Exploring materialities in children’s games: Revisiting the Javanese philosophy of laku in seeking knowledge

Abstract

The provision of early childhood education (ECE) in Indonesia, often focuses on the children’s learning experience and overlooks the complexity of the learning process in children's activities. Children’s games, for instance, are seen as a learning tool to achieve particular learning objectives and developmental tasks. Therefore, without negating children’s roles in the games, this article proposes a new way of understanding learning in the context of children’s games. A new materialist concept of intra-active pedagogy is applied to unpack the complexity of learning processes. The discussion in this article is looking at jamuran, a Javanese game involving embodied movements. This will include an analysis of a case study of a multi-age classroom with children aged six to 7 years old. By reading narratives of the game diffractively, new insights emerge in understanding learning as joining forces and continuous movements of game elements. Interestingly, these insights align with the Javanese philosophy of laku in seeking knowledge. The implication of this finding at the micro-political level is that more attention should be paid to the active role of materialities in a learning event. At the macro level of ECE policy in Indonesia, it encourages revisiting traditional philosophies from a new perspective like new materialism. This would also be expected to create a space for negotiating global-local intertwining views in looking at the learning process in ECE settings.

Introduction

This article aims to explore materialities in children’s games, using a new materialist concept of intra-active pedagogy (Lenz Taguchi, 2010) to unpack the complexity of learning processes in children’s games. The focus is on a Javanese game called jamuran which involves singing in a circle and embodied movements. In this game, the materialities of different bodies and movements are brought forward to open up new insights about the games as a learning event. These materialities are often neglected in stories about the games that mostly position children as the focal point. In a larger context of learning, the provision of early childhood education (ECE) in Indonesia has predominantly directed the gaze of its discussions at individual children and their development. The learning itself is believed to occur in ‘either internal cognitive process in the individual child, or emerging through an encounter with other human beings, and especially the teacher who knows what to learn’ (Lenz Taguchi, 2010: 65).

In the context of children’s games, ‘[t]he complexities of play, culture, nature and learning are overlooked when play is understood narrowly as simply being about how children learn, with nature providing a passive learning context’ (Alcock and Ritchie, 2018: 84). Therefore, without negating children’s roles in the games, this article proposes a new way of understanding learning in the context of children’s games by taking the perspective of the materialities of the games. With new materialism as a theoretical framework, the article gives attention to ‘matters of practices/doings/actions’ (Barad, 2008: 122) and the complexity of issues (Coole and Frost, 2010) related to learning in children’s games. Adopting the notion of intra-active pedagogy (Lenz Taguchi, 2010) and concepts of intra-activity and performativity (Barad, 2008), the discussion in this article looks closely at different movements and bodies in the games. The discussion acknowledges that all of the elements are considered equal in the learning process through continuous movements (Olsson, 2009) and the way different bodies and forces meet through body-movement repertoires (Ivinson and Renold, 2013).

The case study that will be explored in this article involves a Javanese circle and singing game called jamuran. The case study will explore materialities in this children’s game through research that was undertaken in a multi-age preparatory and year-one classroom in a primary school in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The class was a transition from preschool to the first grade of primary school, with twenty children, fourteen boys, and six girls, aged six to 7 years old. The narratives for the analysis were created by juxtaposing the different types of data that was generated from observations, group discussions, artefacts, and visual methods. The data was stirred up using new materialist concepts (Bone, 2017). Through diffractive reading (Barad, 2014), the data became interwoven and the interconnections were then revealed. This diffractive reading of stories opened a space to connect with stories from elsewhere (Bone, 2017). In this article, the new connection is with the Javanese philosophy of laku. In Javanese culture, laku can be understood as any act, movement, and effort towards change, improvement, or moving forward (Bayuadhy, 2015; Mohamed and Yunos, 2009; Suhardi, 2002). This diffractive reading of the data creates a hybrid space for the negotiation of new materialism and Javanese philosophies. Bringing forward the philosophy of laku revisits the traditional Javanese wisdom of seeking knowledge and addressing the complexity of children’s everyday activities. Revisiting this Javanese philosophy can contribute to perspectives from non-Western contexts and exemplifies the diversity of children’s lives across the globe. By including the views and experiences of children and childhood from the Global South this research makes a contribution to the existing predominantly Western-centric perspectives (Malone et al., 2020).

