A very thoughtful consideration of Halloween from the eyes of little children. Perhaps because I have spent the past two days at grief workshops, this article made me wonder if forcing little children to confront death and danger while playing at adult roles and power serves a greater function or at least has the opportunity to. The power inversion of being “grown up” for a day and the freedom of taboo and prohibition breaking is empowering, perhaps, empowering enough to help prepare youngesters to face the danger and death they are forced to confront. Does confront death and danger in this controlled fashion (it may not seem controlled to the kid but it definitely is) help prepare them for facing death and danger the rest of the year? It would definitely be interesting to study why children choose to dress up as whoever or whatever. I think there is are a lot of ethnopsychology questions that could be asked in this arena as well.
What Halloween Masks
Published by sydneyyeager
Hello! My name is Dr. Sydney Yeager. I'm a Digital Anthropologist with over 15 years of experience in mixed-methods research, focused on making sense of human behavior and experience. I have a passion about identifying and solving the right problem and believes human-centered research is the key to doing that in the most ethical and efficient way. Earning my Ph.D. from Southern Methodist University in Cultural Anthropology focused on social media user experiences and their health consequences, I've worked in digital marketing, market research, and product management. View more posts
Sydney Yeager 