Toying with the world: Children, virtual pets and the value of mobility

Abstract

This article approaches childhood as an emergent condition in which children, their caregivers and toys all take an active part and argues that the focus on toys opens important insights for studying processes of social reproduction and change. This is demonstrated by describing children’s interactions with virtual pets that encourage children to become mobile in a manner that is only possible through digital technologies. This mobility is at heart of local orientations of how to be part of the world, but by subscribing to it children are not simply mimicking the adult world: when children make the pursuit of mobility their own project, they also make it distinctively theirs.

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