Emotional risk work during the pandemic: Healthcare professionals' perceptions from a COVID-19 ward

In March 2020, COVID-19 wards were established in hospitals in Denmark. Healthcare professionals from a variety of specialities and wards were transferred to these new wards to care for patients admitted with severe COVID-19 infections. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in a COVID-19 ward at a hospital in Copenhagen, Denmark, including focus group interviews with nursing staff, we intended to explore practices in a COVID-19 ward by seeking insight into the relation between the work carried out and the professionals' ways of talking about it. We used a performative approach of studying how the institutional ways of handling pandemic risk work comes into being and relates to the health professionals' emerging responses. The empirical analysis pointed at emotional responses by the nursing staff providing COVID-19 care as central. To explore these emotional responses we draw on the work of Mary Douglas and Deborah Lupton's concept of the ‘emotion-risk-assemblage'. Our analysis provides insight into how emotions are contextually produced and linked to institutional risk understandings. We show that work in the COVID-19 ward was based on an institutional order that was disrupted during the pandemic, producing significant emotions of insecurity. Although these emotions are structurally produced, they are simultaneously internalised as feelings of incompetence and shame.

Exploring actor-network theory in a volunteer tourism context: A delicate balance disrupted by COVID-19

Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork and using Actor-Network Theory (ANT), the authors trace the interactions of a primary actor and other agents within the context of the volunteer tourist experience at a children's home in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. This paper has two key objectives;first to sketch the volunteer tourism reality as it is shaped by the actions of different actors, and second to showcase how this sensitively balanced ecosystem was significantly disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Staying true to the ANT approach and ‘following the actor' (Latour, 1993), the authors demonstrate how the volunteer tourist setting is relationally reproduced through the incessant alignment of different human and non-human actors and their sometimes conflicting interests and actions. By taking this radical approach, we reveal the need to reconsider the narrative that views all children in orphanages in the global South as victims and pawns of the ‘orphan industrial complex' and how the children's home in the study offers much-needed support to children and people that have no safety net. The study shows that these actors sometimes unknowingly become part of the network and serve a good cause while acting in pursuit of their own interests.

#I Stay Home (If I Can): COVID-19 and Social Inequality in Peru: A View from Auto-Ethnography

The chapter aims to analyze the COVID-19 pandemic from an autoethnography carried out in Cusco (Peru). This highlights the social differences and socioeconomic conditions that influence theway of living the pandemic and suffering its effects, which, in the Peruvian case, has more critically affected the most vulnerable populations. Thus, the privileged people can stay at home while the rest must go out to live/survive. The chapter invites us to think about a new social pact, more equitable and fairer, that divorces the pandemic-social inequality marriage, observed in different parts of the planet, particularly in the Americas. This is necessary to avoid future problems of equal or greater magnitude that tend to take their toll on vulnerable populations that often do not have the means to pay, or pay at the risk of their lives. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022, corrected publication 2022.

Social media interactions in Mexico about the SARS-CoV-2 vaccination plan

This chapter focuses on the concern about the implementation strategy of the Federal Government's Vaccination Plan. Both the public and private health professionals, as well as those persons who must leave their homes to earn their livelihood, have been the most affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Therefore, the objective of this research was to study the interactions carried out on two social media, in order to analyze what people think about the way the Federal Government's Vaccination Plan has been implemented. A mixed methodology (quantitative) was used to carry out this analysis, in order to gather the data and carry out a numerical visualization with the aim of obtaining a general appraisal about the study object. Additionally, digital ethnography was used to observe the type of interaction carried out in the fora. The data was gathered during three episodes. The first episode included informants, who were asked to get the opinion of their groups about a discussion-generating question, which raised doubts about the vaccination strategy. The second episode consisted of following a person's post expressing his opinion about the senior citizens' first vaccination day. The aim of the third episode of this analysis was to study the first 150 comments that Internet users made on the walls of two prestigious Mexican research-professors: Lorenzo Meyer and Sergio Aguayo. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023. All rights reserved.

