Lockdown Leisure

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.

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.