When Six Feet Feels Like Six Miles

Abstract

How do children describe their everyday lives during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) global pandemic? What do their descriptions reveal about how the pandemic has affected them and what their needs are? Because some children may have difficulty verbalizing their experiences, this project used participatory drawing and photovoice methods to elicit children’s perspectives on their lives during the pandemic. Drawing on interpretive reproduction, the chapter pays particular attention to the ways that kids borrow and manipulate visual elements of the COVID-19 global pandemic to express their own concerns and values in drawings and photographs. Twenty-one children in Texas, aged 6 to 16 years, crafted images that illustrated the socio-emotional consequences of virus mitigation efforts. Their images documented how the pandemic disrupted their norms and institutions, increased their anxiety and loneliness, and pushed them to explore new activities and ways of connecting with friends. Children creatively appropriated and altered visual elements of the pandemic to suggest that virus mitigation strategies were preventing them from engaging in the face-to-face interaction with the friends and family that they valued so highly. © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Nazneen Khan;individual chapters, the contributors