Netnography and volunteer tourism: Critical reflections on conducting online research during a global pandemic

COVID-19 curtailed a significant amount of research in the field, forcing social scientists to consider the future of fieldwork. Netnography seems to offer a covid-resistant alternative to traditional fieldwork methods. This paper expands knowledge of the netnographic approach, focusing on a study of spirituality in international volunteer tourists' experiences. It explores the potential of netnography as a research tool within the context of ongoing concerns around the viability and sustainability of physically travelling to collect data. As such, this paper presents a critical, reflective analysis of the main author's experience in conducting netnographic research during the pandemic, presenting the challenges and limitations, as well as the benefits of the method.

Renewing the Object of Work as a Trigger for Inter-Organizational Learning

Purpose: The study refers to a health-care organization engaged in adopting "home health care" as a new object of activity. This study aims to explore how the reconfiguration of the object influences the transformative perspective, affecting not just a service but a broader approach and meaning behind patient care. It also investigates the main contradictions at play and the levers to support inter-organizational learning while facing the new challenges and change processes. Design/methodology/approach: The work is based on a qualitative and ethnographic methodology directed to examine cultural, practical and socio-material aspects. The activity theory is assumed as a powerful approach to understand collective learning and distributed agency processes. Findings: The renewal of the new object of work is analyzed as a trigger for shifts in representations, cultural processes and collective support implemented by the organization. Three agentic trajectories -- technical, dialogical and collaborative agency -- were cultivated by the management to deliver home health care through joint exercises of coordination and control, dialogical spaces and collaborative process. Research limitations/implications: The data collection was disrupted by the pandemic. A follow-up study would be beneficial to inquire how the learning processes shifted or were influenced by the contextual changes. Practical implications: This contribution provides a practical framework for health-care organizations aiming to navigate and explore the physiological tensions and contradictions emerging when the object of work is changed. Originality/value: The paper develops the field of intra- and inter-organizational learning by presenting an intertwined and structural connection between these processes and the renewing of the object of work. It advises that processes of transformation must be handled with attention to the critical and collective dynamics that accompany sustainable and situated changes.

Bangladesh Women Varsity Students Face Covid-19 Online Education and Inter-sectionalist Insights

Online education made the digital divide visible during the COVID-19 pandemic, based on gender, economic class, locations, and different types of opportunities. Bangladeshi female varsity narratives on gender role stereotypes, economic conditions, household characteristics, family atmosphere, and online teaching strengthen the need for intersectional feminist insights. The study further examines online education potentials and pathways for more online education along intersectional lines. Qualitative methods help gauge how female university students shape their experiences with online education, and emphasize the epistemological importance of voice and women's perspectives for deeper understanding of their experiences. An ‘auto-ethnographic' approach undergirds the paper's analysis, elevating reflexive demonstrations and recommendations for more inclusive online education for female university student. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023.

How the Japanese workcation embraces digital nomadic work style employees. (Special Issue: Leisure, knowledge work and the digital nomadism.)

In Japan, workcations have gained attention as a way to offset the economic damage caused to inbound tourism by the COVID-19 pandemic. Considering its aims to contribute to the local community and increase interactions with local residents, the Japanese-style workcation can be positioned as a form of digital nomadism that seeks alternatives to existing work styles. This study is based on fieldwork in Tottori Prefecture in Japan and includes interviews and participant observation. It aims to examine (1) national and local government workcation policies, (2) the development of new services and businesses that facilitate workcation, and (3) the process of introducing hybrid work in companies. Japanese-style workcation as a social design can offer solutions to problems such as the concentration of population in cities, ageing population, and declining tourism industry. The work styles and lifestyles suggested by the Japanese-style workcation should continue to be explored as an area where new tourism, social design, and community design overlap. At the same time, incorporating digital nomadism as individualism into the workcation remains a future issue.