Through different encounters of materialities of bodies and movement in the jamuran game, new insights about learning in the context of children’s games can be generated. Therefore, the article aims to answer the question: how can the learning process be understood from the perspective of the materialities of bodies and movement in the jamuran game? This question prompts further discussion around how the learning process reflects the third space via the intertwinement of intra-active pedagogy and the philosophy of laku in seeking knowledge. The insights gained from the discussions in this article aim to shed light on the importance of children’s games being understood as a practice. In this practice, different bodies meet and constitute each other in an ongoing intra-activity (Lenz Taguchi, 2010) and join in different movements as unpredictable experimentations (Olsson, 2009). This new understanding has implications for pedagogical practices and at the policy within schools and plans to give more attention to the active role of materialities in a learning event. Within the broad scope of educational policy in Indonesia, exploring traditional philosophies from a new perspective, such as new materialism, can provide a space for negotiating global-local intertwining views (Yang et al., 2021). It may also make a contribution towards an assemblage between the global and local (Adriany and Saefullah, 2015) understandings of the learning process within ECE settings.

Intra-active pedagogy: addressing the complexity of a learning process

New materialism is an emerging perspective in childhood studies. This perspective unpacks the complexity of children’s lives in the contemporary world and frames new engagements in researching children and childhoods (Malone et al., 2020). This perspective allows research analysis to bring to the fore matter and materiality (Coole and Frost, 2010) and ‘to see children’s lives as being entangled with materials and objects’ (Malone et al., 2020: 148). The new materialism urges a shift in viewing materials as fixed and inactive (Barad, 2007) to becoming agentic (Alaimo and Hekman, 2008) and vibrant (Bennett, 2010). This shift readjusts the learning process and extends it beyond the focus on children’s cognition and instead considers all ‘change, flows, mobilities, multiplicities, assemblages, materialities and processes’ (Taylor and Ivinson, 2013: 665). It also demands that the learning process aims to ‘re-vitalise an openness to materialist and more-than-human influences in and on children and childhoods’ (Malone et al., 2020: 148).

A conceptual tool from the new materialist perspective central to this article's discussion is the notion of intra-active pedagogy (Lenz Taguchi, 2010). Intra-active pedagogy considers different elements including human, non-human, matter and organism, as constitutive into the learning process. The concept was developed from the notion of intra-action (Barad, 2007) that denotes the entanglement of agencies that mutually constitute each other. Intra-active pedagogy addresses the layered complexity of a learning process in the context of children’s games. Without negating the cognitive process in individual children, this pedagogy highlights the importance of paying attention to different material discursive aspects in an educational environment that potentially influence the learning process. As a system of knowledge production from a new materialist perspective, this pedagogy offers a different way of ‘knowing the world of children and education’ (Lenz Taguchi et al., 2020: 34). This way of knowing is complex and always open to change. It recognises ‘the learning event taking place in-between the child and the material in the space and event of learning’ (Lenz Taguchi, 2010: 35). The pedagogy is mutually constituted by different elements, particularly space, bodies, movements, and things.

In thinking and understanding children’s games, intra-active pedagogy entails the concepts of intra-activity and performativity (Barad, 2008). Intra-activity reflects ongoing interconnections and mutual influence among different components (Barad, 2008) throughout the playing of children’s games. Performativity is when ‘[a]ll bodies, not merely “human” bodies, come to matter through the world’s iterative intra-activity’ (Barad, 2008: 141). A performative understanding of children’s games sheds light on the materialisation of bodies, human and non-human, animate and inanimate, and takes materiality into consideration without reinstalling it as a basis or an unquestioned natural foundation for a new materialist perspective (Barad, 2008). In the context of children’s games, adopting a performative approach allows this article to focus on what the games themselves do or act and goes beyond explaining what the games are. This understanding brings forward the materiality of the bodies of games as their agencies emerge in iterative intra-activity throughout the games.

