Fantasy and Reality: The Dialectic of Work and Play in Kwara'ae Children's Lives

Abstract

In Kwara'cae, as in many Third World and workingclass contexts, young children spend as much, or more, of their time in work as in play. This article examines how fantasy and reality are framed by Kwara'ae children in play and work and children's self‐positionings through child‐mode and adult‐mode styles of embodiment. In adult‐mode performances, children's double description—"This is play" and "This is not play (because it's work)"—sustains them in long periods of work. The epistemological significance of adult and child modes is also considered.