Games and Sport in Everyday Life: Dialogues and Narratives of the Self

Games of many kinds have been played in all cultures throughout human history. This wide-ranging book explores the social and psychological processes involved in the playing of games. One player (or team) seeks to outwit another by undertaking various physical and communicative moves--not unlike conversations. Games have well-formed 'narrative' structures, analogous to myths, that are enacted by each participant to give play to his/her self and its attendant emotions. These plays of the self enable each agent to seek adventures and heroic moments. Going beyond the myth-making and catharsis that may be achieved by individuals, the author shows how games have been devised and played in particular societies and eras as means of promoting specific ideologies of a society, even social ideals such as utopias.

Robert Perinbanayagam is a professor of sociology at Hunter College, City University of New York.