Playing as becoming: Sharing Australian Aboriginal Voices on Play

Young Indigenous children in Australia grow up in a range of cultural contexts. By sharing Indigenous stories about play, this chapter provides interesting perspectives on play that challenge conventional approaches. The Indigenous stories highlight the importance of play as the prime way for children to learn their culture. Children learn incidentally and explicitly by participating in the everyday activities of both adults and other children. They also learn by observing, listening to and imitating ‘what counts’ in their communities. This chapter explores the concept of play as a way Indigenous children learn to be Indigenous, to embody their culture and to learn the adults’ views on how to ‘be’ in a community. The authors of Chapter 12 use stories/narratives to develop insights into play. Some of the stories are based on the two Indigenous authors’ reflections on their own play as children, the play of children they observe in the present and their research on play. The non-Indigenous authors also share the insights into play they have gained from life and experience with Indigenous people. A research project on play called ‘Talking Pictures’ is discussed where young Indigenous children took photographs of playful events that became the focus of reflective conversations with their families and the researchers. These conversations about the messages embedded in play objects and activities (which are replicated in this chapter) invite readers to reflect critically on the everyday activities of play and their cultural interpretations. Through these conversations, issues are raised about the imposition of mainstream play discourses that may, in Australia, not only interrupt core cultural narratives but also privilege mainstream, usually conventional Western, ways of being.