Playfulness in Conversation with Others

Language is also a place of struggle

- Bell Hooks,
In Playfulness, "World"-Travelling, and Loving Perception, Maria
Lugones recommends taking up a particular attitude of playfulness as an
affirmation of plurality in response to the difficulties created from being
constructed and essentialized as an outsider. In this essay, I would like to
take up this attitude of playfulness and apply it the the realm of words and
language in order to present it as another means of lessening the dangers of
Speaking for Others as described by Linda Alcoff. The concept of playfulness
developed here will be helpful with respect to many avenues: in particular,
employing playfulness in the discursive realm creates the possibility of both
using and dismantling norms; of being open to mistake and critique; of
making meanings that are plural and shifting; Most interestingly,
playfulness has a potential of changing the dynamic of power relations
because of its tendency to undermine formalized relations to authority and
conventional communication. As we unpack the concept we will need to
engage with the inevitable obstacles and limitations of such a project and as
such, we are continually obliged to contextualize and refine the term to
maintain its efficacy. Ultimately however, with the help of a few examples, I
hope to forward the notion that employing playfulness in language is an
effective method of challenging norms given the proper context.
A popular question raised when meeting someone new, especially in a
multicultural urban city, is where are you from? Only problem is, when I am
asked this, the question is basically void of meaning because I have moved
around so much. So I resort to answering a different question, well, I lived in
XYZ before I lived here, or I ask them to clarify the question, Do you mean
where I was born? or I just avoid the question, and come up with a
particular response. Of course, whatever answer I do give with regards to
nationality, has to come with some qualification; that is, sometimes the
question asked is really a question about skin color and race.1 In contrast,
normal and everyday laymanconversation, where the people having the
conversation understand each other fine, there is no need to ask what
someone means because language has not [yet] failed. However, it seems
that for those on the margin, the potential of failing to communicate is
1 See Bayoumi, 2010.

much sooner, and one is, at least more immediately, forced to confront the
realities of location and otherness. I open with this anecdote to both help in
grounding this text within a particular context, as well as to employ an
example of playing with meanings as a method of accommodation and
representation; if I care2 about having a good conversation, I play with
meanings in order to come up with relatively satisfying responses to
conventional questions, and carry on the conversation; if I didnt care, and
this would depend on my mood and attitude, I would respond to convention
with convention, and the conversation would be uninteresting and routine.
In her description of a loving playful attitude, Lugones is pointing to a
way of making connections with others

2 It may be possible to think of loving playfulness in response to care, as will be distinguished below.