11. Play and Vulnerability in Scotland during the Covid-19 Pandemic

This chapter examines pandemic play through the lens of vulnerability, within the contexts of the disciplines of ethnology and folklore. Considering play through vulnerability hints at the reasons why we play, how we play, and how changes in play and wider societal contexts go hand in hand. The selected examples of play highlight several themes that can be gathered under a broader category of vulnerability, including a fear of the ephemerality of community, apprehension at physical vulnerability to the virus, distress caused by societal pressures to come together, intergenerational differences and difficulties, lack of technological adeptness, loss of physical contact, fear of an unknowable future, and externally imposed limitations. It examines pandemic play in the widest sense within overlapping Scottish contexts, considering play amongst communities, children, families, and adults, and even in the contexts of ethnography and ethnographers.