History of the present of the right to play, affective governance, and making exclusion in joy

The right to play, framed within human rights rhetoric, is often seen as an emancipatory principle aimed at liberating children’s bodies in the pursuit of global educational justice. Yet this universal framing obscures the historical contingencies and governing rationalities embedded in its formation. Drawing on Foucault’s history of the present, this article critically examines how the right to play with joy has been constituted as a global object of knowledge, operating as a technique of affective governance that regulates children’s bodies in education. It traces the philosophical and historical legacies underpinning the right to play, revealing its embedded exclusionary principles and techniques of governance. The analysis further unpacks the historical conditions that enabled play with joy to be captured by human rights discourse and institutionalized as a global regime. The CDC’s ‘Learn the Signs. Act Early’. program is examined as a global condensation illustrating how play and joy are transformed into developmental indicators that normalize childhood and reproduce exclusions. The paper offers critical insights at the intersection of affect theory, human rights discourse, and constructions of childhood, and concludes by calling for a reimagination of education from the affective boundaries and limits of the present.