Rituals of intimate legal touch: regulating the end-of-game handshake in pandemic culture

Hamilton, Sheryl N.

doi:10.1080/17458927.2017.1268821

Cited by 10 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Classen explains:up until the nineteenth century many texts were written or printed on the very skins of animals, transformed in parchment or vellum.…Imprinting the codes of human authority on animal skins was a potent symbol of the forcible human domination of animals. (2012: 111)Moving from the Middle Ages to the present day, Sheryl Hamilton’s (2017) work on the prohibition of the end-of-game handshake in an age of pandemic culture is another exciting example of how sensory studies complements and is complemented by skin studies. Hamilton is interested in how the handshake has become a site of both concern and contestation in biopolitical contexts characterized by ‘the constant awareness of, and threat from, global viral pandemic’ (2017: 54).…”

Section: A Brief Overview Of Skin Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Skin Studies

Lafrance¹

2018

Body & Society

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In this article, I introduce the critical study of the skin in three parts. I start with a reflection on what makes the skin such a suggestive and, arguably, special phenomenon. I then provide a brief overview of the key works, recurring themes and ongoing debates that characterize the skin studies subfield. And finally, I end with a presentation of the articles that make up Body and Society’s special issue on the skin, taking care to highlight how they both contribute to the subfield as it currently stands while orienting it towards new questions, concerns and challenges.

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Section: A Brief Overview Of Skin Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Skin Studies

Lafrance¹

2018

Body & Society

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“…Touch is productive of its own rationalities (Grabham 2009, 345). As I have noted elsewhere (Hamilton 2017), a handshake is a thoroughly haptic social encounter, often between strangers, or at least non-intimates. It encompasses extensive contact between the skin of our palms and the inner surfaces of our fingers with those of another for an extended period of time.…”

Section: Thinking About Handshakesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is precisely why women are "problems" for contractual personhood. As non-normative legal subjects who are always embodied and thus structurally excluded from the dream of sex neutrality proffered and preferred by the legal (fiction of the) person, women must always do more work to count legally (Hamilton 2009; see also Davies and Naffine 2001). Therefore, in an embodied legal performative moment such as the business handshake, their haptic repertoires require specific guidance.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…My research reveals that public health efforts to rewrite the haptic etiquette of the business handshake have met with resistance. 7 Unlike other contexts where the handshake has been more easily disrupted in the name of disease prevention (see Hamilton 2017), the business handshake has proven particularly resilient, prevailing as an enactment of the contractability of its participants. In the analysis that follows, I briefly demonstrate the status of the business handshake as a signifier of contract in contemporary culture.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Hands in Cont(r)act: The Resiliency of Business Handshakes in Pandemic Culture

Hamilton¹

2019

Can. j. law soc.

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This article examines the persistence of the handshake in business circles despite its implication in the spread of communicable disease in contemporary pandemic culture. An examination of business etiquette discourse suggests that even during disease outbreaks or flu season, the business handshake remains an important visual and haptic legal gesture. While it may no longer produce a binding legal contract, it stages the parties as contractable subjects, as claiming the status of autonomous individuals committed to defining their intersubjective relationship through the norms of contract. The business handshake thus operates as a cultural site for the complex interaction of bodies and law, and the production of masculine, haptic-legal subjectivity.

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“…attending prayer services, social celebration of religious holidays, kissing and touching sacramentals or sacred objects and so on) that could cause an inevitable rise of the virus infection contagion. A research article already cautioned prior coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic that complex and meaningful quotidian rituals involving intimate touch, such as a handshake, need re-evaluation as these pose a hygienic concern in pandemic culture [ 2 ]. The New York Times reported that confirmed cases and death of COVID-19 could be linked to Sunday services, church meetings, and youth camps as the virus could have had contaminated religious facilities [ 3 , 4 ], thus raise public health concerns.…”

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confidence: 99%

Take-home and digital Lenten filter ashes for Ash Wednesday: creative ritual practices of faith during COVID-19 pandemic

Deguma

Capuno

Deguma

et al. 2021

Journal of Public Health

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Before the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, previous research cautioned that complex and meaningful quotidian rituals involving intimate touch need re-evaluation as these pose a hygienic concern in pandemic culture. Faith-based practices entail human-to-human contact that could inevitably cause the virus infection contagion if not appropriately addressed. In a World Health Organization document, the crucial role of inter-faith collaboration and sharing of best practices to combat the spread of the virus are encouraged. In this correspondence, we assert that taking home ashes and launching digital Lenten ashes filter are non-traditional yet creative ways for the Catholic Church to perform the ritual practice in celebrating Ash Wednesday. We argued that such creative ritual practices changed the landscape of faith-based practices and implied trans-local participation of the Catholic community as witnesses of faith while upkeeping public health.

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Rituals of intimate legal touch: regulating the end-of-game handshake in pandemic culture

Cited by 10 publications

References 9 publications

Skin Studies

Skin Studies

Hands in Cont(r)act: The Resiliency of Business Handshakes in Pandemic Culture

Take-home and digital Lenten filter ashes for Ash Wednesday: creative ritual practices of faith during COVID-19 pandemic

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