Utopia of Play: in the beginning there was labour

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Your Local Anthropologist with Elina

YLA

7 episodes

4 days ago

Utopia of Play - an anthropological lens on the modern workplace - exploring play, work, and the worlds we can build when we stop to edit the script. Each episode weaves together personal experience, academic insight, and cultural analysis to trace how we resist invisible rules, reclaim agency, and begin to edit the scripts we’ve inherited. For anyone who's ever felt slightly out of step with the world's rhythm and wondered if that's a place worth pursuing.

Social Sciences

Science

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Social Sciences

Science

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Utopia of Play: in the beginning there was labour

Your Local Anthropologist with Elina

9 minutes 12 seconds

1 month ago

Utopia of Play: in the beginning there was labour

Why do we work this much? Even hunters and gatherers had shorter work days than us. Play is the crucial ingredient for breakthroughs and new ideas, so why don't we do it more?

This is the first in the series to deconstruct how we got here.

Full series can be read on https://www.yourlocalanthropologist.com/

Elina can be found creating new things

References:

Csikszentmihalyi, M. and Bennett, S. (1971) 'An exploratory model of play', American Anthropologist, 73(1), pp. 45-58.

Graeber, D. (2018) Bullshit Jobs: A Theory. London: Allen Lane.

Graeber, D. (2020) 'After the pandemic, we can't go back to sleep', Jacobin, March. Available at: https://jacobinmag.com/2020/03/david-graeber-coronavirus-pandemic-economy (Accessed: 10 January 2025).

Hamayon, R. (2016) Why We Play: An Anthropological Study. Chicago: HAU Books.