Paracosmic Play Areas in Western Plains Boarding and Day Schools

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Childhood play areas represent a complete departure from the landscapes that archaeologists often examine in that they exist within adults’ domestic, logistic, and/or sacred spaces yet simultaneously outside of any of these spatial ideals. The difficulty in analyzing these areas is further compounded when Indigenous ontologies are considered, especially those of children who may or may not fully engage with larger cultural systems, and even more so when considering the intersection of children’s' understandings of the intersection between their belief and colonial policies. In this paper I briefly present the methodology that I use to identify where children played in boarding and day schools in the western Plains, based on evidence in the historic and archaeological records, and discuss the micro-paracosmic nature of these play areas drawing from traditional Native understandings of childhood. Finally, I take a closer look at the phenomenological “reality” of these spaces and argue that, at least when occupied by playing children, these areas require an expanded understanding of contemporary archaeological approaches, an understanding that draws from the lens of the children themselves.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36419.0