The Javanese culture and worldview: mapping the context

The discussion in this article uses data from the author’s doctoral study. This data focused on reinventing traditional games in the contemporary context of education for young children in Indonesia. Focusing on Javanese traditional games, Yogyakarta was the setting for the study because the city is considered as ‘the heart of Javanese Culture’ (Chaldun, 2009: 34). From a sociological perspective, Javanese refers to people who live on Java island and speak the Javanese language (Magnis-Suseno, 1997). Java is one of the main islands in Indonesia. Javanese culture is over two thousand years old and is believed to be one of the oldest cultures in Asia (Magnis-Suseno, 1997). Javanese culture continually evolves through encounters with different external influences. The primary external influences on Javanese culture came from early encounters with Hinduism and Buddhism in the 4th century (Koentjaraningrat, 1984). From the 16th to 17th centuries when Islamic influences were brought to Java through the ports by Muslim traders from Gujarat, Arabia, and Persia (Koentjaraningrat, 1984; Magnis-Suseno, 1997).

Interestingly, when Islamic influences were added into the Javanese culture this provided additional colour to the culture and did not displace the earlier Hindu and Buddhist influences. The early Islamic missionaries in Java were known as Wali Songo or Nine Saints. These missionaries made use of literature, arts, and different cultural activities, including tembang (traditional song), gamelan (traditional musical instruments), wayang (traditional puppet play), dolanan (children’s games), and tembang/lagu dolanan (children’s singing games) to spread Islamic values (Magnis-Suseno, 1997; Sunyoto, 2012). These influences have shaped the traditions and cultural practices in Javanese society ever since, especially in Yogyakarta which is at the centre of Javanese culture.

Javanese people always uphold their cultural values, ethics, and worldview in connecting with each other and with the world, including the natural world. The fundamental ethical principles that guide Javanese people in interpersonal relationships include rukun, that reflects the state of harmony or the absence of conflict, and urmat that means respect (Geertz, 1961; Magnis-Suseno, 1997). Javanese children learn and practice ethics from a very young age. Through this learning, the children build up their knowledge around the values of unggah-ungguh or tata krama (manners or etiquette) which are expressed through spoken language, gesture, and body posture. This practice includes learning to speak in krama inggil, which, when used, demonstrates the highest level of respect a child can show when speaking in the Javanese language to elders and other highly respected persons, such as parents and teachers. This practice also includes bowing the body when passing elders sitting on the chair. When it comes to showing one’s concern for the wider world, the Javanese proverb of memayu hayuning bawana that means ‘to embellish the world’ (Magnis-Suseno, 1997: 290) sends a message to treat the earth and natural world respectfully, which is also a part of the Javanese worldview. Hence, acknowledging and showing respect to both human and non-human existences have been intrinsically part of the Javanese ethics and worldview.

The Javanese philosophy of laku in seeking knowledge

The Javanese worldview values the importance of continually seeking knowledge in order to live a meaningful life. The emphasis on this value has been passed across generations since ‘[l]ocal cultural wisdom embraces knowledge, values, and perspectives which are very important for Javanese people to live in everyday life’ (Saddhono and Pramestuti, 2018: 26). These values are often not spoken about verbally, rather these values can be delivered through tembang, tembang/lagu dolanan, and dolanan. This approach reflects the Javanese preference to deliver messages in kind and wise ways (Achmad, 2016). Tembang and dolanan are used often during early childhood education and continue through into the first three years of primary school as well.

Tembang macapat is a particular type of tembang which contains important messages about ethical values that were delivered in a fun and enjoyable way. Macapat refers to Javanese traditional poetry which is commonly recited as a song and containing important Javanese values and wisdom (Achmad, 2016). Each of the 11 songs in macapat illustrates a different stage of life’s journey from birth through to life and even includes the stage after death (Achmad, 2016; Mardimin, 1991). Pocung is the last song in macapat, and this reflects the final journey of human life and delivers different messages and advice. One of well-known versions of pocung is about ilmu or ngelmu (knowledge). The lines are as follows:

