Immobility: The Relational and Experiential Qualities of an Ambiguous Concept

In this article, I discuss immobility as both an analytical concept and a lived experience. I review contemporary scholarly understandings of immobility and disentangle the unavoidable relational dynamics with its positive linguistic opposite, mobility. Concrete illustrations from migration studies and the global coronavirus crisis illustrate how immobility, at various scales of analysis and experience, is not only theoretically but also socially, economically, and politically relevant. Together with the in-depth review of existing scholarship, these examples confirm that the conceptual distinction made between immobility and mobility is often purely heuristic. In the messiness of people's lives, mobility and immobility are not mutually exclusive categories but, rather, two dynamic sides of the same coin.

Relationships, Rights, and Responsibilities: (Re)viewing the NHS Constitution for the post-pandemic 'new normal'.

Action needs to be taken to map out the fairest way to meet the needs of all NHS stakeholders in the post-pandemic 'new normal'. In this article, we review the NHS Constitution, looking at it from a relational perspective and suggesting that it offers a useful starting point for such a project, but that new ways of thinking are required to accommodate the significant changes the pandemic has made to the fabric of the NHS. These new ways of thinking should encompass concepts of solidarity, care, and (reciprocal) responsibility, grounded in an acceptance of the importance of relationships in society. To this end, we explore and emphasise the importance of our interconnections as NHS stakeholders and 're-view' the NHS Constitution from a relational perspective, concentrating on the rights and responsibilities it describes for patients and the public as NHS stakeholders. We argue that the NHS Constitution, of which most stakeholders are probably unaware, can be used as a tool to engage us, and to catalyse conversation about how our responsibilities as NHS stakeholders should change in the post-pandemic 'new normal'.

Untrammelled ways: Reflecting on the written text, nourishment and care in online teaching

As the COVID-19 pandemic gathered momentum in 2020, it became clear that online teaching spaces risked a distancing from the embodied knowledge so necessary to creative education. Teaching written texts to creative practitioners is a process that calls for alternative spatial and visual literacies, for ontological methods, for honouring experience and reflection - especially in a neo-liberal climate of higher education. In my teaching practice, as well as writing and painting practices, I like so many others have sought spaces for nourishment during this era. Through my teaching and a collaborative research group, one space in which I located this was via hope. This is a time to ask if we can use this moment in history to encourage thinking in an untrammelled manner and to move more freely in the unfamiliar, to transform the classroom;to seek materiality as a method of interpretation, even online;to encourage fearlessness, plurality and relationality;to use craft methods;and to enter a space of care and emotional openness. This contribution will consider creative allyship between staff and students, with the written text as a place of beginning. This is a deliberately open-ended, exploratory, personal and reflective piece of writing, gathered during teaching and research from 2020 to 2022. 'Ways of Writing' are explored both through the method of this article as well as its content. © 2022 Intellect Ltd Article. English language.

"If we're lost, we are lost together": Leisure and relationality

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought on a sense of freedoms lost with the emergence of regulatory practices aimed at reducing the spread of the virus. This loss has likely impacted experiences of leisure, particularly in western societies where the perception of freedom is a significant indicator of leisure. The article explores the significance of relationality and leisure from a decolonizing perspective. Building upon observations of the author's experiences during the pandemic, the article will drawn upon relational ontology, the centrality of relationship, and connection with self, family, and other entities of life. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Portholes of Ethnography: The Methodological Learning from ‘Being There' at a Distance

Ethnography is, in essence, an approach to social research reliant on ‘being there' and ethnographic approaches to the social world have been widely taken up in sociological research. In this research note, we share our UK-based experiences of ethnographic fieldwork with professional practitioners during the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when ‘staying at home' was the antithesis of ‘being there'. In doing so, we highlight opportunities the pandemic presented to re-evaluate familiar qualitative methods, to develop new, remote ethnographic research strategies and to examine the limitations of conducting ethnography from a distance. We consider how far we stretch ‘ethnography' in a socially distanced context, using what we call ‘portholes of ethnography', and we outline how our learning informs the ways in which we can adapt research approaches – driven by relationality – in times of crises.

