that the group maintains a bifurcated parade tradition,with the public parade co-existing with a raucous and rowdy neighbor-hood parade on South Second Street. This has long been the case, andit undoubtedly contributes to the resilience of the parade. The Mummerscan still ‘return to play’ on their beloved Two Street, where the earlytraditions began.)



Equally relevant to understanding the longevity and evolution of theMummers parade is the rhetoric of play as identity. It is apparent inexamining the history of South Philadelphia that the immigrants and theirchildren were anxious to change the perception that other Philadelphianshad of themselves and their communities. In fact, it was never the casethat their neighborhoods fit the stereotypes that established Philadelphiansheld, and art and music flourished in this area as far back as the early 19thcentury. The attempts by the City of Philadelphia to restrict play couldnot have been successful were it not for the cooperation of residents whoclearly were building a stable community for themselves. Therefore, theplayful processions as they became more organized and attracted theattention of others because they showcased a nascent folk art were a usefulwedge for gaining respect and portraying a positive image. Play was animportant component in South Philadelphia’s campaign for acceptance.

With the invitation of parade in 1901, the Mummers play communitycame into existence. The small clubs, often based in homes and distinctiveethnically and racially did not constitute a play community in the sensethat Huizinga uses the term. The success of the Mummers as publicperformances and the organization of play to fit into the City’s designfor a publicly sanctioned parade compelled the groups to become formalorganizations that could represent their interests to the City officials.Sometimes, the formality was a mere veneer over what were family orneighborhood clubs in those earlier days, but with the passage of time,organizational structures became more important. The City encouragedthis, and the string bands, for example, were chartered by Philadelphia. Inaddition, the negotiations for parade order, distribution of prize money,and other logistics also led to the clubs forming divisions.

The purpose of this play community was, consistent with Huizinga’swork, to provide an opportunity to revisit the joy of playing and performingtogether. The play community was also the instrument through whichcompetitive rules were formulated. As the art of the parade evolved,professional judging replaced informal evaluations of performances andconventions for what constitute excellence were integrated into the rules.The clubs began to compete for the prizes for musical performances, forchoreography, and for costumes and staging. The Mummers art becamemore beautiful, as the clubs worked to achieve ‘the limited perfection’(Huizinga 1955, 11) that is inherent in play.

Within the Mummers community itself, the rules became a templatefor moral behavior in relationships. Being ‘exceptional’ in the play com-munity required respect for the rules of competition, which includedfairness, required good sportsmanship, and created exemplary players whoemerged as heroes.

Finally, the longevity of the parade created close ties and supportivenetworks as the sheer hours of involvement brought individuals together.Rituals small and large were the outcome of play, and many of these



rituals were showcases for the values of community, hard work, and artisticexcellence. It is an unintended consequence of play that it creates socialcapital, which L. J. Hanifan defines as:

Those tangible substances [that] count for the most in the daily lives of people:namely, good will, fellowship, sympathy, and social intercourse among theindividuals and families who make up a social unit. ... The individual is helplessif left to himself. ... If he comes into contact with his neighbors there will bean accumulation of social capital that may immediately satisfy his socialneeds and which bear a social potentiality sufficient to the substantial improve-ment of living conditions within the whole community (Quoted in Putnam2000, 19).

Social capital accumulated in the course of playing together has resultedin a Mummers’ culture in the broadest sense, and therefore, Huizinga’sassertion that culture and play are inextricably linked is demonstrated. Itis also the case that the character of play is easily obscured by the overlayof structures that have grown up around playing together. Yet, Huizingaargues that play’s essentially anarchistic spirit can be and is reasserted whenindividual engage in play.

The experience of play: Privileging ‘fun’

The preceding section looked at the outcomes of play, taking a functionalistperspective that too often is employed exclusively in understanding thisimportant interactional form. Early in the process of conducting researchon the Mummers community, however, it was obvious that the outcomesof play were not the only – or even the most important – aspects ofparticipating in the Mummers festivities. Sutton-Smith’s rhetoric of theself and rhetoric of the imaginary offer a framework in which theMummers perceptions of their experiences are illuminated. In his studyof community, Robert Putnam (1993, 17) maintains that community andcivic engagement grow out of play, but play is not undertaken for thepurpose of creating social capital. As he points out, ‘members of Florentinechoral societies participate because they like to sing, not because theirparticipation strengthens the Tuscan social fabric, but it does.’ Similarly,during the course of research on the Mummers, the point was maderepeatedly that the good things that came out of play (a sense of communityand social support) were not the reason why the Mummers maintained inmost cases life-long links to the parade. As one Mummer summarizedhis reasons for being a Mummer (in his case a 50-year member of one ofthe top string bands), he said, ‘We do it to have fun.’ Not surprisingly,their accounts of fun were consistent with Csikszentmihalyi’s descriptionof flow. This was the case no matter whether the individual performedin the highly structured brigade and string band productions or as a comicwithin a group of other comics. The elements of flow – total immersion



