This book examines the concept of ‘lockdown leisure’ as closely related to the Covid-19 pandemic. Through a range of inter-disciplinary chapters, the volume unpacks leisure life in lockdown contexts through a range of empirical, conceptual and theoretical contributions.

    In many countries, a key response to the global Covid-19 pandemic was the implementation of national, regional or local lockdowns. Focusing on the diverse medium and long-term socio-cultural impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, this book examining how various forms of lockdowns impacted leisure activities, industries, cultures and spaces across a variety of transnational contexts. It contains original chapters on topics including but not limited to physical activity, cultural participation, recreation and green spaces, technology, and social exclusion. And so, it shows how Covid-19 lockdowns transformed existing, and produced new, leisure activities.

    This book is a fascinating reading for students and researchers of leisure studies, sociology, media and cultural studies, youth studies, and educational studies. The chapters in this book were originally published in the journal, Leisure Studies.

    Introduction: Lockdown leisure

    Jan Andre Lee Ludvigsen, Katherine Harrison, Peter Millward and Cassandra A. Ogden

     

    1. Exploring how a disability sport charity utilises exchange relationships with external organisations to sustain operations in times of lockdown

    Nicola McCullogh, Francisca Trigo Pereira, Andrea Scott-Bell, Rosa Stalenberg and John Hayton

     

    2. Parents perceptions of online physical activity and leisure with early years children during Covid-19 and beyond

    Georgia Allen and Philippa Velija

     

    3. Cultural consumption and Covid-19: evidence from the Taking Part and COVID-19 Cultural Participation Monitor surveys

    Tal Feder, Siobhan McAndrew, Dave O’Brien and Mark Taylor

     

    4. Time use, work and leisure in the UK before, during, between and following the Covid-19 lockdowns

    Ken Roberts

     

    5. CrossFit during lockdown. The promises and pitfalls of digitally mediated training for leisure-time physical activity

    Verena Lenneis, Jeppe Klarskov Hansen and Sine Agergaard

     

    6. COVID-19 and outdoor recreation in the post-anthropause

    Jacob J. Bustad, Samuel M. Clevenger and Oliver J.C. Rick

     

    7. Sports participation during a lockdown. How COVID-19 changed the sports frequency and motivation of participants in club, event, and online sports

    Erik Thibaut, Bram Constandt, Veerle De Bosschere, Annick Willem, Margot Ricour and Jeroen Scheerder

     

    8. Nearby nature in lockdown: Practices and affordances for leisure in urban green spaces

    Katherine King and Janet Dickinson

     

    9.”I felt there was a big chunk taken out of my life”: COVID-19 and older adults’ library-based magazine leisure reading

    Nicole K. Dalmer, Dana Sawchuk and Mina Ly

     

    10. Armchair travel through video games: stories from elsewheres and elsewhens

    Serkan Uzunogullari

     

    11. Children and young people’s perspectives from UK lockdown: leisure-less experiences

    Ellie Gennings, Hazel J Brown, Denise Hewlett and John Batten

     

    12. A ramp that leads to nothing: outdoor recreation experiences of children with physical disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic

    Annika L. Vogt, Chris A. B. Zajchowski and Eddie L. Hill

    Biography

    Jan Andre Lee Ludvigsen is Senior Lecturer in International Relations and Politics with Sociology at Liverpool John Moores University. His research interests are, broadly, situated within the political sociology of sport. His recent books include Sport Mega-Events, Security and Covid-19 (Routledge, 2022) and Sport and Crime: Towards a Critical Criminology of Sport (Routledge, 2022, with Peter Millward and Jonathan Sly).

    Katherine Harrison is Senior Lecturer in Media and Culture at Leeds Beckett University, UK. She has published research on women’s domestic craft practices, knitting circles, representations of place and space and weight stigma in ‘poverty porn’ television, and older people’s participation in online Pilates classes during Covid-19. Katherine’s current research focuses on the visual culture of the commercial ‘NewSpace’ age and the emergence of luxury space tourism.

    Peter Millward is Professor of Contemporary Sociology at Liverpool John Moores University, UK. He has published widely including recent books Sport and Crime: Towards a Critical Criminology of Sport (2022, with Jan Andre Lee Ludvigsen and Jonathan Sly, Routledge) and Football Fandom, Sexualities and Activism: A Cultural Relational Sociology (2023, Routledge).

    Cassandra A. Ogden is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Liverpool John Moores University. Her recent work explores the effect on lockdown amongst people living in the UK during 2020-2022 on their personal, social and working lives as well as the impact upon their physical and mental health. She has explored the relationship between women, knitting and feminism which she examines using a range of creative methods. She has further utilised the narrative inquiry technique to explore issues of social exclusion and illness. Cassandra has published and co-published on social disgust and stigma of particular bodies, disability hate crime, representations of ‘obesity’ and disability in ‘povertyporn’ documentaries and childhood illness experiences.