MWD

When we do research
we can do it playfully
or
not.

Playful research is getting things wrong.
It's creating space to get things wrong.
It's building relationships to explore what we mean by wrong.
Playful research is openness.
It's not making assumptions.
It’s being more Margot.

Playful research is walks.
It's skimming stones.
It's having lunch together.
It's curry at a mosque and sushi on a train.
It's bringing doughnuts to meetings.
It's bringing cookies to meetings.
It's bringing Dutch apple cake and squirty cream to meetings.
It's making a mess in meetings.
It's making meetings more delicious.
It's rethinking what a meeting is.

Playful research is not games
even when it involves games.
Playful research is an infinite game.

Playful research can be creative
it can be participatory
it can be play
it can be the thing you think it is
but it is not just those things.
Playful research is
being playful
and playing fully.
‍
Playful research is a potluck meal
where the thing we make
is not the individual dishes
but the experience of sharing them
together.
Playful research
is poetry.

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Playful research is an provocative, innovative, interdisciplinary research methodology in which the ethical, affective, relational, dispositional and operational conditions for play and playfulness are actively cultivated, and form the basis for collaborative, equitable and generative knowledge-making. It is also the central methodology around which Medicine Without Doctors is being designed.

To find out more, you can read the first draft of our playful research "playkit" here. We'd love to know what you think, which you can send to medicinewithoutdoctors@ed.ac.uk.