Ludic lessons in liminality: a provocation from playing Solitaire

Play has long been regarded as a liminal context - a betwixt and between space in which the rules of real life are held at bay and anything is possible. However, in real life, liminal experiences are more often viewed as uncomfortable and unsettling, to be backed away from or resolved as quickly as possible. In this chapter, an insight revealed through observing screen-recorded games of Spider Solitaire is brought into conversation with Vanessa Machado de Oliveira’s (2021) book Hospicing Modernity to provoke reflection on the power modernity holds over our understanding and enactment of education. As the author grapples with the implications this has for her as a teacher educator, the unfolding autoethnographic narrative demonstrates how ludic inquiry can provoke opportunities for embracing the messy, uncomfortable, uncertainty of liminality as a space for self-reflection, self-acceptance, alternative possibilities, learning, renewal, and ultimately for change.