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Eray Çaylı

04 May 2009

Non-violent Conflict as Play; Play as an Urban Essentiality

Play, with the 'right' people, in the 'right' way

As the influential American sociologist Vance Packard analyzes social stratification in

the 1950s' United States; he mentions how “the parents of the 'better class' used to warn their

children not to play with 'people like that' [lower class children]”:

'You don't want to play with Johnny Jones. People like that don't know how to play right.

The Jones keep hounds...are dirty...live back in the timber...don't go to church...are not

our kind...people would laugh if they saw you at the Jones house.'i

Telling children so bluntly that there are people of a certain kind to play with, and others

to avoid doing so? Referring to the notion of “playing right” as a grounds to base such an

argument on? Looking in retrospect at such boldly articulated statements of discrimination, and

comparing the then situation to the present might result in our appreciation for relevant

improvements in that respect: Indeed, if we look at most 'western'1 societies today it could be

claimed that social stratification is not as verbally evident as it was in the '50s.

However positive this comparison may sound on the behalf of today's children, it is

nevertheless very difficult to paint an all-optimistic picture of the interrelations between play and

society today. We may no more be seeing parents who tell their kids to stay away from 'Johnny

1 Here, the term 'western' is used in the cultural sense, not the geographical one. The same applies for every time
the term is used throughout this paper.
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Jones'es, but is play really more democratic and boundary-free than ever? Does it help

discourage stratification, if not set the scene for social harmony? Does 'western' culture allow

play to be an integral aspect of everyday life? And, most importantly for us, what kind of a role

does design at large play as a key factor in this totality of relations?

A fictional design project

It would be useful to start by drawing upon a definition of play in order to provide an

outline for our theoretical framework. The definition that will probably be the most beneficial for

our study comes from one of the founders of modern cultural history, Johan Huizinga, who

defines play based on a historical—and at times, even evolutional—reference. Huizinga suggests

that the essentials of human play are evident in how animals at large play with each other. He

exemplifies his argument by illustrating a scene of young dogs playing whereby they seem to be

biting eachother's ears. Huizinga underlines that “the rule that you shall not bite, or not bite hard,

your brother’s ear” is key in this activity. According to him, keeping to that fundamental rule at

all times, and, yet meanwhile, pretending to get terribly angry, are the two complimentary

characteristics that lead to the “tremendous fun and enjoyment” that is being experienced by the

dogs.ii This analysis focuses mainly on understanding how the two parties, or actors, that are

actively involved in the play experience it. However, in order to understand the agency of design

in relation to play as a social and cultural phenomenon, we would probably be more interested in

how this scene looks through the eye of a third party/an outsider—for the designer is often

brought in as one, to processes and existing networks of relations, and is later requested to

transform them.
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Image 1. Young dogs playing by “the rule that you shall not bite, or not bite hard, your brother’s ear”

Let us fantasize for once, and suppose that we are commissioned as designers to develop

a project involving these two young dogs at play, and our prior knowledge on how our 'users'—

in this case, the young dogs—go about living their everyday life is limited. Of course, we are

good designers that play (no pun intended) by the book, therefore we start with some research

and on-field observations. Since this is virtually the first time we are witnessing two young dogs

play, we are not really aware of the metacommunicative signals in such context (e.g. seeming to

be biting, but not really biting).

Right in the middle of our field study, our commissioners ask us to communicate our

initial observations—long before we become familiar with the loops and patterns of this activity

—so we rush to note down our impressions in order to formulate our first ideas. How would we
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define our experience as spectators before such a scene? Most likely, we would first suggest, that

there is a threat from the two users towards one another; and also that there exists a risk of

physical harm, a lack of safety, for both users. To wrap-up with our initial analysis, we would

probably conclude that what we just witnessed could be best defined as conflict, a friction

between the two users. Additionally, if asked to produce an initial proposal for this context, our

first attempt would be to prevent, through our possible intervention, all the phenomena that are

traditionally perceived as negative—the threat, the risk, the lack of safety, etc.—from occuring.

Sounds too speculative? Not at all, if we look at what design on all scales have come up

with in how it intervenes in real life; much seems to be in tune with the assumptions discussed in

the latter paragraph. Let us now start a journey in real life, deconstructing design's agency in the

context of interrelations similar to ones discussed in our fictional design project.

