The Work of Play by Nahm Sheena ;

Author:Nahm , Sheena,;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4

Achieving Intuition

If legitimacy can appear in many forms, then the marker for quality is no longer limited to the realm of government regulation. Left to govern themselves (and in some respects, happy to do so), play therapists tap into alternative modes of governance. These alternative forms of governance hold equal or greater sway because they tap into the legitimizing power of cosmopolitan striving—and global belonging. Korean play therapists attend training workshops alongside practitioners who come from North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Australia, and Asia. Through these encounters and through shared experiences in acquiring new knowledge and skills, the Korean therapists embed themselves in an international network of trained experts. Thus, governance and legitimacy via professional associations simultaneously offers a sense of broader global belonging and more opportunities for mentorship by trainers in a field that does not yet have regulatory bodies in local or national government.

Professional branding through global belonging sets trained therapists apart from untrained entrepreneurs while also underscoring their new role in society as experts at the intersection of child development and mental health. This notion of expertise is one that weaves together a complicated web of anxieties and desires. Individual narratives of expertise are interwoven into national narratives and vice versa. Concepts such as “globalization” or “neoliberalism” take on robust meaning when concretely anchored in the specific case study of Korea and the stakes of real people—of women who struggle to establish their professional place in a new work sector, and of workers who struggle to cultivate their expertise on the local, domestic, and global stage.

This chapter examines expert-making processes that require individual management of intuition-cultivation as well as organizational management of program fidelity across sites around the world. Though specific in nature, as all case studies are, the reflections in this chapter offer practical and concrete articulations of anxiety and desire in ways that complement theoretical critiques of socio-cultural phenomena. In the fine grain detail of everyday worries and problem solving, and in the voices of a small group of female play therapists, I hear echoes of broader debates that have captivated scholars and pundits. It is my hope that the analysis of specific and concrete narratives will show the incredible work (and play) that goes into knowledge-making and expert-legitimizing.

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