Hand in hand: refusing research during a pandemic

What does it mean to refuse research during a pandemic? The COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to reckon with old wounds and underlying conditions, particularly the ways in which these extreme inequalities are circumvented in research. In addressing pandemic failures the article addresses the ways in which research is complicit and how research has been re-invented under the conditions of the pandemic yet is still under the logics of extractivism and in service of the neoliberal university. Using refusal and abolition as generative theoretical groundings, the article seeks radical alternatives to reclaiming research as practice. Through the retraditioning of knowledges through ancestry, spirituality and positionality we can start to reclaim research as practice. Thus, in our refusal to go back to ‘normal', practicing research becomes the first step in organizing in anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-colonial and anti-racist ways. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

The Health Impacts of Social Distancing Among Indigenous People in Ontario During the First Wave of COVID-19

Among Indigenous Peoples in Canada and around the world, the health impacts of COVID-19 have been measured largely through biological, social, and psychological impacts. Our study draws from a relational concept of health to examine two objectives: (1) how social distancing protocols have shaped Indigenous connections with self, family, wider community, and nature;and (2) what these changing relationships mean for perceptions of Indigenous health. Carried out by an Indigenous team of scholars, community activists, and students, this research draws from a decolonizing methodology and qualitative interviews (n = 16) with Indigenous health and social care providers in urban and reserve settings. Our results illustrate a considerable decline in interpersonal connections such as with family, community organizations, and larger social networks as a result of social distancing. Among those already vulnerable, underlying health, social, and economic inequities have been exacerbated. While the health impacts of COVID-19 have been overwhelmingly negative, participants noted the importance of this time for self-reflection and reconnection of human-kind with Mother Earth. This paper offers an alternative perspective to popularized views of Indigenous experiences of COVID-19 as they relate to vulnerability and resilience.

Hunger for change: Student food insecurity in Australia

Student food insecurity has been a major social problem across the world. Building on interview-based research, this paper examines students’ experiences of food insecurity in Melbourne during the Covid-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns. It places particular emphasis on young people’s agency and students’ ‘relational’ understanding of food insecurity. Students experienced food insecurity in relation to other domains of life, such as work and health. In addition, students understood food insecurity in relation to how they are positioned with respect to axes of social inequality and in relation to a wider food system. In developing these points, we offer reflection on ground-level social action and relationality relevant to geographical and wider social science understanding of progressive food activism.

BETWEEN SCREENS AND KEYS: INTERVENTION RESEARCH WITH CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS IN PANDEMIC

The article aims at understanding the challenges and risks that arise for remote research-intervention with children and adolescents as digital devices during the Covid-19 pandemic are used. The method consisted of interviews by means of cell phones and computers with 18 children and adolescents during the months of March to September 2020. The results indicate that the relationship established between the researcher and the child is affected, above all, by the limitations due to face-to-face contact. On the other hand, it was noted that both researcher and child were highly committed to develop a relationship of trust. As conclusion, it is highlighted the expansion of the use of two digital devices, above all, of video and voice calls. © 2022, Centro de Estudos Educacao e Sociedade - CEDES. All rights reserved.

Immobility: The Relational and Experiential Qualities of an Ambiguous Concept

In this article, I discuss immobility as both an analytical concept and a lived experience. I review contemporary scholarly understandings of immobility and disentangle the unavoidable relational dynamics with its positive linguistic opposite, mobility. Concrete illustrations from migration studies and the global coronavirus crisis illustrate how immobility, at various scales of analysis and experience, is not only theoretically but also socially, economically, and politically relevant. Together with the in-depth review of existing scholarship, these examples confirm that the conceptual distinction made between immobility and mobility is often purely heuristic. In the messiness of people's lives, mobility and immobility are not mutually exclusive categories but, rather, two dynamic sides of the same coin. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Transfers is the property of Berghahn Books and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Risk Entanglement in the Finance-State Nexus: The Case of Systemic and Political Risk.