Religious Perspectives on the Origin of the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Analysis of a Sharia-based Community

Catastrophes such as natural disasters, conflicts, and epidemics bring difficulties and misfortunes, but people also retain hope. The recent coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has tested people on what they feel and are reliant on, particularly their beliefs. It is intriguing to examine the perspectives of a community with strong religious beliefs during this pandemic. In this article, we explore the religious perspectives of Sharia-based communities in Aceh Province, Indonesia, on the origin and meaning of the pandemic, which might affect their belief systems. We limited our critical assessment to philosophical theodicies and the shift in rationalizing the outbreak. Our study revealed how the virus triggered people to integrate logic with spiritual thoughts. Data were retrieved from twenty informants with various backgrounds to sample a cross-section of perspectives. During the difficult days of the epidemic, people pondered ‘who' and ‘why', which led them to think about theodicy, which we used as the basis for our research. By utilizing a narrative inquiry, three premises were classified: COVID-19 is God's doing, COVID-19 is not an intervention of God, and COVID-19 is still controlled by God, not other factors. The first premise turned out to be the dominant one, being based on the locals' strong belief in the omnipotence of God. This reveals a widespread understanding of the origin of the pandemic that can be compared with other systems of meaning in different religions. © 2023 Ulster Institute for Social Research. All rights reserved.

Ethnographic Explorations of the Impacts of COVID-19 on Sociality and Spatiality in a Swiss Live Music Venue

The globally experienced suspension of cultural life brought about by the COVID-19 crisis has been duly acknowledged and discussed in a growing number of publications, reports and online seminars, most often in terms of the impact of COVID-19 on the music/culture industry. Despite the worsening pandemic situation in Switzerland and elsewhere during the autumn of 2020, I happened to be conducting field research in the city of St. Gallen (in north-eastern Switzerland) where the authorities opted for a "liberal” handling of the health crisis. As a result, the city's live music venue "Palace”, where I was doing my fieldwork observations, remained open to the public as late as mid-December 2020, albeit with shortened opening hours and with a dancing ban. This allowed me to gain first-hand fieldwork experience during the pandemic's significant constraints on social behaviour. The present article accordingly addresses the ethical dilemmas that I encountered when operating in this "grey zone” of field research, while also documenting the challenges and adjustments that the Palace venue had to undergo during pandemic times from the perspectives of producers, musicians and audiences alike. The article specifically focuses on understanding and analysing changes in the experience of the Palace's sociality and spatiality under social distancing rules. Ultimately, this work provides a different angle on the existing body of music-cultural research, which largely focuses on the cancellations and transformations of music events into virtual gatherings. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2022.

What is a digital nomad? Definition and taxonomy in the era of mainstream remote work. (Special Issue: Leisure, knowledge work and the digital nomadism.)

Digital nomadism gradually expanded during the 2010s. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, remote work (a prerequisite to digital nomadism), suddenly became mainstream. In this new context the term digital nomadism is increasingly used in ways that are broader or different to its original conception. This paper reviews scientific literature and draws on the author's ethnographic fieldwork to create an updated classification of contemporary digital nomadism that acknowledges the broad spectrum of individuals, groups, communities, identities, and imaginaries labelled with the term digital nomad. The paper updates the definition of digital nomadism and provides a new taxonomy which subdivides the digital nomad model into five distinct types: freelance digital nomads;digital nomad business owners;salaried digital nomads;experimental digital nomads and armchair digital nomads. It also proposes that six key variable themes should be applied to these classifications. These are: autonomy over mobility;homebase practices;domestic vs. transnational travel;legal legitimacy;work-life balance and coworking space usage. The taxonomy and the variable themes are proposed as a roadmap for future research and as a tool so researchers and policymakers can more accurately evaluate real-world examples of digital nomad context, motivation, practice, and impact.

