Children's play, war toys, and geopolitics

Woodyer, Tara and Carter, Sean (2017). Children's play, war toys, and geopolitics. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Archive. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-852780

Since the 1990s, increasing attention has been paid to how geographies of global politics are represented through popular culture, such as films, radio and magazines. Despite the enduring war play debate, children and toys have typically been excluded from these discussions. At a time when militarism is increasingly imprinting on everyday geographies well beyond areas of actual armed conflict, a grounded cultural commentary on war play and how children develop their understanding of geopolitical climates is urgently needed. Working in partnership with the V&A Museum of Childhood this project analyses how military technologies and logics are made banal - alike through children's play with action figures, and thus the role of toys in the making of the citizen. Based on an innovative methodology developed as part of previous ESRC awards, this project uses interlinking strands of trade, museum and home based ethnographic research to ask: (1) How has the history of the British action figure been shaped by wider geopolitical climates? (2) What geopolitical narratives have shaped, and are shaped by HM Armed Forces (HMAF) toys? (3) How do children make sense of contemporary geopolitics through play with HMAF toys? (4) How can toys be used as an educational tool for understanding historical/contemporary geopolitical climates?

Data description (abstract)

The data deposited here consists of four main types of data generated by the project;
(1) Transcripts of a series of interviews undertaken with those working in the toy trade - more specifically, with those that worked for Palitoy and were involved in the production of the Action Man range; (2) Photographs of comment cards filled in by visitors to the 'War Games' exhibition, designed by the V&A Museum of Childhood. Photographs of a selection of these comment cards were taken for each of the venues visited by the exhibition on its two-year national tour; (3) Ethnographic field diaries written by project researchers, based upon observational studies undertaken in each of the locations visited by the 'War Games' exhibition; (4) Research notes from a series of workshop sessions undertaken in Primary schools. These workshops involved children creating stories using a range of toys (including military action figures) provided to them.

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