in the task of playing, timelessness as one plays, and sense of control – areevident in the following descriptions of play, all of which are taken froma series of life history interviews in Masters (2007). The first is from afancy brigade member; these brigades present 4.5-minute productionsorganized around a specific theme that include elaborate props and dancingaccompanied by taped music.

Performing is a total, joyous release. Because the minute you step into [theperformance area at City Hall] and the crowd reacts, the seriousness [ofcompeting] is still there, but now you’re having fun. No, you’re just going tolet all the tension you have had in your job, from your family, from gettingready – you just let it go. There’s a smile ten miles wide on your face, andyou’re out there to have a good time. That’s what [parading] is all about. (6)

Another account is from a string band musician who describes how itfeels to play and dance around in the lighted square in front of City Hall:

There’s the whistle. We’re on. I play, I turn, I step this way and that way. Myheart is thumping. I guide [maneuver] right, I guide left. I do fifty things atonce – or so it seems. How much time has gone by? Seems like half an hour.Here comes the going away number. (181)

Play, Huizinga (1955, 9–10) writes, is secluded and limited. It exists as anexperience apart, where temporary rules exist. All the spaces for play – thearena, the stage, the playing field – are playgrounds. They are ‘temporaryworlds within an ordinary world, dedicated to the performance of an actapart.’ Within this special place, flow is made possible.

The rhetoric of the imaginary also explains the seduction of play,because within play, the individual experiments with an alternative identitythrough mask or disguise – what Caillois terms mimicry. An example froma comic’s account illustrates the use of this rhetoric:

I love being in the parade. I love getting dressed up in different costumes. ... Peoplecan’t see you under the costume, so you don’t have to worry about beingembarrassed about what you look like. ... You just go out there and do yourthing. You could be the silliest person in the world. And people don’t knowwhat you look like, and it [your comic performance] makes them happy. I’msure that all of us have different personalities. Being a comic is taking onanother personality. (174)

Far removed from the abstract language of play theories, accounts likethese provide a glimpse into the motivations that drive play. They allowsociologists and others who study play and culture to engage in verstehen.

Expanding perspectives on play and playing

The combination of theories developed by Huizinga, Caillois, and Csik-szentmihalyi lead to a fully developed explanation of play and playing.Huizinga has been criticized for over-reaching in his assertion that culture



is born in play. The ethnographic study of the Mummers, however, offersevidence that play and culture are tightly interwoven and mutually rein-forcing. Human communities create culture – from the norms that governinteraction in play to the aesthetic expressions of a human community’svalues and themes. In studying communities like the Mummers play com-munity, much can be learned about how to bring individuals together inways that enrich their lives and sustain their communities.

Short Biography

Patricia Anne Masters locates her work at the intersection of sociology,anthropology, history, and cultural studies. Her current research interestsinclude studies of community, the role of the community in shaping themoral development of individuals, and the impact of the community instrengthening family life. Her book, The Philadelphia Mummers: BuildingCommunity Through Play (2007), traces the development of a century oldtradition, with particular attention to the history of the Mummers Parade,its multi-ethnic working-class roots. A central theme in this book is thatplaying together generates strong community ties that reach across generationsand sustain the lives of individual who are part of a play community. Herfuture research will examine virtual play communities. She presently teachesat George Mason University, where she is also directs the UndergraduateProgram. She received her BA degree from George Mason and her MAand PhD degrees in Sociology from American University, Washington, DC.

Note

* Correspondence address: Department of Sociology and Anthropology, George MasonUniversity, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA. Email: [email protected]

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Putnam, Robert D. 1993. ‘The Prosperous Community.’ American Prospect 13 (Spring): 35–42.Putnam, Robert D. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New

York, NY: Simon and Schuster/Touchstone.Schutz, Alfred 1970. On Phenomenology and Social Relations, edited by Helmut Wagner. Chicago,

IL: University of Chicago Press.Sutton-Smith, Brian 1997. The Ambiguity of Play. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press.

Documents

Play Theory, Playing, and Culture