Crises such as European debt crisis, Brexit, and COVID-19 have challenged established relations between finance and the state in attempts at mitigating a broad range of crises-related risks. We ask whether and how these altered relations in themselves constitute novel uncertainties and risks between the two fields. To better understand these dynamics, we introduce the concept of "risk entanglement" to complement financialization as a key concept presently capturing these relations. Based on qualitative research in the German finance-state nexus, we show how financial and state actors mutually construe each other as risks that need to be managed and mitigated to safeguard their particular, field-specific logics and ends. We focus on systemic risk and political risk as two cases of risk entanglement: whereas systemic risk reflects the threat of a potential financial meltdown to the state, political risk reflects how the state endangers established risk practices in finance.

Reflections on Reconfiguring Methods During COVID-19: Lessons in Trust, Partnership, and Care

This paper is a set of reflections from researchers in the Center for Sustainable Communities, University of Canberra, drawing out emerging lessons from the process of re-configuring research methods during COVID-19. The pandemic has presented new spaces of negotiation, struggle, and interdependence within research projects and research teams. It has left researchers often uncertain about how to do their work effectively. At the same time, it has opened up opportunities to re-think how researchers undertake the work of research. In this paper we reflect on several current research programs that have had to undergo rapid design shifts to adjust to new conditions under COVID-19. The rapid shift has afforded some surprisingly positive outcomes and raised important questions for the future. In our reflections we look at the impact of COVID-19 at different stages of designing research with partners, establishing new relationships with partners and distant field sites, and data collection and analysis. We draw on Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodological ideas and highlight ways in which we have adapted and experimented with PAR methods during the pandemic. We reflect on the aspects of PAR that have assisted us to continue in our work, in particular, how PAR foregrounds diverse ways of knowing, being and doing, and prioritizes local aspirations, concerns and world views to drive the research agenda and the processes of social or economic change that accompany it. PAR also helps us to reflect on methods for building relationships of mutual trust, having genuine and authentic collaborations, and open conversations. We reflect on the potential lessons for PAR and community engaged research more generally. Amidst the challenges, our experience reveals new pathways for research practice to rebalance power relationships and support local place-conscious capacity for action.

Bioethics After Covid

This chapter will analyze the implications of Covid-19 experiences for bioethical discourse. Mainstream bioethics operates with the ethical principles of respect for autonomy, beneficence and non-maleficence, and justice. Within this framework, ethical dilemmas are identified between personal freedom and public health, for example in regard to quarantine, face masks, and testing. The framework also encourages balancing benefits and harms of policy interventions and potential medical treatments and vaccines, as well as weighing different values such as health, freedom of movement, and employment. This chapter argues that from the perspective of global bioethics, a wider framework of ethical considerations should be used, especially vulnerability, connectedness and community, solidarity and cooperation. As a global phenomenon, the pandemic cannot be only interpreted from an individual point of view;it problematizes social and communal relations and requires a social and global ethical perspective. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Intergenerational care in corona times: Practices of care in Swedish families during the pandemic

Objective: This paper analyses intergenerational relationships in Sweden during the corona pandemic, with a special focus on practices of care. The research question is: How is care between generations - between grandparents, adult children and grandchildren - done during pandemic conditions? Background: In Sweden, where an extensive welfare state provides affordable child- and eldercare, the corona strategy of generational separation has still affected family practices of care between generations. In this article we analyse narratives of intergenerational care, taking our point of departure in theories of personal life (Smart 2007), relationality (Mason 2004), and care as sentient activity (Mason 1996). Method: The paper draws on a qualitative interview study with grandparents (n=30), adult children (n=12) and grandchildren (n=12), with data collection taking place shortly before and during the coronavirus pandemic. Results: The study detects the reciprocal and complex ways in which care between generations takes place. When people relate their experiences, strategies for new ways of doing care are at the centre, involving creative ways of negotiating distance and risk, all marked by both worry and relief. Conclusion: The pandemic condition becomes a 'filter' affecting and leading to a reformulation of practices of care, from taken-for-granted co-presence narratives, into narratives of relational participation resulting in an overall heightened awareness of the importance and difficulties of intergenerational care practices. The study concludes that a strong welfare state does not translate into complete autonomy or independence;rather, people continue to live 'linked lives'.

