Knowing how to play the game of jump rope: Participation and stancetaking in a material environment

In this study the relations between knowledge, affect, and social organization are explored using as data a video recording of a jump rope activity. The analyses focus on how epistemic and affective stance interplay in the constitution of social order. In the activity, the participants position themselves as knowing and unknowing through talk and embodied action. Knowing is tied to the handling of game-relevant artifacts, the spatial configuration of the game, as well as rules for turn-taking. Language use is indexical with frequent references to embodied actions and the material environment. When disputing over problematic moves the participants re-enact previous actions, thus displaying not only knowledge of how the game should be played, but also taking a forceful affective stance toward each other. This interplays with epistemic stance so that the participants and their actions are evaluated in different ways, thus leading to a local social hierarchy in which one participant is excluded from the game. Such phenomena shed light on epistemic and affective stances and how they figure into the organization of action and social order in the midst of children's games.

► The results show how knowledge and affect figure into the organization of children's games.
► Epistemic and affective stancetaking are examined as embodied practices in situated activities.
► The interplay between epistemic and affective stance and their role in the shaping of social order is explored.