Any TSG acts as a society in miniature, a way to enter society and to socialize (Parlebas, 2001). At present in Europe people belonging to different ethnic groups and cultures live together. For people from other cultures, many of the rules offered by traditional games represent unfamiliar ways of putting their bodies into action and making motorized contact with other participants. For an immigrant, participating in a casteller group (human towers), a skittles team, a foot race, a traditional wrestling match, a ball game or an Oina championship is an excellent way of living using a body language within that local culture, promoting inclusion, equal opportunities, sustainability, diversity and cultural tolerance.
To enter into play is to enter into society. The TSG invites to the social meeting of people who, when participating in a game, express the will to share an experience with other protagonists.
The TSG, as an intangible cultural heritage, is a fabulous setting for interpersonal relations aimed at personal and social well-being. The TSG offers extraordinary possibilities for expanding open, flexible and adaptable sociability to changing environments. Through their body language, game participants convey feelings, knowledge and learning that testify to a way of living in society.
All these arguments constitute the “north”, of action plan of AEJeST in its interest to study, maintain and promote the TSG as part of the intangible play heritage. This cultural heritage that the TSG gather constitutes a real wealth of the European culture and of the rest of the societies existing all over the planet.
The AEJeST, an association in favour of the ludic intangible cultural heritage.
Let us think globally to act locally.
Pere Lavega
President of the AEJeST (from 2017)
[1] Parlebas, P. (2001). Juegos, Deporte y sociedad. Léxico de praxiología motriz. Barcelona: Paidotribo.
[1] Renson, R. (2004). Ludodiversity: Extintion, Survival and Invention of Movement Culture. Saint Augustin: Academia Verlag.
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