Una mirada a l'home que juga

This article was conceived as the presentation for this monograph issue with two different parts. In the first part, we synthetically express that the interest in play activities mainly develops from the curiosity that childhood aroused in the 19th century, when it began to be considered as a different state from adulthood. Approaching the child’s world meant dealing with one of the main and essential activities of children: play. In this way, many explanatory theories on this phenomenon started to arise from different perspectives. However, in this study matter, results have been scarce and we are still at a long way from a general explanatory theory. In this article, following Huizinga, we try to approach a definition of play by considering different elements that make up its essence. But we have to be aware that play is not easily apprehended, particularly if this approach to the Homo ludens is not carried out from its biological, psychological and social dimension. For this reason this monograph has a multidisciplinary character. The second part of this article has the aim of presenting the subsequent thirteen articles, knowing that, although they are significant contributions to the study of play, they do not exhaust the discourse when our interest focuses on paying attention to the man who plays.