Ngelmu iku kalakone kanthi laku

Lekase lawan kas

Tegese kas nyantosani

Setya budaya pangekese dur angkara

The English translation of the lines read as:

knowledge can only be attained through doing in practice

it is started with a will or desire

it means an encouraging will

the integrity of character and effort can overcome any trouble and wrongdoing

This particular tembang sends a beautiful, strong message about embracing a positive attitude towards learning. It also speaks to the importance of seeking knowledge through the journey of life in order to gain meaning from one’s life. This tembang also suggests that one must practice and contribute effort in order to gain knowledge, as stated in the first line. In the Javanese language, laku literally refers to the act of moving, to walk, or forward motion behaviour (Robson and Wibisono, 2002). However, laku is not always about physical movement. It can also be related to thinking or spiritual movement (Mohamed and Yunos, 2009). Any effort that contributes towards change, or sees an improvement or for something to be moving forward can all be considered as laku. As an action, laku reflects the Javanese ethical view which encourages one to always be careful and to refrain from wrongdoing. This view acts as a spiritual compass for Javanese people’s attitudes (Suhardi, 2002). The notion of laku implies that it is imperative among Javanese people to show positive attitudes, strong self-control, and to be guided by noble spirit.

Stories of different encounters of bodies and movements: the case study

The narratives which stem from the primary data in this article were generated from a case study of the multi-age preparatory and year one classroom in a primary school in Yogyakarta. The case study was designed as qualitative research using a new materialist perspective for engaging research on traditional games as a new way of reinventing the games. Using this perspective as a theoretical framework had consequences for the research methods that were used, where the common tools in social and educational research were used differently (Duhn and Grieshaber, 2016; Fox and Alldred, 2015). These common tools covered multiple methods of generating data, including observations, interviews, group discussions, visual recordings, and artefacts. This research was undertaken during three months of fieldwork for the study in 2016. Data from these multi-methods were then juxtaposed to generate narratives about the games. In analysing the data, diffractive reading was performed through immediate contact with data materials (Barad, 2007; Lenz Taguchi, 2010).

The study participants were twenty children, fourteen boys and six girls, from a primary classroom. The school was chosen because it was one of the few schools that integrated traditional games into the learning activities. The particular class was a transition from preschool to a formal school with students aged six to seven years old. Written permission from the children, as well as their parents and educators, had been received earlier. However, the author always asked for children’s permission when photographing or recording videos during the observations. Also, pseudonyms were used so the children would not be identifiable. Some visuals from the observations, along with artefacts of children’s drawings were then used as materials for group discussions with children. During these discussions, the children were invited to share their opinions, feelings, and impressions as they related to their experiences of playing the game. Among traditional games children played during the fieldwork, jamuran was one of the games they played the most. The jamuran game involved singing in a circle and embodied movement relevant to this article’s discussion. Narratives in the following sections were generated from a series of events which occurred during the playing of the jamuran game in the case study.

Jamuran: A Javanese circle and singing game

Jamuran is a Javanese traditional game that involves singing in its play and is played in a circle. The name jamuran is rooted in the word jamur, which means mushroom in the Javanese language. The suffix ‘–an’ after the word jamur means multiple numbers of jamur, so jamuran is defined as many mushrooms, but can be also understood as an object being mushroom-shaped (Robson and Wibisono, 2002). In the jamuran game, one player is in the middle of a circle, standing or sitting. This player is known as it (Gump and Sutton-Smith, 1971; Sierra and Kaminski, 1995; Wang, 2015), but in jamuran this player is specifically referred to as the pancer, which means the centre (Dinas Kebudayaan Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta, 2014). To determine which player becomes it or pancer, children usually do hompimpa and pingsut (Hamzuri and Siregar, 1998; Purwaningsih, 2006). Hompimpa and pingsut are commonly used ways players can select who plays a certain role in a Javanese game, such as it or pancer in jamuran game.

In hompimpa, all of the players form a circle and swing one of their hand palms while singing hompimpa alaium gambreng. As the last word in gambreng is sung, each player shows their palms either underside or topside (Wikipedia Indonesia, n.d). Then a check is completed to determine what number of palms sides was highest. In order to determine who wins and out from following draws, the same songs repeated until they get down to the last two players (Wikipedia Indonesia, n.d). The last two players then do pingsut to decide who will become the pancer. Pingsut is a Javanese version of the game called ‘elephant-man-ant’. The players use their fingers to indicate that, the thumb is the elephant, the index finger is the man, and the little finger is the ant (Wikipedia Jawa, n.d). In drawing the winner, the rules are that elephant wins over man, man wins over ant and ant wins over elephant (Wikipedia Jawa, n.d). So, the two players hide their hands behind their heads, then say the word pingsut out loud at the same time that they point their finger – either the thumb, the index finger or the little finger – towards their opponent, and see who wins according the rules above. The player who loses during pingsut then becomes a pancer in the jamuran game.

