Nonsense and possibility: ambiguity, rupture and reproduction in children’s play/ful narratives

Play has been widely acknowledged as a site of important processes in children’s lives, ranging from socialisation to subjectification. Little empirical work, however, has focused on the particular features of play that mobilise criticality and contestation, or that alternately enable the micro-politics of exclusion. This article draws on school-based research in the west of Ireland with young children from migrant and non-migrant backgrounds. Centring on understandings of generational, gendered and raced belongings, it examines children’s narratives of play and playful narratives that de/reconstruct positionings in peer contexts and in broader societal spaces. More specifically, it explores how the in-between and ambiguous character of children’s play practices and playful speech contribute to such multiple sites of becoming. It concludes with a suggestion for further adult engagement with these play/ful political practices, and for consideration of potential links to ‘large p’ politics in children’s lives.