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

Chapter of: Play in a Covid Frame: Everyday Pandemic Creativity in a Time of Isolation(pp. 3–32)

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Metadata
Title1. ‘Tag, You’ve Got Coronavirus!’ Chase Games in a Covid Frame
ContributorJulia Bishop(author)
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0326.01
Landing pagehttps://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0326/chapters/10.11647/obp.0326.01
Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
CopyrightBishop, Julia;
PublisherOpen Book Publishers
Published on2023-06-01
Long abstractChildren in many parts of the world commonly play games of touch chase, in which the chaser catches the other players by tapping them, the role of chaser often then transferring to the caught player. At the time of the global spread of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, reports began to crop up, especially on social media, of children playing chasing games with names like Coronavirus Tag, Corona Tip, Infection and Covid Tiggy. In these, the chaser was the virus and had to chase the others who, when caught, then ‘got the virus’. Games with ‘corona rules’ also emerged, in which children adapted the chase games to circumvent or accommodate social distancing measures imposed on them. The chapter draws on children’s testimony and adults’ observations of these coronavirus tag games, particularly Twitter posts, to trace their rapid emergence on an international scale, their varied and ingenious forms and potential functions. The focus is on the players’ perceptions and experiences in order to emphasize the fluidity and dynamism of this play and to trouble adults’ tendency to adult-centric and monolithic interpretations. The chapter argues that it is essential to consider such games both in the context of the pandemic and from a comparative and historical perspective. This highlights that what children did in making their games of coronavirus tag is in fact just one example of what they do on a day-to-day basis when there is no pandemic, drawing on mediascapes, and the material, environmental and temporal resources available to them, in often overlooked and undervalued acts of everyday creativity and resourcefulness.
Page rangepp. 3–32
Print length30 pages
LanguageEnglish (Original)
Keywords
  • Children
  • play
  • games
  • touch chase
  • chaser
  • Covid-19 pandemic
  • social media
  • Coronavirus Tag
  • Corona Tip
  • Infection
  • Covid Tiggy
  • corona rules
  • social distancing
  • testimony
  • observations
  • Twitter posts
  • international scale
  • fluidity
  • dynamism
  • adult-centric
  • perceptions
  • experiences
  • comparative perspective
  • historical perspective
  • mediascapes
  • material resources
  • environmental resources
  • temporal resources
  • everyday creativity
  • resourcefulness
Contributors

Julia Bishop

(author)
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).

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