Short Abstract

This hands-on installation introduces the methodological miscellany of Playful Research. Through creative games, personal reflection, collaborative discussion, participants are invited to play, be playful, and (re)imagine what playful research might look and feel like “otherwise” (Woolgar, 2014).

Description

This interactive table installation introduces the conceptual framing and methodological miscellany of Playful Research, an evolving and experimental approach to interdisciplinary knowledge creation in the Wellcome-funded project Medicine without Doctors: Reimagining Care and Voice through Play. Going beyond the idea of games and creative methods as either data collection or dissemination, Playful Research invites scholars to consciously cultivate and engage their playful attitudes; to explore their own relationships with playfulness; and to consider how those relationships shape the ways they produce, share, and experience knowledge.

The installation will feature multiple possible modes of playful engagement, including creative manifesto-making, playful discussion, and demonstrations of a prototype toolkit. Through short creative games, personal reflection, and arts-based practice-research methods, visitors are introduced to the concept of plork (Castro, 2025), and experiment with how conscious playfulness might reframe their own research practices, disciplinary assumptions, and build resilience in their research practice (e.g. Yarnal and Qian, 2011).

Participants are also invited to play with a prototype toolkit co-designed by interdisciplinary stakeholders, both in the form of physical games and toys, and through discussion with the team. Visitors will explore the conceptual background and practical possibilities of adopting Playful Research as a methodology for STS inquiry, playing alongside us and each other, becoming collaborators in the research itself as they are invited to play with the ideas; to take them apart and put them back together again in new, exciting ways; to ask “What if…?” (Mau, 2020).

Each interaction—whether five minutes or an hour—contributes to a shared, evolving assemblage of zines, notes, and reflections that grow during the conference, foregrounding the idea that STS insights are generated not only through text and analysis, but through situated, playful acts of making, doing, and reflecting together.

Timing: Anywhere from 5 to 60+ minutes depending on engagement.