A ludic perspective on everyday practices: Evidence from ethnographic fieldwork

Abstract

In this paper we introduce Johan Huizinga’s ludic perspective to information systems research with the aim to understand large complex social phenomena, specifically how the younger generation interacts with technology in their everyday organizational practices. Against an anthropological background, we employ Huizinga’s ludic approach to grasp everyday practices using the concept of play. We specifically invoke this novel concept in an ongoing critical ethnography of young professionals’ everyday encounters with IT in a large organization. Our findings endorse the idea that young people seem to be at play with IT in their everyday practices. This paper adds two contributions to IS research: first, it introduces Huizinga’s ludic perspective as a framework to help understand everyday practice; second, the organizational ethnographic evidence sheds light on the practical intricacies from young people’s perspective, thus placing the use of IT in the broader context of everyday practices of the younger generation.