In 2021 we put out a call for contributions toward a special issue on the gendered body during the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. The group of papers has been published as a special themed section in feminist geography journal, Gender, Place & Culture.

For many the COVID-19 crisis has radically shifted the dynamics of the social. Restrictions on movement and activities implemented across many regions as a way to contain the spread of the virus have transformed the spaces and practices of daily life. This collection of papers will explore what these changes in space and place, interpersonal relations and everyday routines mean for the gendered body.

Scholarship has long recognised the body as a site at which gender identity is negotiated, constructed and performed, and the spaces of everyday life the sphere in which this occurs. This special section asks: how does the transformation of everyday spaces brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic change, challenge and shift experiences and understandings of the gendered body?

Many of the locations which represent and shape the ‘doing’ of gender – from the workplace to the gym or beauty salon – have temporarily fallen away, while other spaces such as the home, the digital realm, local streets, and parks have become more central. While some forms of bodily (self) surveillance have shifted, others have intensified. What happens to identity, embodiment, and daily body practices when the social becomes largely virtual? How do altered daily patterns of interaction and the centrality of domestic space change our relationship to gender and the bodily?

One assumption that circulated widely in media discourse at the time is that lockdown freed women from the constraints of beauty norms, based on a presumption of liberation from social spaces. At the same time, gendered consumer lifestyle advice has continued to proliferate, emphasising imperatives to stay productive, be healthy and active, and practice self-care at home. The research in this special issue cuts through assumptions about liberation. These papers consider what was lost as well as found in the COVID-19 context and how a range of social actors understood their bodies during this period.

Guest editors

Dr Rachel Wood, University of Chester r.wood@chester.ac.uk

Dr Hannah McCann, University of Melbourne hannah.mccann@unimelb.edu.au