Scholarship in Focus
Citation:
Trammell, A. (2023). Repairing play : a Black phenomenology (1st ed.). The MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/14656.001.0001.
Annotation:
In Repairing Play: A Black Phenomenology by Aaron Trammell challenges the traditional, pleasure-focused conceptions of play by advocating for a more inclusive view that validates and re-centers pain and resilience within BIPOC experiences. Trammell critiques the exclusionary nature of conventional play theories rooted in a White, European tradition and calls upon a Black history of play to redefine it as a complex, transformative space that is both individual and universal, pleasurable and painful. By accounting for these less pleasure-centric and validating histories of play, he argues, we can better appreciate a more honest understanding of play as a site for grievance as well as healing. This important work makes a significant impact in the fields of games and play studies as it critiques histories, practices, and blind spots of existing studies of play. It purposefully models a way for games and play studies to directly engage traditions of Black Radical Thought and Black Aesthetics.
Abstract- Publisher’s Description:
“Contemporary theorists present play as something wholly constructive and positive. But this broken definition is drawn from a White European philosophical tradition that ignores the fact that play can, and often does, hurt. In fact, this narrow understanding of play has been complicit in the systemic erasure of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) from the domain of leisure. In this book, Aaron Trammell proposes a corrective: a radical reconsideration of play that expands its definition to include BIPOC suffering, subjugation, and taboo topics such as torture. As he challenges and decolonizes White European thought, Trammell maps possible ways to reconcile existing theories with the fact that play is often hurtful and toxic.
Trammell upends current notions by exploring play’s function as a tool in the subjugation of BIPOC. As he shows, the phenomenology of play is a power relationship. Even in innocent play, human beings subtly discipline each other to remain within unspoken rules. Going further, Trammell departs from mainstream theory to insist that torture can be play. Approaching it as such reveals play’s role in subjugating people in general and renders visible the long-ignored experiences of BIPOC. Such an inclusive definition of play becomes a form of intellectual reparation, correcting the notion that play must give pleasure while also recasting play in a form that focuses on the deep, painful, and sometimes traumatic depths of living.”