What are play cafes? Thinking through the ingredients to designing play cafes

Children’s play and its significance is evidenced by the plethora of work around play as a field or research/inquiry, as praxis, as lived experiences and as a safeguarded right. The field of research in early childhood and play is growing; however, very limited research exists on young children’s experiences of social-play spaces in public life, particularly indoors. We argue that Play Cafes, if created with intention, pedagogy, meraki, love and de/anticolonial work, are conceptualised as important types of informal high-quality play/social provisions in public life for young children and carers, as life-affirming and as spaces for intergenerational and intersectional activism.