Vulnerability and antimicrobial resistance

It is now well-recognised that antimicrobial resistance (AMR), or the ability of organisms to resist currently available antibiotics and other antimicrobial drugs, represents one of the greatest dangers to human health in the 21st Century. As of 2022, AMR is a top-10 global public health threat. Various national and transnational initiatives have been implemented to address accelerating AMR, and the pressure to find local and global solutions is increasing. Despite this urgency, surprisingly limited progress is being made in rolling back or even slowing resistance. A multitude of perspectives exist regarding why this is the case. Key concerns include an enduring dependency on market-driven drug development, the lacklustre governance and habitual over-prescribing of remaining antimicrobial resources, and rampant short-termism across societies. While rarely presented in such terms, these disparate issues all speak to the social production of vulnerability. Yet vulnerability is rarely discussed in the AMR literature, except in terms of 'disproportionate effects' of AMR. In this paper, we offer a reconceptualisation of vulnerability as manifest in the AMR scene, showing that vulnerability is both a predictable consequence of AMR and, critically, productive of AMR to begin with. We underline why comprehending vulnerability as embodied, assembled, multivalent and reproduced through surveillance matters for international efforts to combat resistance.Copyright © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Predictive care: a protocol for a computational ethnographic approach to building fair models of inpatient violence in emergency psychiatry.

INTRODUCTION: Managing violence or aggression is an ongoing challenge in emergency psychiatry. Many patients identified as being at risk do not go on to become violent or aggressive. Efforts to automate the assessment of risk involve training machine learning (ML) models on data from electronic health records (EHRs) to predict these behaviours. However, no studies to date have examined which patient groups may be over-represented in false positive predictions, despite evidence of social and clinical biases that may lead to higher perceptions of risk in patients defined by intersecting features (eg, race, gender). Because risk assessment can impact psychiatric care (eg, via coercive measures, such as restraints), it is unclear which patients might be underserved or harmed by the application of ML. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: We pilot a computational ethnography to study how the integration of ML into risk assessment might impact acute psychiatric care, with a focus on how EHR data is compiled and used to predict a risk of violence or aggression. Our objectives include: (1) evaluating an ML model trained on psychiatric EHRs to predict violent or aggressive incidents for intersectional bias; and (2) completing participant observation and qualitative interviews in an emergency psychiatric setting to explore how social, clinical and structural biases are encoded in the training data. Our overall aim is to study the impact of ML applications in acute psychiatry on marginalised and underserved patient groups. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The project was approved by the research ethics board at The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (053/2021). Study findings will be presented in peer-reviewed journals, conferences and shared with service users and providers.

The Role of Physical Cues in Co-located and Remote Casework.

Across the world, large swaths of society closed in response to the COVID-19 (C-19) pandemic, transforming the provision of government services, including welfare. The shift to remote work afforded a glimpse of what a future digitized public sector might look like. In Denmark, employment assistance went fully remote in spring 2020 to prevent the spread of C-19. Caseworkers assessed unemployed individuals' needs for welfare benefits over the phone instead of at the physical job center. With this change, caseworkers could no longer rely on nonverbal communication, such as physical cues (e.g., the appearance of an unemployed individual), in their assessment practice. Although they are not explicitly described in the formal work process, caseworkers report that such cues influence their assessment of an individual's challenges related to their unemployment. Taking a qualitative approach, we conducted 60 telephone interviews with 6 caseworkers across 3 Danish job centers during the first wave of the pandemic. Later, during the second wave of the pandemic (August 2020-June 2021), we conducted observational studies (22.5 h) including on-site interviews in two job centers where caseworkers had returned to work having consultations with unemployed individuals both remotely and co-located. During this second-wave period we also conducted new interviews (n = 18) with the caseworkers from the first part of the study. The contribution of this paper is an empirical description of how casework changes when it shifts from co-located to remote consultations, focused on two factors: (1) the role of physical cues and how caseworkers rely on these cues to communicate with and assess the individual, and (2) documentation practices, and how earlier documentation became more important when caseworkers lacked access to physical cues. We contribute to CSCW research by showing that although implicit information about the individual is valuable for caseworkers, it is not problem-free, and therefore we argue that there is a need to find new ways to assess individuals, in particular interpreting implicit or un-spoken information, as the complicated use of physical cues can tip over to become a matter of bias.

Impact of a social prescribing intervention in North East England on adults with type 2 diabetes: the SPRING_NE multimethod study.

