Jeux de rôles pour enfants : une nouvelle forme de fiction ludique

Abstract

How can we ethnographically map the place of fictional invention in children? Here we present a case study of a practice at the crossroads of spontaneous children's role-play and life-size adult role-play. Conducted in the form of a summer workshop, this activity allows us to understand how adults and children can occasionally participate together in writing a narrative that will take the form of a speaking and acting game. One of the main characteristics of this hybrid form is the child’s position as author, actor and spectator. But unlike in their own games, children here are constantly under the supervision and guidance of adults who oversee the development of the narrative and adherence to the rules. The young player is therefore in a unique position: he produces part of the narrative content of the game in which he is not the sole actor (by creating his character, for example). He, too, wants to tell a story, set up a scenario, create rules and have the adults play, as in his childhood game. But the rules are changing, he is no longer omnipotent and must play within the framework of simulated imagination he helps to define.

Keywords

• child
• role play
• fictional invention
• ethnography
• life-size role play