A Reassessment of Children's Folklore Classification
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Abstract
Aided by Sutton-Smith’s work, and after reviewing some of the key studies on children’s games and lore in the last one hundred years, in the present essay I identify a ‘rhetoric of play’ that applies both to the academic study of children’s games and to their popular perception: that is, the nostalgic lament of the transition from outdoor, group and physical games to indoor, solitary and digitally mediated games. This dichotomy is not only implicated in determining what qualifies as suitable material for the folkloristic study of children’s play; it also echoes adult concerns that children have less opportunity for ‘free’ outdoor recreation than they themselves had.
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