Abstract
ABSTRACTLiterature depicts children of the Global North withdrawing from public space to ‘acceptable islands’. Driven by fears both of and for children, the public playground – one such island – provides clear-cut distinctions between childhood and adulthood. Extending this argument, this paper takes the original approach of theoretically framing the playground as a heterotopia of deviance, examining – for the first time – three Greek public playground sites in relation to adjacent public space. Drawing on an ethnographic study in Athens, findings show fear to underpin surveillance, control and playground boundary porosity. Normative classification as ‘children’s space’ discourages adult engagement. However, in a novel and significant finding, a paradoxical phenomenon sees the playground’s presence simultaneously legitimizing playful behaviour in adjacent public space for children and adults. Extended playground play creates alternate orderings and negotiates norms and hierarchies, suggesting significant wider potential to reconceptualise playground-urban design for an intergenerational public realm.
Highlights
Heseltine and Holborn (1987, 12) argued that the very presence of the playground could be seen as ‘a measure of failure’ to engage children in public, everyday life while more recent literature has addressed the suspicions initiated by other people in the playground space (Weck 2017; Wilson 2013). Turning these arguments on their heads, we suggest that the fact that playgrounds do not engage adults with children’s culture could be seen as a further measure of their failure
Drawing on the outlined characteristics, this paper examines the interrelationship between fear and the practices associated with the playground space
Ethnography was here chosen as a means to focus on the practices of heterotopia, the ways the playground space is experienced as ‘other’ and its connection with what is considered ‘normal’ public space
Summary
The chosen playground sites were paradigmatic cases, that is ‘cases that highlight more general characteristics of the societies in question’ (Flyvbjerg 2001, 80) reflecting the typical neighbourhood play-space in Athens: fenced, municipality-provided playgrounds placed in public piazzas, abiding by the ‘standardized playground’ model (Doll and Brehm 2010; Solomon 2005). Understood through the lens of heterotopia, the fence defines the porous limit of the playground enclave of deviance – a physical indicator that this area accommodates alternate orderings in the normality of public space: Because children are more constrained that way ...
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