Play as a Method: Positionality, Power, Possibility

Abstract

The institutionalisation of play is well documented, but less attention has been paid to what happens when play becomes not only an object of study, but a way of doing research. This article explores the methodological and ethical complexities that arise when play is used as a research method within academia, where it becomes entangled with the personal, institutional, and political dynamics of scholarly life. Blending theoretical reflection, autoethnography, and a grounded ‘case in point’, I examine how play – as both practice and analytic – is shaped by power, discipline, and researcher positionality. Rather than offering best practices, I foreground the risks, failures, and ambiguities that make research with and around play difficult, but also transformative. I argue that staying with these tensions can unsettle academic norms and open more accountable, situated, and imaginative ways of doing research.