A real-life example: Kulturhuset, Stockholm

Opened in 1974, Kulturhuset (Swedish for The House of Culture) is a cultural center to

the south of Sergels Torg in central Stockholm. It is a controversial symbol for Stockholm and

the growth of modernism in Sweden. The Kulturhuset website introduces the center with the

following text:
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Since its opening in 1974 Kulturhuset has offered culture in all imaginable shapes. Last

year Kulturhuset had 3 million visits and we can promise you that no matter who you are,

where you come from, whether you are old or young there is something here for you.iii

Image 2. A view of Sergelstorg square, with a backdrop of Kulturhuset

Kulturhuset is indeed a home for people coming from 'all layers of society'; it addresses a

variety of needs and speaks to a very large target group from comics-loving teenagers to upper-

middle class rooftop restaurant-goers. A walk on any given day starting down from the main

door of the house up to the top floor would take us through a booth area where we can buy

theater tickets, a foyer where we come in contact with an anticipating theater audience, an

affordable middle-class cafe and another one speaking to a more upper-class target audience with

relatively higher prices, an art gallery, and so on. However, there is one area that inhabits a
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certain group of people—and usually, a high number of them, too—that such a journey cannot

take you through, but rather next to, or around. This is the chess players' area—or rather, corner.

The chess players' corner is a 30 m2 space that contains around ten chess tables. It is

probably the most densely populated area within Kulturhuset, mostly inhabited by people of

immigrant origin. There is often more of those that watch and/or wait for their turn than those

who are actually found to be sitting down and playing. What is striking about the chess players'

area is that it did not always use to be situated in the corner that hosts it at present. Infact, if we

would have the chance to go back to September 2007 and visit Kulturhuset then, we would

locate the chess players at what is now the cafe, spread over a much larger area, thus much less

congested—and next to the glass façade with a view of the Sergelstorg square, too!

Image 3. Chess players at Kulturhuset

The phenomenon of chess players migrating from place to place within Kulturhuset gives

us an excellent opportunity to carry out an analysis of the totality of relations between society

and play, and design's agency in such, on different scales. If we start from the scale of the chess
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board, which itself constitutes the materiality on which a game of territorial conflict is played. In

chess, pawns are both the most abundant and also the weakest pieces; often they are sacrificed to

save the more valuable ones. It is even claimed that pawns represent serfs or labourers from

medieval times, who could be traded, used as a diversion, or even sacrificed to allow the

landowners to escape harm.iv No matter what historical symbolisms are attached to it, chess is

surely more than a game of skill—it is first and foremost an archetype of design as an exercise of

bringing about an order of its own interpretation, and a rationalization to how society functions.

It is a materialized analysis of real-life conflicts and the consequent evolution of roles that

different actors play.

If we zoom out from the scale of the chessboard and look once more at Kulturhuset, the

similar arrangements of bringing about an order to territorial conflict are again evident. What

were the reasons that led to the interior design decisions of September 2007; resulting in the

placement of chess players next to the glass façade, against the view of Sergelstorg; at a much

more obvious spot within the house? Why were they then moved to now be situated in a corner,

beneath a staircase, out of the way?

Yet, our analysis does not end there, since we have yet to study another level of design's

agency on a scale that is one notch larger; the city.2 We have only to look at the

Millionprogramme, an ambitious housing programme implemented in Sweden between 1965 and

1974 by the governing Swedish Social Democratic Party. While the main goal sounded as benign

as making sure everyone could have a home at a reasonable price, what the aftermath shows us

2 Interestingly enough, the floor tilings at Sergelstorg square give us a helping hand, for they bear a visual
resemblance to the pattern of checkers!
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today is a ring of neighborhoods inhabited by people of mostly immigrant origin or lower class,

living at a good distance from the city center.

“The totality of the causes of evil is the totality of relations. (…) to know what these are

one has only to describe the network of prepositions.”v says Michel Serres. The odyssey we have

just pursued, starting from the scale of products and architecture and finally to that of the city

shows us that design's agency takes place through its prepositional decisions. And, in the case of

Stockholm, the resulting urban experience relates more to the notion of 'game', rather than, 'play'.

Let us now see why.

Embracing disorder

Richard Sennett is one of the influential scholars who theorizes on ways to embrace

through urban design the social phenomena that have traditionally been perceived as negative—

such as conflict, friction, threat and risk. Deconstructing different approaches to urban design, he

asks why designers at large have chosen to exclude such phenomena (much like, say, what we

would have done in our fictional design project for young dogs, or what the

Kulturhuset/Stockholm example shows us). In order to do answer this question, Sennett works in

an interdisciplinary way, employing theories of child psychology that lead him to suggest that

the way children are brought up in modern times renders their experience of growing up

'purified', “by having the dissonances interpreted as less real than the consonances with what is

known.”vi He then studies the interrelation between society and urban design, saying that the kind

of experience the children of a civilization have deeply affects the way our cities are designed—

and naturally, vice versa. Sennett finally suggests that the total exclusion of non-violent conflict

and chaos in cities leads to a 'purified' urban experience.

