Play farming and play states
 

"play farming"
 
Graeber and Wengrow's term for "loose and flexible methods of cultivation which leave people free to pursue any number of other seasonal activities"
 
"play kingdoms"
 
"seasonal gatherings [involving] the performance of something that looks to us a bit like kingship [but] only during certain periods of the year"
 
"there were months full of building projects, pageants, festivals, census-taking, oaths of allegiance, trials and spectacular executions; and other times when a king's subjects (and sometimes even the king himself) scattered to attend to [other] needs" (for instance, "planting, harvesting and pasturage")

> from David Graeber and David Wengrow's Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (2021)

> tagged with #agriculture, #power

> created March 4, 2026 at 10:37:28 AM


> part of unfinished everything


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unfinished everything is an original work / ongoing project (1997-present) by jeremy p. bushnell

selection, arrangement, and original text available for creative reuse under this licensing arrangement

authors' quoted words are their own.


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