Rainbows, teddy bears and ‘others’: the cultural politics of children’s leisure amidst the COVID-19 pandemic
Rainbows, teddy bears and ‘others’: the cultural politics of children’s leisure amidst the COVID-19 pandemic
In countries currently under lockdown, schools and leisure facilities have closed their gates to the vast majority of children. Having to stay indoors for most of the day, children’s leisurescapes have been radically transformed. In these circumstances, instances have emerged from across the globe of children adapting to the lockdown in creative ways and constructing leisurescapes within the limits of the home, by putting up rainbows and teddy bears on windows and porches. Drawing upon media reports about children’s rainbow drawings and teddy bear hunts, in this paper, I deploy a sociological lens to demonstrate how children are using these leisure narratives as tools for participating in the wider conversation around the pandemic. At the same time, however, in pinning romanticized notions of hope and ‘national spirit’ upon the normative image of the child at play, media narratives are obfuscating the inequalities that fracture lived childhoods in the developed world.
COVID-19, Children’s leisure, children’s participation, coronavirus, sociology of childhood
Mukherjee, Utsa
64791e74-3357-474c-9ec2-32c7e4effc3e
Mukherjee, Utsa
64791e74-3357-474c-9ec2-32c7e4effc3e
Mukherjee, Utsa
(2020)
Rainbows, teddy bears and ‘others’: the cultural politics of children’s leisure amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.
Leisure Sciences.
(doi:10.1080/01490400.2020.1773978).
Abstract
In countries currently under lockdown, schools and leisure facilities have closed their gates to the vast majority of children. Having to stay indoors for most of the day, children’s leisurescapes have been radically transformed. In these circumstances, instances have emerged from across the globe of children adapting to the lockdown in creative ways and constructing leisurescapes within the limits of the home, by putting up rainbows and teddy bears on windows and porches. Drawing upon media reports about children’s rainbow drawings and teddy bear hunts, in this paper, I deploy a sociological lens to demonstrate how children are using these leisure narratives as tools for participating in the wider conversation around the pandemic. At the same time, however, in pinning romanticized notions of hope and ‘national spirit’ upon the normative image of the child at play, media narratives are obfuscating the inequalities that fracture lived childhoods in the developed world.
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Accepted/In Press date: 4 May 2020
e-pub ahead of print date: 30 June 2020
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Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, © 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
Keywords:
COVID-19, Children’s leisure, children’s participation, coronavirus, sociology of childhood
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Local EPrints ID: 444345
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/444345
ISSN: 1521-0588
PURE UUID: 105e30a2-b521-4593-9d93-875843c45ece
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Date deposited: 13 Oct 2020 16:48
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 09:37
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Author:
Utsa Mukherjee
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