The Ecology of Playful Childhood

The Diversity and Resilience of Caregiver-Child Interactions among the San of Southern Africa

Akira Takada

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9783030494391
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Ehe- & Familiensoziologie

While studies of San children have attained the peculiar status of having delineated the prototype for hunter-gatherer childhood, relatively few serious ethnographic studies of San children have been conducted since an initial flurry of research in the 1960s and 1970s. Based on the author's long-term field research among several San groups of Southern Africa, this book reconsiders hunter-gatherer childhood using "play" as a key concept. Playfulness pervades the intricate practices of caregiver-child interactions among the San: immediately after birth, mothers have extremely close contact with their babies. In addition to the mother's attentions, other people around the babies actively facilitate gymnastic behavior to soothe them. These distinctive caregiving behaviors indicate a loving, indulgent attitude towards infants. This also holds true for several language genres of the San that are used in early vocal communication. Children gradually become involved in various playful activities in groups of children of multiple ages, which is the major locus of their attachment after weaning; these playful activities show important similarities to the household and subsistence activities carried out by adults. Rejuvenating studies of San children and hunter-gatherer childhood and childrearing practices, this book aims to examine these issues in detail, ultimately providing a new perspective for the understanding of human sociality.

Part IPart I

© The Author(s) 2020

A. TakadaThe Ecology of Playful ChildhoodPalgrave Studies on the Anthropology of Childhood and Youthhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49439-1_1

Begin Abstract

1. Children in the Wild

Akira Takada¹

(1)

ASAFAS, Kyoto University, Sakyo, Kyoto, Japan

Keywords

CrisesChildrearingEthnographyHuman natureAnthropology of childhood

End Abstract

1.1 Introduction

“It was like hell!” These were the words a mother used to describe her experience of raising a child. Her statement was repeatedly cited during a special program that aired in January 2016 on NHK (Japan’s public television network) titled, “Moms in a State of Emergency!? Using Cutting-Edge Science to Examine Japanese-Style Parenting.”¹ The program did not feature mothers who were in circumstances that were in any way unusual. The above phrase cited in the program was uttered by an ordinary mother in Japan, who was in the midst of childrearing. The program presented scenarios of anxiety and loneliness that many mothers experience as a result of childbirth or childrearing, and it scientifically discussed the causes of these problems and possible remedies. A huge reaction was sparked by the program, and less than two months after it aired, NHK took the unusual step of broadcasting a follow-up episode. The follow-up episode focused on the tribulations of fathers who actively engage in parenting.²

Given the growing number of stories on television and in newspapers related to research on children and childcare, it appears that public interest in research on this subject is on the rise. In my opinion, this interest is derived from two interrelated crises in child childrearing. The first is increased anxiety caused by rapid social changes surrounding childrearing in contemporary industrialized society. In most industrialized countries, birth rate has fallen to an unprecedented low. Accordingly, there are many voices criticizing the inexperience of those responsible for childrearing (Fig. 1.1). Reflecting on this criticism, mainstream middle-class parents are increasingly concerned that their childrearing practices may be doing more harm than good. The Japanese government appears to perceive this as a national crisis and is intensifying intervention to increase the birthrate and promote proper childrearing. The above TV program was an attempt to allay this anxiety.

Fig. 1.1

The author and son

(Photo taken by Michie Kawashima in Japan in 2009)

The second crisis derives from fluctuations in the credibility of professional knowledge about current childrearing. As has often been discussed (e.g., Rogoff 2003; Lancy 2015), research on childhood has long been dominated by experimental psychology studies on children in WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) societies. However, in many respects (e.g., views of the self, conceptualization of children, and family structure), people in WEIRD societies occupy the extreme end of the distribution among the global population. This makes them a very poor subpopulation to study for making generalizations about humans (Henrich et al. 2010). Therefore, since Henrich et al. (2010) published their study, various scholarly fields of experimental psychology have been shaken with doubt about the generalized applicability of research results from these “outlier” sample populations.

