Dr Owen Barden (Liverpool Hope University), “Disability, Technology and Emotional Communities”
Early in the pandemic, disability scholar and activist Alice Wong characterised disabled people as “cyborgs and oracles” (Wong, 2020): cyborgs because of their intimate relationships with technology; oracles because they know what it means to be vulnerable and interdependent, and therefore have a vision of what a future in which all lives are increasingly precarious and interdependent might be like – and how to adapt to it. Taking inspiration from Alice’s work, this talk will initially reflect on disabled people’s experiences of the pandemic, and then move to consider the potential role of emotional communities in a post-pandemic world. Barbara Rosenwein introduced the concept of emotional community in a seminal work on the history of emotions (Rosenwein, 2002); I will explore how this concept has helped a large team of disabled and non-disabled researchers of learning disability both express and make sense of affectivity, as well as technology’s affordances and limitations for our community.
Dr Fred Cooper (University of Bristol), “Pandemic loneliness on Microsoft Teams: technology, affect, and epistemic care”
In this paper I discuss a co-produced research project on student loneliness, which swiftly moved online in spring 2020 as the Covid-19 pandemic made in-person contact untenable. Reflecting on the form that the work then took – student co-researchers sharing and commenting on weekly, mixed methods journals over Microsoft Teams – I want to think about what kinds of solidarity and care were made possible in this (technological) space. Putting this in dialogue with my work on loneliness and epistemic injustice, the paper sets out an understanding of care which is specifically epistemic, countering – amongst other things – our co-researchers’ isolation from collective practices of communication and meaning.
Dr Leighton Evans (Swansea University), “Virtual Escapes: Homely Affect and Procedural Relief in Animal Crossing: New Horizons during COVID-19 lockdowns”
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Animal Crossing: New Horizons launched as global lockdowns began, providing a timely example of digital spaces' role in addressing existential needs during enforced isolation. The game transcended simple entertainment, becoming a digital homestead for players that resonates with Heidegger's concepts of Being-in-the-world, dwelling, and care. The game offered players a way to navigate the uncanniness of home, where traditional boundaries between work, leisure, and socialising blurred, reconceptualising the experience of place and closeness. Through building, customising, and interacting within this virtual ecosystem, players found an existential grounding and community, illustrating how digital environments act as places of existential proximity and care. The game is an example of digital spaces' importance in contemporary life, particularly under stress, and encourages reevaluating the meanings of dwelling and caring within a digitally augmented existence amidst unprecedented disruptions and needs for feeling at home when home is not home.
Dr Lucy Osler (Cardiff University), “Digitally-Enabled Envy”
Using digital technology, in particular social media, is often associated with envy. Online, where there is a tendency for people to present themselves in their best light at their best moments, it can feel like we are unable to turn without being exposed to people living out their perfect lives, with their fancy achievements, their beautiful faces and families, their easy wit, and wide social circles. However, online we not only encounter idealized versions of others but digitally idealized versions of our selves. In this presentation, I explore how digital technology enables envy, shaping not only who we envy, but what we envy. I conclude by introducing some thoughts about how technology might render some individuals particularly vulnerable to envy and how this might impact well-being.
Dr Yan Wu (Swansea University), “Trajectory, restructuring and exclusion: A life-course approach in understanding ageing population's digital in/exclusion and wellbeing in China”
Taking a life-course perspective, this talk focuses on the uniqueness of older people’s use of digital technology and their general wellbeing in China. We adopted a combination of log records and semi-structured interviews as research methods, and collected data from 61 elderly people on their use of digital technology, in particular, smart phones. NVIVO qualitative analysis of empirical data depicts the different trajectory of media use in the elderly population, revealing the intrinsic relationship between individual life course and macro social changes, which in turn leads to differentiation in terms of access to and outcome of the consumption of information.
Dr Kimberly Dienes (Swansea University), “Public Views on the Coronavirus Pandemic (PVCOVID): Individual experiences of the pandemic and the concepts of loss, connection, and alert fatigue”
TBC
Dr Anna Bortolan (Swansea University), “Emotions, Self-Identity, and Wellbeing at Work: Can Technology Help Us?”
It has been argued that, in particular within certain forms of capitalism, the experience and display of specific emotions is increasingly encouraged, policed, and exploited in the workplace, a dynamic which can have a significant impact on our identity and self-understanding. In this talk, I aim to discuss one aspect of this phenomenon from a philosophical perspective. More specifically, drawing on the exploration of some lived experiences of neurodiversity and mental ill-health, I look at how certain work practices may fail to be inclusive due to privileging certain emotions and modes of affective expression and discouraging others. I then move to consider how some uses of internet-enabled technology for interpersonal communication and collaboration could contribute to offset some of these dynamics.