THE MATERIAL CULTURE OF CHILDREN’S PLAY SPACE, TOYS AND THE COMMODITIZATION OF CHILDHOOD IN A GREEK COMMUNITY Georgia-Cleo Gougoulis University College London Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy October 2003 UMI Number: U602499 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U602499 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 ABSTRACT This thesis is an ethnography of children’s play in Palaia Phocaea of Attica Greece, with a particular focus on its material aspects: the spaces and objects of children’s playful interactions with the social world. The evidence is also used to discuss various theories as to the impact of the commoditization of toys. Chapter 1 introduces the theoretical perspectives adopted throughout the thesis and the key concepts employed such as the notion of interpretive reproduction and cultural appropriation. Chapter 2 spells out the methodological problems of research with children, in order to discuss the adopted research strategies and methods. Chapter 3 provides a historical background and a summary of the changes that transformed the economy of Phocaea, as a context to children’s play and its social parameters. Chapter 4 focuses on play at school, including factors beyond the school environment that influence children’s play in the school playground. The main issues discussed concern the appropriation of space for the performance of children’s play related projects, debates on gender separation in the school playground and questions regarding the performance of gender and age identities in the school playground of Phocaea. Chapter 5 turns to both issues of appropriation of space and its contestation in the context of neighbourhood play. The emphasis is on the construction, transformation and reproduction of social, spatial and temporal boundaries that circumscribe children’s play and their relationships to adults and other children. Chapter 6 deals with children’s play at home as the main site of symbolic constructions and hence with children’s imaginary domains to address issues arising from the commoditization of toys and their influence upon children’ play. The thesis concludes with a general discussion of materiality and play and of the commoditization of children’s culture 2 To the memory of my dad, a man who played the game of life with dignity and courage - to the end. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A work that has taken quite long to produce owes to many people. My deepest gratitude first and foremost goes to my supervisor Daniel Miller, who never let me down all these years, continually encouraging me to finish this project in his discrete and decisive way. I owe a lot to his intellectual support, his thorough, critical and imaginative reading of the many drafts of this thesis and his passionate enthusiasm and global approach to material culture studies. My inclusion in the discussion group, the “dinner group” organized under his auspices and consisting of colleagues sharing the same passion, has had the effect of a reintegration rite into the collective academic practice after a long liminal period of seclusion. I am grateful to all participants for offering me this intellectually stimulating experience. I am also indebted to Charles Stewart for his general support as an expert in Mediterranean ethnography and for offering both a feeling of cultural intimacy and the distance needed to transform modes of practical knowledge to anthropological knowledge. Warm thanks go to the Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation and especially to its president, Ioanna Papantoniou for financing my research, sponsoring part of my final writing up stage, and supporting my links to international play scholarship by offering conference grants. Mary Hull, Diane Muller, Chrissy Moutsatsos, Panos Panopoulos, Meni Tsigra have helped me in many ways, by reading drafts, or exchanging papers and sending articles that were difficult to reach. I am thankful to them. The Study Group for Interdisciplinary Theory and Methodology has offered me spirited support and a constant intellectual challenge and source for theoretical reflexivity. I am especially indebted to Christos Dermentzopoulos, Sotiris Dimitriou, Giannis Kyriakakis, Manos Spyridakis, and Stavros Stavridis. I am also grateful to the organizers of the Seminar on Urban Anthropology: Nikos Kottaridis and Leonidas Oikonomou for their contribution to a fruitful reworking of some of my material.. My dear friends Irene Loutzaki, Elia Petridou, Stella Galani, Rania Astrinaki, Debbie Golden, Yanna Tombrou and Achilleas Lampsides have shared with me all the trials and tribulations of this thesis by offering their friendship, their intellectual, technical and emotional support. Eleana Yalouri and Karl Strobl, in addition to the 4 above, also offered me the warm hospitality of their home in London. There are no words to thank them all. Warm thanks go to: Silia Randou for her adventurous spirit and playful participation in my research by helping me with the vicissitudes of early videotape technology, night filming and videotaping of the fluid and elusive activity that children’s play constitutes; Yannis Maltezos for helping me out in the beginning of my fieldwork and for his insightful comments on early research findings over a glass of red wine; Niovi Bethani for offering her long experience, as primary school teacher, on general educational issues, Alekos Kotsabopoulos for providing his expertise in dealing with some conundrums in the tables. Sophia Avgitidou, June Factor, Allison James, Tamar Katriel, Iona Opie, Dimitra Madianou, Dimitra Makrinioti have generously provided me with their published and/or unpublished works. I am deeply grateful to them all. Many thanks go to my colleagues at the International Toy Research Association, Birgitta Almqvist, Maria Argyriadi, Gilles Brougere and Jeffrey Goldstein for their support, friendship and intellectual exchange. I am especially indebted to Brian Sutton Smith, not only for his generous and repetitive shipping of his prolific writings on play, but also for liaising me with the international forum of play research, as it was he who responded to a letter from an unknown student at London University asking about the Association for the Study of Play (TASP). His lifelong, unpretentious devotion to the topic of play is a constant inspiration for all students of children’s play cultures. Many thanks go to Allen Abramson, Lynn Foxhall and Murray Last for a critical response to early drafts of this thesis. I am deeply grateful to the children of Phocaea for their trust, friendship and most of all for their instructive inclusion into their play worlds; I am also indebted to the parents, grandparents and all adults who recalled their childhood memories for the sake of a thesis to be submitted in a country far from their own and most of all for their generous hospitality. A debt of gratitude is extended to the schoolteachers and the headmaster of Phocaea’s primary school for their tolerance and general support of the quantitative parts of the research, the comer shop owners and toy retailers for their help in tracing the local history of toy consumption, the community council and the current and former presidents of Phocaea, Dimitris Philippouand Dimitris Mageiras. for granting me access to the communal archives and offering their help, 5 whenever requested. Special thanks go to the secretary of the community Ada Tsalikidou for her warm friendship, hospitality and help with the deciphering of the local archives. Writing in English, while based in Greece in the last writing up stage has not been easy I am indebted to Alex Doumas, for making things easier for me by offering her help and experience. I would also like to thank Damaskinos Kyriakopoulos for providing me with the plan of the community and Fani Ioakeim for adapting the primary school plan to the needs of my research. To my parents I owe more than words can express for their emotional, financial and all kinds of support during my post graduate studies. My mum has been always there, never refusing to help in so many ways but especially by offering her loving care and many long horns of child minding at request. The thesis is devoted to the memory of my dad, who unfortunately did not live up to see these pages finished, as he lost the battle with cancer not too long after my son was bom. Last but not least I am grateful to my companion and husband Costas Papapostolou for never losing faith in my project, for always lending a listening and critical ear, for keeping his sense of humour intact and for reminding me that writing about play is a tribute to life, even if it requires, the painful removal from the ebb and flow of normal sociability, including playtime with our son. Our young Angelos has done his best to help me keep up with current children’s culture, alerting me to the winds of change, and offering his own descriptions of the ins and outs of playtime in the hope that this odd business of writing about other children’s games would someday come to an end. The least he deserves is to have his mum back and have his request of “packing his suitcase with two hours of happy family play” granted. 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................ 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS................................................................................7 LIST OF FIGURES.........................................................................................8 CHAPTER 1.................................................................................................