“Daddy,Help Me;I Forgot How to Make a New Friend”: Emotional Geographies of Youth Sport in Pandemic Times

Abstract

In what follows, the author directs attention to one slice of pandemic life and its interplay across the emotional geographies of childhood, parenthood, work-life balance, lockdowns, stress, mental health, and youth sport, for it is in these private if banal moments that the “everyday” experiences of the pandemic are made real—and reveal the tensions and dilemmas that individuals tried to negotiate—to differing levels of success.

Keywords

youth sport mental health COVID-19 pandemic emotional geographies

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Banerjee

Rai

(2020). Social isolation in Covid-19: The impact of loneliness. International Journal of Psychiatry, 66(6), 525–527.

Barr

(2020). We are not all in the same boat. DamionBarr.com. https://www.damianbarr.com/latest/tag/We+are+not+all+in+the+same+boat.+We+are+all+in+the+same+storm

Bolander

Smith

(2020). Time across the lines: Collaborative wanderings under COVID-19. Qualitative Inquiry. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1077800420962476

Borchard

(2021). Three poems from a pandemic. International Review of Qualitative Research. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1940844721991089

Bunds

K. S.

(2014). The biopolitics of privilege: Negotiating class, masculinity, and relationships. Cultural Studies↔Critical Methodologies, 14(5), 517–525.

Bunds

K. S.

(2021). “Please let it stop”: Fear, anxiety, and uncertainty on the neoliberal tenure track. Cultural Studies↔Critical Methodologies. https://doi.org/10.1177/10778004211029838

Davidson

Bondi

Smith

(Eds.). (2005). Emotional geographies. Routledge.

Duster

. (2020, February 2). “No reason for Americans to panic”: White House seeks to calm fears over coronavirus. CNN.com. https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/02/politics/robert-obrien-nsa-coronavirus-united-states/index.html

Giardina

M. D.

(2005). Sporting pedagogies: Performing culture and identity in the global arena. Peter Lang.

10.

Giardina

M. D.

Donnelly

M. K.

(Eds.). (2007). Youth culture and sport: Identity, power, and politics. Routledge.

11.

Griffiths

Chavez

(2020, January 31). Coronavirus death toll rises to 258 as US and others impose strict travel restrictions. CNN.com. https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/30/asia/wuhan-coronavirus-update-intl-hnk/index.html

12.

Harris

Jones

H. S.

(2020). Massive and microscopic: Autoethnographic affects in the time of COVID. Qualitative Inquiry. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1077800420965570

13.

Hextrum

(2021). Special admission: How college recruitment favors white suburban athletes. Rutgers University Press.

14.

Irwin

(2020). Catching a break: Accessibility, empathy, and COVID-19. Qualitative Inquiry. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1077800420967889

15.

Liao

(2020, February 1). Apple temporarily closes all 42 stores in China as coronavirus spreads. CNN.com. https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/01/tech/apple-china-coronavirus-stores-closed/index.html

16.

Lankala

Gong

Feng

Change

B. G.

(2021). Forum: COVID-19 dispatches. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 21(1), 97–115.

17.

Markham

Harris

(2020). Prompts for making sense of a pandemic: The 21-day autoethnography challenge. Qualitative Inquiry. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1077800420962487

18.

Nedelman

(2020, January 31). New report on first US case of novel coronavirus details mild symptoms followed by pneumonia. CNN.com. https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/31/health/washington-coronavirus-study-nejm/index.html

19.

Newman

J. I.

Giardina

M. D.

(2011). Sport, spectacle, and NASCAR Nation: Consumption and the politics of neoliberalism. Palgrave Macmillan.

20.

Pelias

(2021). Contact and the 2020 pandemic: A poetic autoethnography. International Review of Qualitative Research. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1940844721991081

21.

Persky

(2021). Higher education and the ethic of care: Finding a way forward during a global pandemic. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 21(3), 301–305.

22.

Sakar

(2020). Of late alarms, long queues, and online attendance: My experience of COVID time. Qualitative Inquiry. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1077800420960157

23.

Tamas

Georgaras

Dabboussy

(2021). The emotional geographies of academic writing: Writing as a method of survival. In Denzin

N. K.

Giardina

M. D.

(Eds.), Collaborative futures in qualitative inquiry: Research in a pandemic (pp. 56–69). Routledge.

24.

Thompson

(2018, November 6). American meritocracy is killing youth sports. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/11/income-inequality-explains-decline-youth-sports/574975/

25.

Thompson

(2020, July 27). Hygiene theater is a huge waste of time. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/scourge-hygiene-theater/614599/

26.

Torres

L. E.

(2020). Straddling death and (re)birth: A disabler Latina’s meditation on collective care and mending in pandemic times. Qualitative Inquiry. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1077800420960169

27.

Williams

A. L.

(2021). Mamba in the mirror: Black masculinity, celebrity, and the public mourning of Kobe Bryant. Sociology of Sport Journal. https://doi.org/10.1123/ssj.2020-0125

28.

Woo

(2021). Writing as inquiry during a pandemic. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 21(2), 194–197.

29.

Zhao

(2021). Minor feelings in the wake of the Atlanta attack: How a mom of Asian descent spent the first 100 hours in the aftermath. Cultural Studies↔Critical Methodologies. https://doi.org/10.1177/15327086211019954