The circle of jamuran game is formed through the movements and configuration of the players while they are singing the accompanying song in performing the game. This type of circle and singing game, which involves bodily movement, rhythm and a song or a chant, is known as ring game (Opie and Opie, 1985) or travelling circle (Feierabend, 2004). The game starts when the pancer takes position in the middle and the other players hold hands with each other and walk sideways in a circle while singing the jamuran song. This song has various versions across different places in Java, but the common version is as follows (Achmad, 2016: 204; Wang, 2015: 7; Winarti, 2010: 8):

jamuran yo ge gethok

jamur opo yo ge gethok

jamur gajih mbejijih sakara- ara

semprat- semprit jamur opo?

Below is a translation of the song lyrics above, as adapted from Winarti (2010) and Wang (2015):

there are many mushrooms, it is just pretending

what kinds of mushrooms are in the bag, it is just pretending

fat mushrooms in the empty garden area

what kinds of mushrooms out there?

When the song’s last line is finished, all of the players stop moving and point at the pancer while asking jamur opo? (what kind of mushroom?). The pancer responds by mentioning a kind of mushroom for all players to perform, such as jamur patung (statue mushroom) or jamur kursi (chair mushroom). Then all of the players, as mushrooms, mimic characteristics of statue by standing still without any movement. Or they may be asked to mimic a chair by sitting in a way that their bodies create a chair like shape. After all of the mushrooms have taken their position as either statue or chair, the pancer will attempt to sabotage their performance by teasing each statue mushroom to make it move, laugh or the pancer may even sit on each chair to make it fall. A failed mushroom becomes a pancer for the next round of jamuran.

Emerging bodies in the game of Jamuran

On a morning during a Boso Jowo (Javanese language) lesson, the classroom teacher introduced the children to jamuran game. She asked if anyone in the class knew the song for the game, and eventually Duhita was the one who could sing the whole song completely, with lyrics as follows:

jamuran yo ge gethok

jamur opo yo ge gethok

semprat semprit, jamur opo?

Duhita then led the class to sing the jamuran song together, and with some repetitions, so that the whole class could then sing along with the song. Later, the class discussed different kinds of mushrooms to perform in the game. The teacher asked children about types of mushrooms they used to play in jamuran games. Children came up with various names for mushrooms, such as jamur kursi (chair mushroom), jamur meja (desk mushroom), jamur kulkas (refrigerator mushroom), jamur lilin (candle mushroom), and jamur kembang (flower mushroom). The teacher then asked two volunteers from the class to demonstrate different kinds of mushrooms they had mentioned. Rafi and Reno, who volunteered to simulate jamuran in the classroom, showed the class how to perform jamur kursi or chair mushroom. Reno, as a mushroom, embodied a chair through his body positioning. To do this, he sat in a way that his lap functioned as a chair seat, his upper body became a back support, his arms as arm-rests and his legs became chair legs. When enacting a chair, Reno needed to sit as firm as possible so that when the pancer came to sit on his lap, he would not fall or shake. Rafi, on the other hand, as a pancer, attempted to sabotage Reno’s enactment of a chair mushroom. He sat on the chair for few seconds, then put his weight on his lower body and tried to make the chair shake or fall. In this simulation, the chair mushroom successfully sat still without shaking even when the pancer sat on it.

Next, Rafi and Reno showed the class how to perform jamur kulkas or a refrigerator mushroom. This time, Rafi became a mushroom, whereas Reno became the pancer. In enacting a refrigerator mushroom, Rafi put his hands in front of his chest, where both palms met and closed like a gesture of praying hands. This gesture mimicked the tightly closed doors of a refrigerator. As the pancer, Reno attempted to open the closed door. During this attempt, the embodied refrigerator mushroom tried really hard to keep the doors closed. At this moment, the bodies and forces of the embodied mushroom and pancer joined and were affected by each other. This joining of bodies and forces and the joyful feeling of the enactment, according to Olsson (2009), increases the body’s capacity to move and become a space where learning processes take place. In traditional games, the learning process evolves through unpredictable moments as the game progresses.

