Gerlev Legepark har altid været tæt tilknyttet til forskningen
inden for leg, bevægelse, idræt, sundhed og sociale forhold. Her er
nogle nyheder om leg og legeforskning fra proffessor Henning
Eichberg, Institut for Idræt og Biomekanik på Syddansk
Universitet.
Denmark - upgrading play and game in research and
practice
Engagement for popular sports and traditional games has
increased in Denmark since the 1990s - both by play and game
research at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) and by
practical pedagogical development at the International Playground
in Gerlev. These initiatives have become upgraded during recent
time.
The Nordea foundation, belonging to the leading financial
services group in the Nordic and Baltic Sea region, has decided to
sponsor the research program "Movement, play and sports" by 8.3
mill. Danish crowns (1.6 mill. $). The program is lead by
professor Bjarne Ibsen, sociologist at the Institute of Sports
Science and Clinical Biomechanics of the SDU in Odense, while the
main part of the program, "Play and game under new forms", is
directed by professor Henning Eichberg, cultural sociologist at the
same institute. The project of play and game consists of three
PhD-projects, focusing on Play and learning, Space of play, and
Play and technology.
A first publication in this field was presented soon after the
start of the program. The historian Jørn Møller from Gerlev, who
had started Danish research in traditional play and games by four
volumes in 1990/91, describing 400 games, had prematurely died in
summer 2009, before finishing his work of more comprehensive
theoretical character. But he left behind a rich collection of
studies and articles in the pedagogy, history, philosophy and
anthropology of play and game. These were now edited by Karen-Lis
Egedal Kirchhoff and Henning Eichberg under the title Med leg skal
land bygges (With play thou shall build the land) in the series
"Movement Studies" (publisher Bavnebanke in Gerlev, 2010). The
volume comprises studies with special focus on traditional games
and on bodily movement. An introduction designs lines of future
research and philosophy in this field. For the time being, this
volume presents the most advanced theoretical thought about
traditional games and movement in Denmark.
In connection with the new play-and-game focus and for the
supervision of the coming PhD-studies in this field, the Institute
of Sports Science and Clinical Biomechanics of the SDU has
established a professorship for body culture studies with special
focus on play and game. The professorship, held by Henning
Eichberg, aims at the theory of play, especially phenomenological
methods of historical analysis and intercultural comparison. New
studies shall bridge between traditional folk games and modern
technological games. About international and Danish body culture
studies see also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_culture_studies
The International Playground in Gerlev, which was inaugurated in
1999 for the promotion of traditional games, was later on
supplemented by facilities for parkour and street-movement, which
have recently become popular in Denmark. The playground was in 2010
merged with the People's Academy of Sports in Gerlev, which had
been the starting point for the new wave of traditional games
during the 1980s.
Staff members of the Gerlev playground were also sent to the
World Exposition 2010 in Shanghai, where they presented old popular
games in the Danish pavilion. The interest of Chinese visitors was
large, especially and surprisingly also the interest - and skill -
of Chinese elderly persons. Play and game does not only appeal to
children and young people, who learn and make fit for their future
life. Why and how do elderly people play? - Questions like these
challenge the conventional utilitarian philosophy of play and
game.
Henning Eichberg, October 2010