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Another design theorist that investigates similar issues in the context of urban design is

Elizabeth Farrelly, who states that “explorability is ... the essential difference between a city that

is engaging to inhabit and one that is not.”vii Equating explorability to play, she places boredom

at the opposite pole. According to Farrelly, one contemporary phenomenon that leads to

boredom is the society's growing obsession with safety and social hygiene. Farrelly claims that

throughout the 20th century, this obsession has been expressed by bringing about extreme order

in cities through urban design; whereas chaos—which is usually seen as the antonym of order—

is itself the raw energy for cities to process and convert into culture. She stresses that “cities need

both chaos and order, and rely on a fine balance between the two” and goes further on to explain

the significance of chaos:

Why is this chaotic edge so important? Because creativity is about play, and play is about

adventure, and adventure requires the unknown outcome, a sense of open-endedness, in

order to be exciting. (...) A city deprived of its bubbling undercurrent of chaos, or with its

chaos so thoroughly plastic coated, so trapped by the bubble that there is no possibility of

threat, holds also no possibility of excitement. When the mast becomes opaque and shiny,

it's all over.

How deprived are our cities in the western world of their bubbling undercurrents of

chaos? Have we left any room at all for risk, threat and conflict—in other words, for play?

'Stranger danger'

Talking about play, threat and risk, we are reminded of an urban phenomenon that has

been becoming increasingly apparent in the last three decades. This phenomenon, tagged by the
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phrase 'stranger danger', refers to parents who prevent their kids from going out on their own to

play, lest that they would fall victim to an accident, abduction, harassment, and the likes. In

Britain, a recent attempt to solve this problem was made by the Conservative Party and its

chairman David Cameron, who suggested putting 'play rangers' on playgrounds.viii Though a

benign proposal on paper, the concept of 'play rangers' brings about a significant problematic.

The idea of the presence of an adult on the playground—whether in the form of a 'play ranger' or

a parent—illustrates a figure of authority who is, most likely, to not only serve as a guardian

against outside threats, but also to intervene when conflicts arise between the children

themselves.3 As a result of this, kids will lose the invaluable opportunity of solving such conflicts

on their own, which is scientifically proven to be an essential phenomenon for the development

of child psychology.4 However, the society's total intolerance towards, and all-too-easy negative

categorization of, all the notions that urban theorists such as Farrelly and Sennett see as potential

assets—risk, threat, chaos, conflict, etc.—is rehearsed once again by worried parents.

How could design possibly be involved in such a phenomenon? A telling example comes

from Tim Gill, a British researcher on play. He says that “studies have suggested that soft impact

rubber tempts children into a false sense of security, causing more—not fewer—accidents.”

3 Infact, surveys show that 'bullying' is one of the 'problems' that most parents name as a reason to why they do not
like the idea of letting their kids out on the playground without supervision—whereas bullying is far from being a
type of 'stranger danger', since it is a concept that refers to the incidents occuring between peer children.Infact,
surveys show that 'bullying' is one of the 'problems' that most parents name as a reason to why they do not like the
idea of letting their kids out on the playground without supervision—whereas bullying is far from being a type of
'stranger danger', since it is a concept that refers to the incidents occuring between peer children.

4 Tim Gill says that the only way for children to "find their way through difficult situations [is] only by self-
directed learning. Yes, it can be difficult and upsetting, and children are going to make mistakes. But I think they
need to be given enough rope."
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Once again, we witness the prevailing attitude—towards the notions of security, safety and risk

—in society being materialized through design, hence its agency in such matters.

Image 4. A poster made by a nonprofit organization, warning against 'Stranger Danger'

Having compassed how the myth of 'stranger danger' leads to an overprotection that

eventually destroys child play, let us finally look at what design can do for those who are,

through the perspective of the predominant model, on the verge of transforming from 'vulnerable'

kids to figures of potential 'danger'—in other words, teenagers. Skateboarding, an activity of

play that is extremely popular among urban teenagers, provides us the material to carry out our

final analysis.
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Skateboard parks

Matthew Johnston, a young reporter from Canada, informs us about a recent ban on

skateboard possession within the borders of a local school. He reports that the ban is restrictive

to the extent that prevents students from even skateboarding to school, since leaving skateboards

in lockers is also not allowed. Johnston goes on to express his astonishment by referring to what

the school board spokesperson had to say in order to defend the new policy: “The policy is in

place for students' safety, not because the skateboard can be a weapon as reported. We have had

instances where students have gotten hurt riding skateboards.” Then the young reporter asks in

return, “Gotten hurt riding skateboards? No students have been hurt riding bicycles to school?