Background: Link worker social prescribing enables health-care professionals to address patients' non-medical needs by linking patients into various services. Evidence for its effectiveness and how it is experienced by link workers and clients is lacking. Objectives: To evaluate the impact and costs of a link worker social prescribing intervention on health and health-care costs and utilisation and to observe link worker delivery and patient engagement. Data sources: Quality Outcomes Framework and Secondary Services Use data. Design: Multimethods comprising (1) quasi-experimental evaluation of effects of social prescribing on health and health-care use, (2) cost-effectiveness analysis, (3) ethnographic methods to explore intervention delivery and receipt, and (4) a supplementary interview study examining intervention impact during the first UK COVID-19 lockdown (April-July 2020). Study population and setting: Community-dwelling adults aged 40-74 years with type 2 diabetes and link workers in a socioeconomically deprived locality of North East England, UK. Intervention: Link worker social prescribing to improve health and well-being-related outcomes among people with long-term conditions. Participants: (1) Health outcomes study, approximately n = 8400 patients; EuroQol-5 Dimensions, five-level version (EQ-5D-5L), study, n = 694 (baseline) and n = 474 (follow-up); (2) ethnography, n = 20 link workers and n = 19 clients; and COVID-19 interviews, n = 14 staff and n = 44 clients. Main outcome measures: The main outcome measures were glycated haemoglobin level (HbA1c; primary outcome), body mass index, blood pressure, cholesterol level, smoking status, health-care costs and utilisation, and EQ-5D-5L score. Results: Intention-to-treat analysis of approximately 8400 patients in 13 intervention and 11 control general practices demonstrated a statistically significant, although not clinically significant, difference in HbA1c level (-1.11 mmol/mol) and a non-statistically significant 1.5-percentage-point reduction in the probability of having high blood pressure, but no statistically significant effects on other outcomes. Health-care cost estimates ranged from £18.22 (individuals with one extra comorbidity) to -£50.35 (individuals with no extra comorbidity). A statistically non-significant shift from unplanned (non-elective and accident and emergency admissions) to planned care (elective and outpatient care) was observed. Subgroup analysis showed more benefit for individuals living in more deprived areas, for the ethnically white and those with fewer comorbidities. The mean cost of the intervention itself was £1345 per participant; the incremental mean health gain was 0.004 quality-adjusted life-years (95% confidence interval -0.022 to 0.029 quality-adjusted life-years); and the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio was £327,250 per quality-adjusted life-year gained. Ethnographic data showed that successfully embedded, holistic social prescribing providing supported linking to navigate social determinants of health was challenging to deliver, but could offer opportunities for improving health and well-being. However, the intervention was heterogeneous and was shaped in unanticipated ways by the delivery context. Pressures to generate referrals and meet targets detracted from face-to-face contact and capacity to address setbacks among those with complex health and social problems. Limitations: The limitations of the study include (1) a reduced sample size because of non-participation of seven general practices; (2) incompleteness and unreliability of some of the Quality and Outcomes Framework data; (3) unavailability of accurate data on intervention intensity and patient comorbidity; (4) reliance on an exploratory analysis with significant sensitivity analysis; and (5) limited perspectives from voluntary, community and social enterprise. Conclusions: This social prescribing model resulted in a small improvement in glycaemic control. Outcome effects varied across different groups and the experience of social prescribing differed depending on client circumstances. Future work: To examine how the NHS Primary Care Network social prescribing is being operationalised; its impact on health outcomes, service use and costs; and its tailoring to different contexts. Trial registration: This trial is registered as ISRCTN13880272. Funding: This project was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Public Health Research programme, Community Groups and Health Promotion (grant no. 16/122/33) and will be published in full in Public Health Research; Vol. 11, No. 2. See the NIHR Journals Library website for further project information.

Social prescribing happens when health-care staff refer patients to a link worker. Link workers support and help patients to access community services to improve their health and well-being. Social prescribing is popular within the NHS, but there is little evidence that it works. We looked at a social prescribing model being delivered in a disadvantaged area in north-east England.

Digitally shaped ethnographic relationships during a global pandemic and beyond.