Because the second crisis is deeply rooted in the Western way of thinking, even revolutionary thought that attempts to overcome this bias has often been caught in the same trap. A good example of this is seen in the development and transition of attachment theory, originally proposed by John Bowlby (1907–1990) and Mary Ainsworth (1913–1999). After World War II, many people were free from the extreme tension and hustle of wartime. Old and new questions about the nature of humanity came into the limelight. Attachment theory responded to these circumstances by establishing links between evolutionary biology, psychoanalysis, ethology, and emerging cognitive science. At the request of the World Health Organization (WHO), Bowlby, who was active not only as a researcher but also served as an expert advisor to the United Nations, published a wide-ranging review of literature on infant mental health, along with the results of his own research, in Maternal Care and Mental Health (Bowlby 1952). Soon after, the popular version of this ground-breaking book, Child Care and the Growth of Love (Bowlby 1953), became a worldwide bestseller. This work, the central topic of which was maternal deprivation and its corollary, i.e., the idea that affective and corporeal maternal care during infancy and early childhood are essential for the child’s lifelong mental health, laid out what was, at the time, a revolutionary argument (Holmes 1993: 25).

Attachment theory was subsequently advanced through empirical research by Mary Ainsworth. Ainsworth gained insight into the different types of attachment through her work in rural villages in Uganda; she then employed the “strange situation” paradigm for experimental observation. In this paradigm, based on a pre-arranged plan, mother and infant arrive together at the laboratory. Shortly thereafter, the mother slips out of the room, leaving her infant in the unfamiliar setting of the laboratory with a kind stranger (the experimenter). After a while, the mother returns. The infant’s interactions (or lack of them) with the mother are observed, coded, and classified. That is to say, the forms of attachment between mothers and infants are categorized into secure, anxious-avoidant insecure, anxious-resistant insecure, and disorganized patterns (Ainsworth et al. 1978). The method introduced by this research has become a standard paradigm for studies related to socialization during infancy and has generated numerous subsequent studies (for review, see Miyake 1991b).

Along with the advances represented by these studies, several studies have demonstrated significant differences across cultures with respect to the relative frequencies of the above-mentioned patterns. For example, while secure attachment is regarded as normal, based on studies in the West, it is less common in Japan and Israel. Instead, insecure–ambivalent (insecure–resistant) reactions are more frequently observed, and these cannot be considered as abnormal reactions in these countries (Miyake 1991a; Holmes 1993: 86–87). Although attachment theory was intended to be universal and was considered as one of the most important theories for children’s early socioemotional development, with substantial implications for application in clinical and educational fields, it has become increasingly clear that the theory was developed out of the prevailing Western image of ideal mother-child relationships and was based on a selective review of scholarly knowledge available at that time. Therefore, reconsideration of attachment theory is required, given more current empirical findings regarding various caregiver-child relationships across cultures (Quinn and Mageo 2013; Keller 2015).

More recently, Morelli et al. (2017) presented an alternative view to classic attachment theory and research, arguing the importance of systematic, ethnographically informed approaches. According to them, the attachment relationships that children develop are locally determined, and these features of attachment can only be captured through observing, talking with, and listening to local people as they go about living their lives, including caring for children. The study reviews the profound ways in which childcare around the world differs from the Western model, upon which attachment theory was founded and from which myriad recommendations have been derived. This account of a global perspective of childcare is profusely illustrated with ethnographic examples, some of which exhibit characteristics of multiple attachments.

1.2 Ethnography of Children and Childcare

“Contempt for simple observation is a lethal trait in any science” (Tinbergen 1963: 411). Concern over the above two crises has led to increased attention being given to observing the everyday lives of children in various culturally based activities outside the laboratory—“in the wild.” This enables us to reconsider childhood, placing it in diverse contexts in an attempt to understand the world of children and caregivers from their own perspective, with a view to envisaging the ecology of childrearing. In line with this ethnographic approach, studies of children and childcare among contemporary hunter-gatherers merit particular attention.

Based on the fact that humans have largely relied on hunting and gathering natural resources since our divergence from other species, it was believed that characteristics intrinsic to human society, including childrearing, were as...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• Part I. Part I
• Part II. Part II
• Back Matter