# Ep 246 - Relational Capability Approach w/ Dr Wendy Russell

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-forest-school-podcast-1141815/ep-246-relational-capability-approach-w-dr-wendy-russell
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-forest-school-podcast-1141815/ep-246-relational-capability-approach-w-dr-wendy-russell.md
Podcast: [The Forest School Podcast](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-forest-school-podcast-1141815)
Published: 2026-05-22T18:06:26+00:00
Episode link: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theforestschoolpodcast/episodes/Ep-246---Relational-Capability-Approach-w-Dr-Wendy-Russell-e3joouj
Audio file: https://anchor.fm/s/3faf584/podcast/play/120398227/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-4-22%2F424700733-44100-2-bd9b8b7b3c85a.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-forest-school-podcast-1141815/episodes/ep-246-relational-capability-approach-w-dr-wendy-russell
Duration seconds: 3783

## Resource

This one is special. Wem and I got to sit down with Dr Wendy Russell, independent play researcher, senior research fellow at the University of Gloucestershire, and 50 years into a career that started on an adventure playground apprenticeship in the 1970s. I came away from this conversation needing to go for a long walk and think about everything. The first half covers Wendy's work on spatial justice for children, the politics of public space, and what it would actually mean to have a statutory play sufficiency duty in England. We talk about what play sufficiency means in practice, why Wales has led the way, and why politicians keep defaulting to playgrounds when the picture is so much bigger than that. The second half goes deeper, into the relational capability approach to playing and being well that Wendy has developed with Mike Barkley and Ben Tawil of Ludicology. Drawing on Henri Lefebvre's production of space, Karen Barad's concept of intra-action, and the relational turn across academic disciplines, Wendy patiently walked Wem and me through a genuinely paradigm-shifting way of thinking about children, play, agency and wellbeing. By the end, the playwork principles themselves come under scrutiny. The idea of play as "freely chosen and personally directed" gets unpicked in a way that I'm still sitting with. Strap in. Press rewind as many times as you need. See you on the other side. In this episode How Wendy moved from adventure playground apprentice to academic researcher across 50 years in play and playwork The politics of space and what spatial justice for children actually means Why falling road casualty statistics for children hide a much more troubling story Play sufficiency as a principle, what it is, what Wales has done with it, and why England fee…

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## Transcript

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