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Play in a Covid Frame: Everyday Pandemic Creativity in a Time of Isolation - cover image

Copyright

Anna Beresin; Julia Bishop;

Published On

2023-06-01

ISBN

Paperback978-1-80064-891-3
Hardback978-1-80064-892-0
PDF978-1-80064-893-7
HTML978-1-80064-897-5
EPUB978-1-80064-894-4

Language

  • English

Print Length

522 pages (xxxii+490)

Dimensions

Paperback156 x 36 x 234 mm(6.14" x 1.42" x 9.21")
Hardback156 x 40 x 234 mm(6.14" x 1.56" x 9.21")

Weight

Paperback981g (34.60oz)
Hardback1166g (41.13oz)

Media

Illustrations81

OCLC Number

1385454677

LCCN

2022361778

BIC

  • JF
  • JHB
  • JHBS
  • JNC
  • MBNH
  • JMC
  • JHMC

BISAC

  • SOC026040
  • SOC002010
  • SOC047000
  • PSY012000
  • PSY034000
  • PSY004000
  • PSY002000

LCC

  • HQ782

Keywords

  • coronavirus
  • lockdowns
  • play
  • pandemic
  • folklore
  • psychology
  • sociology
  • anthropology
  • education
  • playwork

Play in a Covid Frame

Everyday Pandemic Creativity in a Time of Isolation

Winner of the Iona and Peter Opie Prize.
During the international coronavirus lockdowns of 2020–2021, millions of children, youth, and adults found their usual play areas out of bounds and their friends out of reach. How did the pandemic restrict everyday play and how did the pandemic offer new spaces and new content? This unique collection of essays documents the ways in which communities around the world harnessed play within the limiting frame of Covid-19.

Folklorists Anna Beresin and Julia Bishop adopt a multidisciplinary approach to this phenomenon, bringing together the insights of a geographically and demographically diverse range of scholars, practitioners, and community activists. The book begins with a focus on social and physical landscapes before moving onto more intimate portraits of play among the old and young, including coronavirus-themed games and novel toy inventions. Finally, the co-authors explore the creative shifts observed in frames of play, ranging from Zoom screens to street walls.

This singular chronicle of coronavirus play will be of interest to researchers and students of developmental psychology, childhood studies, education, playwork, sociology, anthropology and folklore, as well as to toy, museum, and landscape designers. This book will also be of help to parents, professional organizations, educators, and urban planners, with a postscript of concrete suggestions advocating for the essential role of play in a post-pandemic world.

Endorsements

Play allows us to step temporarily out of reality, often in ways that allow us to understand and cope with that reality. This is especially true for children, but to some degree is true for all of us. The COVID pandemic offered a unique opportunity to witness ways that stressful disruption can alter play and play can ameliorate stressful disruption. Anna Beresin, Julia Bishop, and the chapter authors of this book have documented wonderfully some of the ways the world adapted, playfully, to a disruption that, without play, would have been more tragic than it was.

Peter Gray

Research Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience, Boston College, and author of 'Free to Learn: Why Releasing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life'.

Reviews

There is only one word to describe [...] Play in a Covid Frame: monumental. [It] will set the standard for all further discussions on the topic of creative play in times of pandemics, as well as being a rich resource of folkloric material for use by future researchers.

James H. Grayson

Folklore, 2024. doi:10.1080/0015587X.2024.2351283

Full Review

Contents

Introduction

(pp. xix–xxxii)
  • Anna Beresin
  • Julia Bishop

1. ‘Tag, You’ve Got Coronavirus!’ Chase Games in a Covid Frame

(pp. 3–32)
  • Julia Bishop

2. Gathered in Play: Play as the Common Space during the Covid-19 Lockdown in Serbia

(pp. 33–54)
  • Živka Krnjaja
  • Nevena Mitranić

3. Up, Down, Stop, Go, and Everything In Between: Promoting a Resident-Driven Play-based Agenda during a Global Pandemic in Rochester, New York

(pp. 55–76)
  • Holly Sienkiewicz
  • Shanielia Lewis
  • Jenn Beideman
  • Beatriz LeBron
  • Emma Morrison
  • Lydia Rivera
  • Dina Faticone

4. ‘Let Them Play’: Exploring Class, the Play Divide and the Impact of Covid-19 in the Republic of Ireland

