ACADEMIA Letters
Social distancing in the time of COVID-19: A case study
from Australia
Caroline Lipovsky
Introduction
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, social distancing has been encouraged to
stem the propagation of the virus (WHO 2020). In Australia where I live, wall posters and
markers on the floor reminding us of social distancing and advising us to keep one and a half
metres from each other have become ubiquitous, adding a new layer to the linguistic landscape.
Yet, social distancing varies across countries (Boubaya et al. 2020). Indeed, in his seminal
1966 work The Hidden Dimension examining public and private use of space, anthropologist
Edward Hall warned us of the cultural specificity of proxemics and distancing. Thus, using a
small corpus of distance markers found in Australia, the present paper aims at exploring a few
cultural aspects of social distancing, while presenting some of the ways in which the authors
of the signs and their targeted audience are engaging with these signs.
Iconic emblems as distancing benchmarks
Australia’s National Parks and Wildlife Service advise people to ‘keep your distance - at least 1
adult kangaroo apart’ (Figure 1). As explained by South Australia’s National Park and Wildlife
Service, ’[w]e wanted to come up with a design concept for park signage that had a connection
Academia Letters, May 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: Caroline Lipovsky, caroline.lipovsky@sydney.edu.au
Citation: Lipovsky, C. (2021). Social distancing in the time of COVID-19: A case study from Australia.
Academia Letters, Article 167. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL167.
1
to nature and that enlivened the explanation of the 1.5-metre rule to ensure people understand
social distancing rules apply even out in the open’ (Poposki 2020).
Figure 1. Keep your distance - 1 kangaroo apart. Living Desert Reserve, Broken Hill, NSW
The choice is cultural, as reflected by the use of one caribou in Canada’s North-Western
territory of Yukon, four trouts or one fishing rod by the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife
and Parks, or one polar bear in the Russian Arctic National Park (Wissgott 2020). Indeed, the
choice of a baby elephant by the Austrian Federal Government for its health campaign was
questioned for its relevance (Kratky 2020).
The benefit of explicating social distancing through the imagery of a kangaroo was variously commented on the social media. ‘’Eastern Grey or Western Red [the latter is bigger],’
Academia Letters, May 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: Caroline Lipovsky, caroline.lipovsky@sydney.edu.au
Citation: Lipovsky, C. (2021). Social distancing in the time of COVID-19: A case study from Australia.
Academia Letters, Article 167. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL167.
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one person asked […]. Another said: ’It is much easier for me to understand things in terms
of kangaroos.’ Others were just thankful that it wasn’t in feet and inches. ’As long as it’s not
imperial who cares,’ one person commented’ (Poposki 2020).
Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and South Australian (SA) Health Services created
many iterations of the social distancing advice, using platypus, ibis, koalas, magpies and so
on. ACT Health reminds us ‘to stay 1.5 metres apart – or 4 platypus (platypuses, platypi,
platypodes)’ (Figure 2), making playful use of plural forms, such as the colloquial pseudoLatin ‘platypi’ or conventional Greek-formed ‘platypodes’ (Australian Platypus Conservancy
2020).
Figure 2. Maintain a physical distance of 1.5 m - or 4 platypus. ACT Health tweet
The Australian White Ibis, with its ‘recent rise […] in popular culture as an icon-in-themaking of the nation and as a totem of the modern Australian city itself’ (Allatson & Connor
2020: 369) is also represented (Figure 3). Comments on the tweet are playful. ‘Carry a bin
around with you ฀’ MessyJessie says, referring to ibis’s reputation as ‘binChickens’. ‘Ibis’s
are the metric measurement’ Grant replies, ‘It’s four cockatoos in imperial’.
Academia Letters, May 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: Caroline Lipovsky, caroline.lipovsky@sydney.edu.au
Citation: Lipovsky, C. (2021). Social distancing in the time of COVID-19: A case study from Australia.
Academia Letters, Article 167. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL167.
3
Figure 3. Keep your distance 1.5 metres – or 3 ibis. SA Health tweet
At the Footbridge Station café on the University of Sydney campus, where ibis were often
seen foraging in bins until metal covers were put in place, a distance marker reconfigures the
local scavengers as social distancing 1.5 metres apart from each other (Figure 4).
Academia Letters, May 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: Caroline Lipovsky, caroline.lipovsky@sydney.edu.au
Citation: Lipovsky, C. (2021). Social distancing in the time of COVID-19: A case study from Australia.
Academia Letters, Article 167. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL167.
4
Figure 4. Please maintain social distancing. Footbridge Station, the University of Sydney,
NSW
Metric or imperial system?
The sign in Figure 5, seen at the Railway & Historical Museum in Broken Hill, NSW, is
the only one that I came across that uses the imperial measuring system. A google search
revealed that the sign can be downloaded from an online signage supplier in Salt Lake City,
USA, explaining the odd use of the non-metric system.
Academia Letters, May 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: Caroline Lipovsky, caroline.lipovsky@sydney.edu.au
Citation: Lipovsky, C. (2021). Social distancing in the time of COVID-19: A case study from Australia.
Academia Letters, Article 167. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL167.
5
Figure 5. Please social distance – 6FT. Sulphide Street Railway & Historical Museum,
Broken Hill, NSW
What about gender?
Showing individuals on social distancing signs raises the issue of gender representation. If
some signs are biased towards one gender, as illustrated in Figure 6, which shows two males
standing 1.5 metres apart, some others are gender neutral through the representation of both
female and male individuals (Figures 5 and 7), while some others elude the issue through the
representation of footprints (Figure 8). The Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery even strives to
be all inclusive through the representation of female and male individuals of various ethnicities
(Figure 9).
