This research examines how the co-existence of work and play can lead to meaningfulness and what this might mean sociologically. Drawing upon 40 qualitative interviews with autonomous neo-craft workers in Italy, we contribute the concept of playful work as a voluntary and subjective framing of autonomous work entailing the simultaneous interplay between the extrinsic material goals, utilitarian planning and outcomes that characterise work, and the intrinsic experimental purpose and focus on place and process that typify play. The experience of playful work is challenging and tensional due to the interaction between individual agency and broad structural forces. Autonomous neo-craft workers manage these tensions by ascribing worth and significance to neo-craft’s aesthetic ideals and to care and (com)passion values. This contribution is significant in that it expands sociological imaginaries and the potential for future research by framing playful work as a tensional pathway to meaningfulness.
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