Play and Vulnerability in Scotland during the Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This chapter examines pandemic play through the lens of vulnerability, within the contexts of the disciplines of ethnology and folklore. Considering play through vulnerability hints at the reasons why we play, how we play, and how changes in play and wider societal contexts go hand in hand. The selected examples of play highlight several themes that can be gathered under a broader category of vulnerability, including a fear of the ephemerality of community, apprehension at physical vulnerability to the virus, distress caused by societal pressures to come together, intergenerational differences and difficulties, lack of technological adeptness, loss of physical contact, fear of an unknowable future, and externally imposed limitations. It examines pandemic play in the widest sense within overlapping Scottish contexts, considering play amongst communities, children, families, and adults, and even in the contexts of ethnography and ethnographers.

Rights

This work is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the text; to adapt the text for non-commercial purposes of the text providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information: Anna Beresin and Julia Bishop (eds), Play in a Covid Frame: Everyday Pandemic Creativity in a Time of Isolation. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2023, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0326 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

Cite as

Downloadable citations

Identifiers

DOI

https://doi.org/10.11647/obp.0326

Repository URI

https://hdl.handle.net/2164/20936