Kerbs and curbs, desire and damage

An affirmative account of children's play and being well during the Covid-19 pandemic

Bibliographic Data

ID3977796
AuthorsWendy Russell (0000-0002-5028-6428, University of Gloucestershire), Wendy R Russell (0000-0002-6575-2305, University of Gloucestershire), Alison Stenning (0000-0003-4110-874X, Newcastle University, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume24
Issue3-4
Pages680-698
Publication date2023-03-16
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial & Cultural Geography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1464-9365 • E-ISSN: 1470-1197
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14649365.2022.2134582
OpenAlexW4306803447
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited43

A dominant narrative around the impact of COVID-19 on children focuses on the risk of children being the pandemic's biggest victims. Without denying the severity of such damage, this article explores two examples of playing during the pandemic, alongside more affirmative Deleuzian accounts of desire, which can contribute to mitigating both the damage itself and what damage narratives perform. Using two fragments of data from research into children's play during the first COVID-19 UK lockdown, we show how, despite the tightest of restrictions, moments of playfulness emerged from encounters between children, other bodies and the materiality and affective atmospheres of the street to produce moments of being well. In both fragments children play with the kerbs on the street, deterritorialising the curbs of both striated street spaces and lockdown in ways that temporarily enact a playful politics of space and produce moments of being well. We read these fragments through contemporary Deleuzian accounts of desire as a productive force. In so doing, we contribute to debates in relational ontologies of children's geographies that address the micropolitics of children's spatial practices

2019-20 coronavirus outbreak · Aesthetics · Art · Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19 · Literature · Materiality (auditing · Narrative · Pandemic · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Children's Rights and Participation · Early Childhood Education and Development · Emotions and Moral Behavior · Gender Studies · Law · Medicine · Philosophy

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