This study examines playgrounds as lenses on urban transitions to explain the link between
urban transformations and changes in the discourse of play and childhood. Specifically,
it compares Soviet public playgrounds and post-Soviet privatized playscapes in
the city of Yekaterinburg, Russia, through primary observation and secondary data
analysis. Using the framework of social reproduction developed by Cindy Katz and Saskia
Sassen to explain how the local forces affect cities, my analysis shows …
Read moreThis study examines playgrounds as lenses on urban transitions to explain the link between
urban transformations and changes in the discourse of play and childhood. Specifically,
it compares Soviet public playgrounds and post-Soviet privatized playscapes in
the city of Yekaterinburg, Russia, through primary observation and secondary data
analysis. Using the framework of social reproduction developed by Cindy Katz and Saskia
Sassen to explain how the local forces affect cities, my analysis shows that the shift in
the discourse of play and childhood in the post-Soviet period is hinged on global influences
combined with local transformations, from the abandonment of Soviet ideals of
communal play spaces to the embracement of today’s consumerist play places. Whereas
the old Soviet playgrounds have uncertain purposes, in contemporary Yekaterinburg
private playgrounds offer a narrative of play in terms of leisure, love, and convenience
for parents. Children turn into consumers of private play, leaving most of the Soviet
playgrounds as idle spaces in the city. This article argues that Yekaterinburg’s shift toward
participating in the globalized economy combined with its transition from the Soviet
ideals maintains social relations and reproduces social inequalities in childhood, as
this condition favors consumerist narratives of play. I conclude that the playgrounds in
Yekaterinburg are bystanders of new global ecologies whereby social, political, and economic
transformations become an impetus to reproduce new ways of seeing the social
importance and meaning of play and playgrounds.