Social distancing and public safety measures enacted in response to COVID-19 created a surge in methodological "advice" for researchers facing disruption to fieldwork. Resources and publications frequently encouraged changes vis-a-vis digitally enhanced methods or employment of digital ethnography. For ethnographers, the establishment and maintenance of ethnographic relationships in pandemic contexts restricted to virtual interactions has not been thoroughly explored, leaving those trained in recruitment, rapport-building, and field engagement with fewer resources to navigate this integral topic. Here, we provide insights into how ethnographic relationships may be developed when there is limited access to the field and traditional relationship building is not possible. We argue that as ethnographic methods change and adapt, so too must perspectives on ethnographic relationship development. By closely examining ethnographic relationships confined to digital spaces in the context of the Tennessee tornado recovery amid the COVID-19 pandemic, this project sheds light on how to overcome this challenge.

Moments, spaces and temporalities in the virtual interview: reflections from the study of social policies

The aim of this paper is to revisit some aspects of the virtual interview on the Facebook platform, carried out within the framework of two research projects that investigate social programs recipients who organize and manage soup kitchens and picnic areas, in the pandemic context by COVID-19 during 2020 and 2021. This work is based on the review and reflection of the field notes that accompanied the virtual interviews. The systematization of the virtual interview experience makes it possible to delineate that the "opening moment" of the interview involves negotiations around the rhythm of the conversation and the platform for conducting it, while distrust emerges from the interviewees. In the "meantime", the intermittence of communication and its development in different temporalities is observed. "The closure" can occur in an agreed or untimely manner due to the fatigue or mistrust of the interviewed. It is concluded that the different forms of digitalization of life imply observing the locations where interactions take shape, regardless of whether they are physical or virtual media.

Managing the Disaster of Covid-19: An Analysis of Public Policy in Odisha on India's East Coast

This paper is a critical reflection on Covid-19 management strategies adopted in Odisha, a state on India's east coast. The unprecedented scale and magnitude with which the pandemic affected the entire world was the cause of great uncertainty and collective anxiety. Managing it at the level of the entire nation state with great diversity of race, language, ethnicity, class, caste and culture has posed a great challenge for policy makers and administrators. Policy ethnographies have often relied on the Foucauldian idea of biopower and biopolitics to elucidate the governance practices in nation states with different rationalities. The present paper is an attempt to examine various policy measures adopted by the government of Odisha and how they have been affecting various institutions and everyday life. Using an ethnographical approach, the paper attempts to examine various policy initiatives and the way they get operationalized on the ground giving rise to a kind of governance practice indicative of affirmative biopolitics in the way power is exercised to direct human life and engage citizens for a secure future.

Victimization of Users of Affective-Sexual Applications and the Culture of Compliance

The Projects "Enrolla2 Generation X Security Perceptions and Risk Attitudes in individuals belonging to the Generation X linked to the use of affective-sexual computer applications (CIPI / 20/091)" and "The management of desire in times of COVID (CIPI / 20/159) "had as their respective objectives, to study the perception of security, its incidence in the level of victimization and the risks to the health of individuals in affective-sexual applications;and to know the motivations that have led them to use affective-sexual apps during lockdown. Different levels of security were observed in the apps, depending on the treatment of user data, the existence of harassing attitudes and the emergence of a digital drug market. Legally, it is understood as necessary to improve the protection of users, potential victims of crime -individually identified -and, likewise, encourage the culture of prevention or compliance with respect to the companies that own said platforms.

Perceptions of the Impact of Covid-19 in Tepoztlan, Mexico: A Focused Ethnographic Study

This article analyzes the transformation of Tepoztlan, a rural community in Mexico, as the Covid-19 pandemic changed people ' s perceptions about their lives and future prospects, and deepened their connections to global networks. A focused ethnographic study revealed how women led the movement to close the town to outside visitors and, through negotiations and community decisions, how the town eventually opened up again, highlighting the impact on employment. Data from a statistical survey undertaken during the first peak of Covid-19 infections in 2020 showed the reactions of young women and women heads of households to the impact of the pandemic that, in their own words, "takes away our freedom of action", while men of all age groups were deeply worried about economic futures. Unexpectedly, the re-opening of the town brought an influx of post-pandemic tourism that was seized by aggressive and illicit powerful groups as an opportunity to take over the town. Managing the risk of inadvertently providing information that may be used by such groups poses a dilemma for present-day anthropologists.