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. 2021 Sep;27(7):844-852.
doi: 10.1177/1077800420960167.

Touching Matters: Affective Entanglements in Coronatime

Vivienne Bozalek  1   2 , Denise Newfield  3 , Nike Romano  4 , Lieve Carette  5 , Katharine Naidu  6 , Veronica Mitchell  7 , Alex Noble  4
Affiliations

Touching Matters: Affective Entanglements in Coronatime

Vivienne Bozalek et al. Qual Inq. 2021 Sep.

Abstract

This article troubles touch as requiring embodied proximity, through an affective account of virtual touch during coronatime. Interested in doing academia differently, we started an online Barad readingwriting group from different locations. The coronatime void was not a vacuum, but a plenitude of possibilities for intimacy, pedagogy, learning, creativity, and adventure. Although physically apart, we met daily through Zoom, and we touched and were touched by each other and the texts we read. A montage of writing fragments and a collective artwork, based on the Massive_Micro project, highlight virtual touching. Undone, redone, and reconfigured, we became a diffractive human/nonhuman multiplicity.

Keywords: affect; coronatime; entanglements; matters; potential; reading group; the void; touch; virtual.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Cable underneath Denise’s desk. Note. Photo: Denise Newfield.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Of cables and webs. Note. Screenshot: Nike Romano.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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