"We're protecting them to death"-A Heideggerian interpretation of loneliness among older adults in long-term care facilities during COVID-19: Contact details.

In this paper, I draw on Heidegger's phenomenology of "moods" (Stimmungen) to interpret loneliness as a diffused and atmospheric feeling-state that often undergirds the lives of older adults, shaping the ways in which they are attuned to and make sense of the world. I focus specifically on residents in long-term care facilities to show how the social isolation and lockdown measures of the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically intensified the mood. The aim is to shed light on how profound and totalizing the experience has been for residents. Making use of Heidegger's account of the affective "collapse" or "breakdown" (Zusammenbruch) of meaning, I argue that when older adults are functionally locked in their rooms for months at a time and cut off from the orienting routines and rhythms of the relational world, the result is a crumbling of the fundamental meaning-structures that constitute subjectivity. The global sense of abandonment and disconnection strips away the possibility for self-understanding, and residents are often left confused and abandoned to an existence that has been drained of meaning and significance.

When Learning Is Life Giving: Redesigning Schools With Indigenous Systems of Relationality

This article illustrates how designing schools with Indigenous systems of relationality can be life giving for a healthier post-COVID world. Indigenous systems of relationality—the worldviews, beliefs and practices, and moral precepts of being in relation with the rest of the living world—are the cornerstone of Indigenous knowledges, and the cornerstone of Indigenous families and communities. We consider the ways in which Indigenous systems of relationality can offer strategies for educators, families, and communities to redesign approaches to learning in schools in ways that sustain and promote life. Drawing on three case studies of schools in Thailand, México, and Colombia, we show how educators might respond to the specific needs within their communities, repair the fracturing of humans from nature, and orient us to life-giving forms of activity that are beneficial beyond our current crises and into the future. © The Author(s) 2022.

Of Commandment, Africanity, Religion and Covid-19: Insights from the Seila-Tsatsi Story

This paper explores the significance of the turn to the religion of the family and the clan (i.e., indigenous African religion) taking place under the contemporary conditions of Covid-19 in many African countries. It does this in order to exhibit the Africanity that is hidden by this otherwise pragmatic turn. The paper explores this Africanity by drawing from the classical African story of Seila-Tsatsi, which it argues has its roots in religious education. The key aim of its examination of this Africanity is to interrogate a politics of health it claims the World Health Organisation advances. The paper does not explore this turn by accounting for the meanings individuals attribute to it but is rather and conceptual in its approach. The argument it makes is that the contemporary turn to the religion of the family and the clan exhibits desire for an inclusive form of relationality that ought to inform fair, equitable and just health outcomes. It argues that the WHO's politics of health is blind to this model because it stubbornly upholds binary thought.

A Relational Reflection on Pandemic Nationalism.

Drawing on the case of Wuhan, this article considers how nationalist discourses evolved in the Chinese context during the COVID-19 pandemic. It adopts a relational perspective to argue that, just as the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed countries' vulnerability to diverse forms of nationalism and the danger that this presents, it also reveals an irony: how despite being treated as a 'solution' to the pandemic, nationalism can only exist and thrive insofar as its alter or Other-represented by the novel coronavirus itself and, for some countries, the 'China threat'-also thrives. To prevent this from becoming a vicious cycle, the article contends that nationalism is no solution and that new thinking on coexistence is the vaccine needed for securing the post-COVID-19 world order.

Relational Dependence in a Culture of Self-Creation: A Theological Query into the Health of the Medical World.

Half of the medical professionals in the United States are experiencing symptoms of burnout. From the perspective of theological anthropology, this dehumanizing aspect of the field is not reducible to ethical failures, for it is rooted in the radically new worldview known as self-creation. As an implicit denial of Christian understanding of creation, self-creation entails a rejection of relationality and dependence-both proper to the Revelation of Jesus Christ. This article proposes that this lost Christian patrimony is intimately connected to the increasingly unhealthy dependence we place upon modern medicine. Relying on theologian Joseph Ratzinger, we will come to see that a recovery of relational dependence is not only necessary for the salvation of man-but the very health of the medical world at large.