Introduction

It is traditional for a concluding chapter to reflect on the content of the book and offer comment on meaning and future direction. What is offered here is an alternative optical metaphor, that of diffraction. Reflection implies seeking a singular, accurate mirror image of the studies presented here, reducing their multiplicity to more of the same. In this way it establishes a fixed direction for future (re)search in pursuit of a goal of enlightenment about children's play and adults’ role in supporting it. In physics, diffraction occurs when waves hit a barrier or a slit resulting in a different movement and patterning. It is a relational phenomenon (or perhaps a phenomenon of relating); a diffractive analysis in research and other forms of knowledge production requires paying attention to patterns of interference. As Haraway (1992, p 301) says: ‘Diffraction does not produce “the same” displaced, as reflection and refraction do. Diffraction is a mapping of interference…A diffraction pattern does not map where differences appear, but rather maps where the effects of difference appear.’

Extending this, Barad (2007, p 25) suggests diffraction is ‘an apt metaphor for describing the methodological approach…of reading insights through one another in attending to and responding to the details and specificities of relations of difference and how they matter.’

Multiple readings extend thinking rather than repeating sameness; it is an approach that is generative rather than reductive, leading to more questions but also discerning patterns and potentials.

In putting such an approach to work here, this final chapter draws on concepts from new materialist, posthuman, Deleuzian and postqualitative approaches to offer an account of the practice-based studies in this book and what these might mean for research in children’s play. These approaches have emerged from transdisciplinary work across fields as diverse as philosophy, life and physical sciences, and anthropology (for example, Barad, 2007; Braidotti, 2013). They disturb traditional research methodologies (for example, MacLure, 2010; 2013; Lather, 2013; 2015), and have been applied in a variety of contexts including early years education and childhood studies (for example, Lenz-Taguchi, 2014; Taylor and Blaise, 2014) and young teen sexualities (for example, Renold and Ringrose, 2011), but less so to middle childhood play scholarship, although examples are emerging, including Kane (2015), Lester (2013; 2016) and Russell (2016).

Every book has a number of stories behind it, and this introductory chapter aims to tell some of the stories behind this one. They are stories of shared explorations not only of children's play and adults’ relationships with it, but also of knowledge itself, and the entanglements of theory, research and practice.

An Introduction

The Playwork Principles establish a professional and ethical framework for playwork. They are endorsed by the national training organisation for playwork – SkillsActive – by the Welsh Assembly Government and by Play Wales.

Where the Principles refer to children and young people, they mean all children and young people.

Playwork Principles

These Principles establish the professional and ethical framework for playwork and as such must be regarded as a whole. They describe what is unique about play and playwork, and provide the playwork perspective for working with children and young people. They are based on the recognition that children and young people's capacity for positive development will be enhanced if given access to the broadest range of environments and play opportunities.

• 1. All children and young people need to play. The impulse to play is innate. Play is a biological, psychological and social necessity, and is fundamental to the healthy development and wellbeing of individuals and communities.

• 2. Play is a process that is freely chosen, personally directed and intrinsically motivated. That is, children and young people determine and control the content and intent of their play, by following their own instincts, ideas and interests, in their own way for their own reasons.

• 3. The prime focus and essence of playwork is to support and facilitate the play process and this should inform the development of play policy, strategy, training and education.

• 4. For playworkers, the play process takes precedence and playworkers act as advocates for play when engaging with adult-led agendas.

• 5. The role of the playworker is to support all children and young people in the creation of a space in which they can play.

• 6. The playworker's response to children and young people playing is based on a sound up to date knowledge of the play process, and reflective practice.

• 7. Playworkers recognise their own impact on the play space and also the impact of children and young people's play on the playworker.

• 8. Playworkers choose an intervention style that enables children and young people to extend their play. All playworker intervention must balance risk with the developmental benefit and wellbeing of children.