During the simulation of various mushrooms in jamuran, similar to the discussion about ‘the right’ song, children had different opinions about the types of mushrooms and their associated embodiments. In jamur meja or table mushroom, for example, a child stated that the mushroom should be face up with its stomach as a tabletop while both legs and arms would then become the table legs. Another child, in contrast, argued that the mushroom should be face down and the player should use their back as the tabletop. In facilitating the discussion, the teacher tried to give everyone equal opportunity to voice their ideas and returned to the class to decide how to enact each mushroom type and play jamuran in general. After agreeing, the teacher escorted the class to the play area and played jamuran outside.

During the discussion of the song and the types of mushrooms in jamuran, the children passionately defended their preferred version of the game against adults and other children’s opinions because they believed their own version was the most accurate (Opie and Opie, 1985). Some children even attempted to coerce the other children into playing their chosen version of the game. When the adults interrupt the game and ask questions about the song, as Opie and Opie (1985) argue, the children may feel annoyed and defend their position strongly by claiming ‘It’s like that. That’s what it says’ (p.2, original emphasis).

Playing jamuran: Ongoing intra-active movements in circle and singing game

As explained above, jamuran originates from the Javanese word jamur, which means mushroom. In Java, with its tropical climate of two seasons in a year, mushrooms commonly grow in the wet or rainy season. During this season, mushrooms are generally found in clumps around the stump of a tree. Mushrooms usually grow in a group and encircle the tree. The configuration of the players in the jamuran game, where the pancer stays in the middle while the other players hold hands in a circle around it, provides a visual representation of how mushrooms encircle a tree (Sujarno et al., 2013), as seen and found in nature. This configuration can be considered as ‘embodied practices of mattering’ (Taylor, 2013: 689) mushrooms, and the game therefore becomes a space for bodies of mushrooms. The mushrooms are embodied by the child players, to show their performative agencies to make children perform, act, and move in a certain way.

In jamuran, each player becomes a mushroom and connects with other mushrooms by holding hands together to form a circle. This circle reflects a clump of mushrooms, whereas a pancer sitting or standing still in the middle of the circle becomes a tree encircled by mushrooms in nature. When the game is started by singing the jamuran song, embodied mushrooms walk sideways in the circle instead of stepping forward as they might if walking regularly. This particular physical movement, along with repetition of the song, allows the bodies to hear and feel the rhythm which eventually maintains a regular shape of the circle (Forrai, 1988). However, the rhythm of movement is dynamic in pace and intensity as the body’s capacity increases. Barad (2007) argues, ‘bodies in the making are never separate from their apparatuses of bodily production’ (p.159), and this applies to jamuran. As noted previously, emerging chairs, tables, refrigerators, and other bodies in the game are entangled as intra-active forces. They cannot be separated from human bodies as apparatuses to produce those emerging bodies.

Giving particular attention to the enactment of embodied materiality in becoming mushrooms with/in jamuran is crucial for a performative understanding of the game. This account focuses on the importance of practice, doing and action (Barad, 2007, 2008) and brings forward particular actions, including the act of becoming mushrooms or a tree, walking in a circle while holding hands, singing the song and proceeding with a short dialogue at the end of the song when the pancer decides what kind of mushroom to be performed. Through these continuous and intermingling actions, the agency of different game elements emerges and is iteratively reconfigured as the game proceeds. Agency, according to Barad (2012), is not a possession of human or non-human, but rather an enactment in itself, which entails ‘response-ability’ (p.55), that is ‘about the possibilities of mutual response’ (p.55) among entangled elements. The game is an assemblage that provides ‘the space of possibilities for agency’ (Barad, 2012: 54), with/in which this response-ability takes place. It is particularly prominent in closing each round of the game through dialogue between embodied mushrooms and the pancer, a moment in the jamuran game where players sing the last line of the song, shout the words jamur opo? (what mushroom?), and all players stop their movement in the circle and point at the pancer in the middle.

When being pointed at when the last two words are shouted, the pancer should respond to the line by mentioning the name of the mushroom that he wants all of the players to perform. This response is required in order for the enactment of ‘becoming mushrooms’ part of the game to be played. This final part of the jamuran game becomes the most exciting part, where the pancer will request each of the players to a chosen mushroom. It should be noted that in nature, while there is a wide variety across Indonesia, several kinds of mushrooms are more commonly found in Java. These are usually named in the Javanese language according to their appearance, such as jamur payung. In Javanese, payung means umbrella so jamur payung is the name of mushrooms that look like an umbrella. Similarly, jamur kancing (button mushrooms), jamur tiram (oyster mushrooms), and jamur kuping (ear mushrooms) are all named based on appearance. These name-appearance connections in naming the mushrooms inspired the enactment of ‘becoming mushroom’ in the jamuran game.