Academia Letters, May 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: Caroline Lipovsky, caroline.lipovsky@sydney.edu.au
Citation: Lipovsky, C. (2021). Social distancing in the time of COVID-19: A case study from Australia.
Academia Letters, Article 167. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL167.
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Figure 6. Keeping your distance. Broken Hill, NSW
Academia Letters, May 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: Caroline Lipovsky, caroline.lipovsky@sydney.edu.au
Citation: Lipovsky, C. (2021). Social distancing in the time of COVID-19: A case study from Australia.
Academia Letters, Article 167. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL167.
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Figure 7. Please keep your distance. IGA supermarket, Glebe Point Road. NSW
Academia Letters, May 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: Caroline Lipovsky, caroline.lipovsky@sydney.edu.au
Citation: Lipovsky, C. (2021). Social distancing in the time of COVID-19: A case study from Australia.
Academia Letters, Article 167. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL167.
8
Figure 8. Please stay 1.5 metres apart. Argent Street, Broken Hill, NSW
Academia Letters, May 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: Caroline Lipovsky, caroline.lipovsky@sydney.edu.au
Citation: Lipovsky, C. (2021). Social distancing in the time of COVID-19: A case study from Australia.
Academia Letters, Article 167. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL167.
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Figure 9. 47 People. Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery, NSW
Academia Letters, May 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: Caroline Lipovsky, caroline.lipovsky@sydney.edu.au
Citation: Lipovsky, C. (2021). Social distancing in the time of COVID-19: A case study from Australia.
Academia Letters, Article 167. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL167.
10
Quid of greetings?
Haptic interaction rituals are essential in maintaining good relationships, yet the Australian
Department of Health advises us that ‘everyone must continue to practise physical distancing’,
with its corollary that people ‘don’t shake hands, or exchange physical greetings’ (Australian
Government, Canberra 2020), as shown in Figure 6. This is because we often touch our face –
up to 23 times per hour (Kwok et al. 2015), and the virus spreads when we touch our mouth,
nose or eyes. This has generated a need for new greeting rituals as to maintain social faces
while respecting the rules of social distancing (Katila et al. 2020), such as the elbow-bump
illustrated in Figure 10 (Halls 2020).
Figure 10. Australians ’offended’ by the fall of the handshake and rise of the elbow bump.
Academia Letters, May 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: Caroline Lipovsky, caroline.lipovsky@sydney.edu.au
Citation: Lipovsky, C. (2021). Social distancing in the time of COVID-19: A case study from Australia.
Academia Letters, Article 167. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL167.
11
Social distancing as a kind of social protest
The pandemic provoked the impoverishment of numerous Australians (Janda et al. 2020). The
poster in Figure 11, found on King Street, Newtown, uses distance metaphorically, with the
threat of tenants not paying their rents, should ‘landlords [not] keep [their] distance’.
Figure 11. Landlords keep your distance. King Street, Newtown, NSW
Academia Letters, May 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: Caroline Lipovsky, caroline.lipovsky@sydney.edu.au
Citation: Lipovsky, C. (2021). Social distancing in the time of COVID-19: A case study from Australia.
Academia Letters, Article 167. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL167.
12
Conclusion
This short study has highlighted the cultural specificity of social distancing within an Australian context. It has also shown the ways in which sign authors strive to make their messages memorable through the use of iconic benchmarks and humour, and how the messages
are taken over by their readers in a playful manner. The study has illustrated as well the ways
in which distance markers can raise issues of social inclusion vs. exclusion through gender
representation and socio-economic marginalization, and has highlighted the ways in which individuals have come up with new ways of interacting with each other to maintain their social
relationships.
Is social distancing here to stay? The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the ways in which
we interact with each other. Furthermore, it has prompted many councils to encourage walking
and cycling, as illustrated in Figures 12 and 13. The gigantic disruption to the way we work
and commute may prompt a new impetus to reinvent cities in more sustainable ways (Michael
et al. 2020), and besides and beyond the numerous reminders of social distancing, affect the
linguistic landscape in dramatic ways.
Academia Letters, May 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: Caroline Lipovsky, caroline.lipovsky@sydney.edu.au
Citation: Lipovsky, C. (2021). Social distancing in the time of COVID-19: A case study from Australia.
Academia Letters, Article 167. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL167.
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Figure 12. You can walk here now. George Street, Sydney, NSW
Academia Letters, May 2021
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Corresponding Author: Caroline Lipovsky, caroline.lipovsky@sydney.edu.au
Citation: Lipovsky, C. (2021). Social distancing in the time of COVID-19: A case study from Australia.
Academia Letters, Article 167. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL167.
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Figure 13. Pop up Cycleway Program. Bridge Road, Glebe, NSW
Academia Letters, May 2021
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Corresponding Author: Caroline Lipovsky, caroline.lipovsky@sydney.edu.au
Citation: Lipovsky, C. (2021). Social distancing in the time of COVID-19: A case study from Australia.
Academia Letters, Article 167. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL167.
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Academia Letters, May 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: Caroline Lipovsky, caroline.lipovsky@sydney.edu.au
Citation: Lipovsky, C. (2021). Social distancing in the time of COVID-19: A case study from Australia.
Academia Letters, Article 167. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL167.
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Academia Letters, May 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: Caroline Lipovsky, caroline.lipovsky@sydney.edu.au
Citation: Lipovsky, C. (2021). Social distancing in the time of COVID-19: A case study from Australia.
Academia Letters, Article 167. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL167.
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