No students have been hurt on public transit, perhaps by bullies? No students have been hurt in

gym class, for that matter?” He puts forth another set of questions, which he believes really

reflects the schizophrenia behind the recent policy: “Why does the Alberta government spend

millions in tax dollars to build skateboard parks only to tolerate a ban on skateboards in public

schools because students might get hurt? You can’t get hurt on a government built quarter pipe

or grind bench?”ix

Given the examples we have studied and the analyses we have carried out, we can now

see that actually there should be nothing here for our young reporter to stand aghast at. The

whole idea of spending millions of dollars to build skateboard parks along with a ban on skating

in other spaces makes total sense: this is only the sterilization and purification of urban

experience at its best.

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Image 5. The experience of skateboarding at a skateboard park

Tim Edensor, a scholar whose main areas of research include space and mobility, gives

skateboarders as an urban example to his notion of “the nomad”. He claims that skateboarders,

along with breakdancers, road-runners, till-takers, etc. are seen “as a threat to the norms of home,

rootedness, work and structure which officialdom demands.” His definition of a true

'skateboarder as a nomad' resists forced reterritorialization, moving “across 'tactile space',

transgressing spatial divisions and purified spaces.”x

Throughout the past two centuries, urban design at large has indeed paved the way to the

creation of purified spaces, playing by the rules of officialdom, structure, and order. Design's

general approach has been centered around a desire to solve all conflicts, as opposed to letting

some unresolved matters, and spaces be, so that citizens/users can bring their own solutions to

them. Just as kids in Britain are not allowed outside unless under the supervision of an adult,

western urbanites are not allowed to have experiences unless purified. Unfortunately, in this risk-
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free, conflict-avoiding scenario, too much is at stake—for instance, the maturation, of both the

British children, and of the societies in western cities. Today, the stratification that was evident

in verbal language in the 1950s does not exist—hence, the evolution of the phenomenon

'political correctness'. However, looking at all the examples we have discussed, it could be

claimed that design is increasingly taking language's place as the champion of such stratification.

As design weaves its “network of prepositions” on all levels and scales of urban everyday life, it

implicitly embodies what used to explicitly exist in everyday language.

Image credits

Image 1. Amaresh, S. K. “Pinned Down!”. flickr.com. 18 Nov 2008. 04 May 2009.

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/zaldoe/3040883699/>

Image 2. Olsson, Mattias. “Kultur House | Pride-huset”. flickr.com. 15 Sep 2008. 04 May 2009.

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/maol/2860853200/>

Image 3. Rose, Peter. “The game”. flickr.com. 8 March 2009. 04 May 2009.

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/28786313@N07/3337681085>

Image 4. DeKalb Police Department. “3Stranger Danger Rule 3.jpg”. City of DeKalb. 18 Jan

2007. 04 May 2009. <http://www.cityofdekalb.com/Police/Images/KIDS

%20KORNER/3Stranger%20Danger%20Rule%203.jpg>

Image 5. Ellinor Stenroos. “guy in yellow t-shirt”. flickr.com. 30 Aug 2008. 04 May 2009.

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/eves1/2810980073/>
i
Packard, Vance. The Status Seekers. Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd. 1959: 199.

ii
Huizinga, Johan. “The Nature and Significance of Play as a Cultural Phenomenon”. Homo Ludens.
Boston: Beacon Press. 1950: 1-5.
iii
Ardelius, John. “Welcome to Kulturhuset!”. Startsida Kulturhuset engelska. 30 Jul 2007. 4 May
2009. <http://www.kulturhuset.stockholm.se/default.asp?id=5617>
iv
Mack, Barbara. “History of Chess”. Essortment Articles. 2002. 4 May 2009.
<http://www.essortment.com/all/chesshistory_rmct.htm>
v
Serres, Michel, and Bruno Latour. Conversations on science, culture, and time: Michel Serres with
Bruno Latour. Trans. Roxanne Lapidus. Michigan: University of Michigan Press. 1995: 202.
vi
Sennett, Richard. The Uses of Disorder: Personal Identity and City Life. New Haven and London:
Yale University Press. 2008: 11.
vii
Farrelly, Elizabeth. Blubberland: The Dangers of Happiness. MIT Press. 2008: 137-139.
viii
Lacey, Hester. “All work and all play” The Guardian. 6 Nov 2007. 4 May 2009.
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2007/nov/06/schools.uk>; and; Wintour, Patrick. “Park
rangers will help make playgrounds safe, say Tories”. The Guardian. 4 Feb 2008. 4 May 2009.
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/feb/04/uk.conservatives>
ix
Johnston, Matthew. “Ban skateboards, build skateboard parks: the schizophrenic state at work in
Alberta.” Western Standard. 29 Apr 2009. 4 May 2009.
<http://westernstandard.blogs.com/shotgun/2009/04/ban-skateboards-build-skateboard-parks-
the-schizophrenic-state-at-work-in-alberta.html>
x
Edensor, Tim. “Moving through the city”. City visions. Ed. David Bell, and Azzedine Haddour.
New Jersey: Pearson Education. 2000: 132.