childhood in the countryside: toys, games and culture

Abstract

In this article, with an essay-like character, the authors seek to discuss children’s games ascultural practices, regarding their presence in childhoods lived in rural contexts or in theso-called traditional communities in Brazil. Through a dialogue with “Childhood Studies”,we intend to analyze the images we construct about who these children are as well as whattheir games tell us about their lives and forms of sociability. We will analyze a smallrepertoire of toys as being cultural artifacts produced by children, problematizingchildren’s cultures and their forms of symbolic production. We seek here, in relation to ourexperiences of research and teaching training, an appreciation of the cultural meaning ofgames as lying between the universality of forms and the expressions of the diversity ofplayfullness, as a product of the sociocultural universe where they are located. In additionto this, we will try to interpret the meanings these experiences can have for children. Wewill also engage in a brief dialogue with the researches that focus on the childhoods in thecountryside, analyzing their contributions to an understanding of playing as a culturalpractice. Finally, the dimension of the territory for playing is pointed out as a centralelement in the processes of apprehension of the world, of creation and participation of thechild in the social scene. Some challenges regarding research are aroused by the discussionundertaken here. We will argue that these challenges can instigate new writing exerciseson this subject.