Skateparks as communities of care: the role of skateboarding in girls’ and non-binary youth’s mental health recovery during lockdown

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper details findings from our research into girls’ and non-binary young people’s take-up of skateboarding during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our analysis contributes to wider discussions on gendered relations, young people’s embodied capacities and leisure adaptations in response to ongoing changes such as the pandemic. Based on qualitative interviews with 18 young people at a London skatepark, we found that the physical culture enacted there facilitated recovery from mental unwellness developed during or preceding the Covid crisis. This recovery was generated within new patterns of embodied movement, through relationships engendered in the space, and within the collective community ethic that was fostered at the skatepark. The temporal pause from usual routines during the pandemic created a space for collective critical reflection, healing and renewal within what we describe as a feminist ethic of care. We argue that this ethic contrasted in particular with the growing expectations of schooling and ‘intensified girlhoods’ that have come to characterise gendered everyday lives and therefore represents an alternative pedagogy of hope and recovery for these young people.