Play and Power, Sociology of

Play has been commonly related to power in various ways: Play is a metaphor that stands for the exercise of power, a source of power, something that is constrained by existing power relations, and a setting and activity where power is socially constructed by means of the interaction between participants. These conceptions of play as contest have deep roots in the work of historian Johan Huizinga, and are somehow external to the classical reflections that are at the foundation of the sociology of power, based mainly on the contributions of Karl Marx and Max Weber. However, they hold a culturalist vision of power that is very close to current trends in sociological theory, which conceive of the symbolic and expressive dimension of power as something that constitutes it, and not simply as one of its residual elements.

Huizinga is mostly renowned for his book Homo Ludens, one of the earliest efforts in cultural history. Huizinga argues that play (and other forms of aesthetic expression) is central to the development of culture and society. However, the ongoing process of rationalization and the affirmation of modern society erode this cen-trality of play, to the extent that the aesthetic domain (the one to which play belongs) becomes more and more marginalized.

This nostalgic vision for undifferentiated forms of group life is shared by many social thinkers of Huizinga's age (it is of paramount importance in Emile Durkheim's work on religion, for example, although the French sociologist tends to conceive ritual, and not play, as the source of culture and as the means of societal integration). Unlike Durkheim, who sees ritual as essentially a cooperative effort put into scene and practice by participants, Huizinga opts for a more competitive conception of symbolic action. Play, indeed, implies both elements of cooperation (in order to play, there must be at least some basic agreement on its rules) and competition (which is the fundamental aspect of interaction in play).