The pancer, not only tells the players what mushroom to perform, but they also have the ‘authority’ (Opie and Opie, 1985) to test each mushroom against specific criteria. Each kind of mushroom has different criteria for the test. In jamur kursi, the pancer tests the chair’s strength by sitting on it. For a few seconds, the pancer will sit on the chair, then if the chair stays in position, the pancer will move along to another chair. However, if the chair falls, the player replaces the pancer for the next round of jamuran. A similar test applies to the other types of mushrooms. In jamur meja, the pancer tests the strength of the desk by tickling the players stomach, which then became the tabletop. If the player can stay still, the pancer will move on to another meja, but if the player falls, a new round of jamuran is played with a new pancer. For jamur kulkas, the refrigerator should keep its doors closed, which can be enacted by the player putting both their hands close to each other so they meet firmly. With this version of the game, the pancer will try to open the doors by attempting to separate the refrigerator’s two hands. In jamur lilin, the player needs to keep the candle’s flame alive by keeping their eyes open. The pancer will test this by blowing air into the face of the candle. If the candle (child player) blinks, then this player will become a pancer for the next round.

In playing jamuran, children sang cycle of the song repeatedly. In each cycle, different jamur is performed by players who become mushrooms as requested by pancer. It should be noted that although the body of the jamuran song was repeating in each round of the game, this did not mean that each game ended the same. Each round of the game was performed differently, even if the same jamur was being re-enacted, such as in jamur kursi. Here, the singularity of each round of jamuran game stands out as Deleuze (2004) argues that ‘to repeat is to behave in a certain manner, but in relation to something unique or singular which has no equal or equivalent’ (p.1). Enacting the same jamur does not necessarily imply repeating exactly the same configuration because ‘repetition is always difference’ (Jones, 2013: 292), and ‘the singularity of each becoming’ (Lenz Taguchi, 2011: 47) matters. This difference, according to Barad (2014), is not fixed but relational, that means it is understood in its materiality as ‘a relation of difference within’ (175, original emphasis) that is formed through intra-activity. Therefore, the repetition of embodied configuration in playing the game can be considered as a practice that produces ‘a specific materialization of bodies’ (Barad, 2007: 63). The bodies produced here, according to a performative account, are not only human but also non-human. These include but are not limited to bodies of mushrooms, the body of the pancer, and the body of the jamuran song and its lyrics.

Observing children played jamuran instantly made the author recall the experience of playing the game in her own childhood. She remembered jamur kethek menek (climbing-monkey mushroom) which required her to climb a tree and jamur patung (statue mushroom), where she stood still without talking or blinking like a statue. The funniest mushroom she did, yet now she finds embarrassing, was jamur kendhil borot (leaky-pitcher mushroom), where she should find a space on the ground to urinate as if she was a leaky pitcher. This enlivening memory allows her ‘to confront experience as questionable, as problematic, and as incomplete…as an event that needs to be constantly reinterpreted again and again’ (Jackson and Mazzei, 2008: 304). This makes the author realise that the jamuran game has evolved with changes in the way it is played compared to the past. This evolvement confirms the continuity and change that characterise traditional games as a part of folklore (Howard, 2005). In the vignette above, evidently, the game is a powerful entity that has the capacity to intervene and change the way a performance or practice is produced or carried out. This capacity can be considered an agency that emerges through relations among ‘performative agents’ (Lenz Taguchi, 2010: 4) of the game.

Agency of the jamuran game in its song and lyrics gives direction for how the game is played. However, this agency is not an absolute possession of the jamuran song as a game component. Rather, it emerges through its relations to other components that mutually contribute to performance of jamuran. Barad (2007) argues that ‘agencies are only distinct in relation to their mutual entanglement; they don’t exist as individual elements’ (33, original emphasis). The jamuran game itself is an assemblage of different performative agents that are entangled and continuously encounter intra-activity amongst each other during game-playing. This assemblage is not a passive composite of several elements. Rather, it is an active assemblage that creates different movements and performance. The jamuran game creates complex connections of multiplicities derived from constituted agents in the game.

