Play in the Countryside and Repertoires of Work: Approaches and Distances in Children's Everyday Life

Abstract

This article examines how peasant children from the Nativo de Barra Nova District, in São Mateus (ES, Brazil), mobilize repertoires linked to family routines and territorial practices in their play. The discussion follows approaches to and distances from local culture, produced through appropriations during play. The research draws on systematic observation recorded in field diaries, in-situ listening, and audiovisual records. The corpus brings together scenes selected because they reveal elements associated with the world of work in a broad sense and the ways these are rearranged in play. Findings are organized into three movements: the conversion of objects into narrative resources; the displacement of purposes, in which local intelligibilities are preserved while goals are redefined according to the demands of play; and regimes of limit, in which tacit permissions, managed risk, and staged authority regulate participation and circulation. The article concludes that these dynamics operate in gradations, articulating preservation and movement in the inhabiting of territory.