In February 2020, Macau became one of the first regions where the pandemic of coronavirus or Covid-19 affected the totality of social and economic life leading to increased anxieties over movement and distance. Although Macau has had very few actual cases of the virus-46 in totaland no deaths from it, the Macau government rapidly instituted a lockdown. The aim of this article is to reflect on how the social experience of being in lockdown can provide insights into understanding the type of experience or condition that we provisionally term 'anxious immobility.' Such a condition is characterized by a total disruption of everyday rhythms and specifically anxious waiting for the normalization of activity while being the subject of biosocial narratives of quarantine and socially responsible. The paper is based upon 3 months of ethnographic research conducted by two researchers based in Macau. We also reflect upon some aspects of the politics of mobilities in the light of disruptions and friction points between Hong Kong, Macau, mainland China, and the rest of the world.
In this article we will discuss the use of drones, as well as the visual simulation of drone afforded aesthetics, by activists, artists and protesters. We use the existing literature of surveillance studies and visual studies to examine how exactly a drone-afforded visibility emerges and how it mediates the visibility of a particular community or space of contention. We draw on the concepts of "surveillance capacities" and (counter) visibility practices to analyze the process and production of drone (and drone-simulated) counter surveillant artist/activist visibility. The article makes several key points. The first one concerns the construction of protest space and the protest site volumetrically from the airborne perspective of the citizen drone via an assemblage of artist/activist practices. These practices include the use of drones, as well as dronesimulated imagery. The latter includes, DIY aerial camera rigs attached to kites and the use visual social media platforms such as Instagram to curate otherwise less visible military drone geographies more 'real' and proximate. The second concerns the visibility of subjects engaged in the protest space. And finally, we elaborate how events are presented dynamically (rhythmically) through drone videos and a drone-afforded visual grammar. Our assumption is that drones, as well as drone-simulated imagery allow the user to generate a hybrid participative (inclusive) visibility that makes protest more spectacular through its volumetric vision, subverting the visibility of control while striving for visibility of recognition. Overall, this article seeks to further elaborate on the visual turn within sociology, specifically in relation to what are now commonplace volumetric practices of power, representation and participation.
This commentary reviews recent research in terms of tourist’s mobilities in terms practices of walking, cycling and driving. It concludes by reflecting on the contemporary lock down of travel in terms of the global pandemic and its consequences for waiting, stillness and immobility – particularly in terms of flying.
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