A Contribution to a Critique of the Concept Playbour

Toward a critical theory of playful research in the internet age exploring playful research in Second Life, Minecraft, and Hackerspaces/Makerspaces

“…Neoliberal instrumental reason and the justification of the market undermine the nature of play and transform it into a purely productive model, leaving out any sense of emancipation or freedom (Harvey, 2011;Hearn, 1976;Mirowski & Plehwe, 2015). The problematics of play collapsing into the playbour has been discussed elsewhere at length (Fuchs, 2016;Hesmondhalgh & Baker, 2013;Lund, 2015). Still, here it should be noted that fundamentally it is exploitative and morally reprehensible to transform leisure activities into work activities.…”

“…This essay is not about playbour or gamification. Academic research can and should be playful as productive, not to the exclusion of work, nor in the neoliberal construction of work as play, which is deeply problematic (Lund, 2015;Sandoval et al, 2014). Neoliberal instrumental reason and the justification of the market undermine the nature of play and transform it into a purely productive model, leaving out any sense of emancipation or freedom (Harvey, 2011;Hearn, 1976;Mirowski & Plehwe, 2015).…”

Digital Library Platforms’ Democracy Building Between Instrumental Education and Web 2.0 Sharing: A Swedish Case Study

“…This unproblematised intermixing of external and intrinsic motivations has met with radical critique. Making a crucial distinction between playing and gaming, Lund contends that gaming (and gamification) introduce an instrumental and exploitive capitalist logic into playing that (by definition) is non-instrumental and joyful (Lund 2015a;2015b;.…”

“…In the former the goal is the activity itself; in the latter the production of useful values is important. On the other hand, we have gaming and labouring; both valorise results that can be measured and compared (Lund 2014;2015a;.…”

The Playful Citizen

“…In the digital age, the differentiation between work and play gradually disappears and dissolves into playbor (Lund 2015), and while doing so, it encodes the Protestant and capital-oriented logic of a productive human existence into play. As much as play enters the allegedly play-free domains of life, such as the workspace, seemingly non-ludic practices pervade playgrounds.…”