Paper short abstract:

I elaborate on the joking relationships and the playful and spontaneous, at times absurd, interactions during my fieldwork among 14-year-old expatriate youth in an international school. I argue that trying to express the playfulness in a written form necessarily flattens the situation.

Paper long abstract:

I conducted ethnographic fieldwork among 14-year-old expatriate youth in an international school in Finland for eighth months. School provides a very structured environment where there is the right place and time to do things and pupils follow strict timetables. At the same time, pupils interact with each other in playful ways during breaks and lunches, and often also during lessons. As a middle-aged woman, I was initially concerned on how I would be able to conduct participant observation among teenagers. It was easy to observe them but participation was trickier. During the fieldwork, I realised that joking was an essential part of their everyday interactions. Consequently, I often ended up joking around with them, and jokes and playful, at times absurd, interactions turned out to be an important channel to construct meaningful relationships. They also made the fieldwork a truly fun and enjoyable experience and made the spontaneity of the youth’s everyday lives tangible. In this presentation, I elaborate on the joking relationships and the playful interactions during my fieldwork. I argue that trying to express the playfulness in a written form necessarily flattens the situation. A film that I made with a few other boys on their freetime manages to express the playfulness of teenagers’ interactions to some extent but even the film format fails to catch the richness, absurdness and spontaneity of the playful relationships and due to ethical concerns, filming is possible only with certain people in certain places.