(pp. 77–96)
  • Maria O’Dwyer
  • Carmel Hannan
  • Patricia Neville

5. How Playwork in the United Kingdom Coped with Covid-19 and the 23 March Lockdown

(pp. 97–118)
  • Pete King

6. Playworkers’ Experiences, Children’s Rights and Covid-19: A Case Study of Kodomo Yume Park, Japan

(pp. 119–140)
  • Mariia Ermilova
  • Mitsunari Terada
  • Hitoshi Shimamura

7. Objects of Resilience: Plush Perspectives on Pandemic Toy Play in Finland

(pp. 143–166)
  • Katriina Heljakka

8. ‘This Is the Ambulance, This Truck’: Covid as Frame, Theme and Provocation in Philadelphia, USA

(pp. 167–190)
  • Anna Beresin

9. Parents’ Perspectives on Their Children’s Play and Friendships during the Covid-19 Pandemic in England

(pp. 191–214)
  • Caron Carter

10. Digital Heroes of the Imagination: An Exploration of Disabled-Led Play in England during the Covid-19 Pandemic

(pp. 215–238)
  • William Renel
  • Jessica Thom

11. Play and Vulnerability in Scotland during the Covid-19 Pandemic

(pp. 239–264)
  • Nicolas Le Bigre

12. How Young Children Played during the Covid-19 Lockdown in 2020 in Ireland: Findings from the Play and Learning in the Early Years (PLEY) Covid-19 Study

(pp. 265–284)
  • Jennifer Pope
  • Clara Hoyne
  • Chloé Beatty
  • Suzanne M. Egan

13. Children’s Emerging Play and Experience in the Covid-19 Era: Educational Endeavours and Changes in South Korea

(pp. 285–298)
  • Pool Ip Dong

14. The Observatory of Children’s Play Experiences during Covid-19: A Photo Essay

(pp. 299–316)
  • Michelle Cannon
  • John Potter

15. Happy Yardi Gras! Playing with Carnival in New Orleans during the Covid-19 Pandemic

(pp. 319–342)
  • Martha Radice

16. ‘We Stayed Home and Found New Ways to Play’: A Study of Playfulness, Creativity and Resilience in Australian Children during the Covid-19 Pandemic

(pp. 343–370)
  • Judy McKinty
  • Ruth Hazleton
  • Danni von der Borch

17. Techno-Mischief: Negotiating Exaggeration Online in Quarantine

(pp. 371–394)
  • Anna Beresin

18. What’s behind the Mask? Family, Fandoms and Playful Caring around Children’s Masks during the Covid-19 Pandemic

(pp. 395–426)
  • Catherine Bannister
  • Yinka Olusoga

19. Art in the Streets: Playful Politics in the Work of The Velvet Bandit and SudaLove

(pp. 427–440)
  • Heather Shirey

Conclusion: Covid in a Play Frame

(pp. 441–446)
  • Anna Beresin
  • Julia Bishop

Postscript: Suggestions for Those Who Work and Play with Children, Youth and Adults

(pp. 457–478)
  • Anna Beresin
  • Julia Bishop
  • Chloé Beatty
  • Caron Carter
  • Suzanne Egan
  • Beatriz LeBron
  • Ruth Hazleton
  • Katriina Heljakka
  • Nicolas Le Bigre
  • Shanielia Lewis
  • Emma Morrison
  • Danni von der Borch
  • Judy McKinty
  • Nevena Mitranić
  • Patricia Neville
  • John Potter
  • Martha Radice
  • Holly Sienkiewicz

Contributors

Anna Beresin

(editor)
Professor of Psychology and Folklore at University of the Arts
https://www.uarts.edu/staff-directory/aberesin

Anna Beresin, PhD, serves as professor of psychology and folklore at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She co-edits the International Journal of Play and studies children’s folklore, primate physical play, language play and the connections between play, culture and art. Her books include The Character of Play (2019), The Art of Play: Recess and the Practice of Invention (2014), and Recess Battles: Playing, Fighting, and Storytelling (2010). She co-authored Group Motion in Practice: Collective Creation through Dance Movement Improvisation with Brigitta Herrmann, Manfred Fischbeck, and Elia Sinaico (2018). Visit her at www.annaberesin.com.

Julia Bishop

(editor)
Research Associate at University of Sheffield
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1926-9715
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/education/people/academic/julia-bishop

Julia Bishop is research associate in the School of Education, University of Sheffield, UK with a PhD in folklore from Memorial University of Newfoundland. She has documented play and social inclusion, playground games and songs in the new media age, digital play in the early years, memories and experiences of play, and play during the Covid-19 pandemic. Julia is co-chair of the British Academy research project Childhoods and Play: The Opie Archive (www.opiearchive.org), and on the editorial board of the International Journal of Play. Her publications include contributions to Play Today in the Primary School Playground (2001), Children, Media and Playground Cultures (2013), Children’s Games in the New Media Age (2014), Changing Play (2014), and The Lifework and Legacy of Iona and Peter Opie (2019).