Re-visiting the philosophy of laku in seeking knowledge

The narratives of the play of jamuran above, demonstrate how the materiality of bodies and movements can be brought to the fore. These stories were read diffractively with different texts from literature on children’s games, education in the context of Indonesia, and Javanese ethics and culture. Conceptual tools from a new materialist perspective were ‘plugged into’ (Jackson and Mazzei, 2012: 1) the data to ‘stir things up’ (Bone, 2017: 2) and to stretch the thinking with the data. The diffractive reading opens up a space for creative thinking and understanding the learning process during the game differently.

It becomes clear in the game that the force and power of different bodies emerge through a series of movements in the game. It starts with all players, except the pancer, holding each other’s hand and walking slowly in a circle. Then, the walk gets faster and faster before finally the circle stops moving. The lines of accompanying songs become a discursive power in which rhythm determines the pace and intensity of the movements of the circle. The game allows forces and powers of different bodies to meet and be put in motion through the intense experimentation with different movements. This experimentation entails unpredictable flow of force and intensities (Lenz Taguchi, 2010) as a result of ongoing intra-actions among performative agencies of the games.

The Javanese circle and singing game, jamuran, becomes an entanglement of different bodies that continuously increase their capacity through ongoing movements. The moment of increasing body’s capacity of different elements of the games is considered a learning process (Olsson, 2009) in the context of traditional games. Unlike common understanding of learning that focuses on individual children’s thinking, this new thinking about learning acknowledges active participation of different elements. This new thinking is a result of analysis that uses a contemporary concept of intra-active pedagogy that has been developed in Scandinavian countries and spread globally. Interestingly, this analysis also resonates with the Javanese philosophy of laku as a part of local wisdom that has been understood in Yogyakarta across many years.

As explained in the earlier section, laku highlights the importance of the act of moving (Mohamed and Yunos, 2009; Suhardi, 2002), which from a new materialist account, can be understood as a performative process of learning. Not only about physical movement, action in laku also embodies thinking and spiritual activities toward changes and improvements. A revisit to this philosophy of laku is made possible by attending to material aspects of learning, such as the materialities of bodies and movements in jamuran games.

Implications for policy and pedagogical practice of ECE in Indonesia

By giving specific attention to bodies and movements, this article ‘open[s] up possibilities for collective and intense experimentation’ (Olsson, 2009: 48, original emphasis) in exploring a new understanding of learning in the context of children’s games. This exploration is important in order to address the complexity of learning that is often overlooked in common conversations from the developmental perspective as a dominant discourse in ECE. Through diffractive reading of stories about bodies and movements in the jamuran game and using new materialist concepts to analyse the stories, the established view about learning is unsettled, and its alternatives emerge.

From a revisit of the Javanese philosophy of laku in seeking knowledge through a new materialist concept of intra-active pedagogy, some implications can be generated for policy and pedagogical practices in the ECE context in Indonesia. Materialities as a performative agent in a learning event can shift the practice away from the more common focuses on individual children’s cognitive processes towards paying distributed attention to different aspects of learning, including human/non-human bodies and movements, materials and environment. Also, the diffractive reading of seemingly unrelated stories in this article can also be applied to different events in educational settings. This can then create the space for the discussions with children about their experiences with bodies and movements. This in turn can open up new insights and ideas about their learning process.

As for policy future, although the practices in this article are situated in the context of micro-politics of a particular ECE setting, the implications can be applied in a broader scope for educational policy in Indonesia. By foregrounding and considering active roles of material aspects, such as bodies and movements, alternative narratives of learning beyond developmentalism pedagogies can be generated. As Adichie (2009) states in her eye-opening talk about the danger of a single story,

Stories matter. Many stories matter…when we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place [and any entity of any kind], we regain a kind of paradise (para.15).

In today’s ever-changing society, more stories are needed in education regarding paradigmatic, theoretical and contextual diversity (Moss, 2015). If a story about children’s games from young children in the Indonesian context of education can make a difference, more stories about children’s games definitely can create a better understanding of this aspect of children’s lives.