“We seek those moments of togetherness”: digital intimacies, virtual touch and becoming community in pandemic times

Thorpe, Holly; Jeffrey, Allison; Fullagar, Simone; Ahmad, Nida

doi:10.1080/14680777.2022.2112738

Cited by 12 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…In total, 17 publications were included in this review. A detailed overview of the characteristics of the included studies can be found in Multimedia Appendix 2 [2,6,11,18,19,[32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43]. All study designs were considered; however, only qualitative studies were found to be relevant after the screening process.…”

Section: Description Of the Included Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Information about the study populations of all the included studies and their number of participants can be found in Table 3. [32] 56 (0.37) Patients undergoing chemotherapy Ben-Arye et al [6] 5 (0.03) Young adults with learning disabilities Datlen and Pandolfi [11] NR Web-based body psychotherapists Eve [39] 15,334 (100) Art therapists offering telehealth Feniger-Schaal et al [36] NR Audience members Gauhe [35] 10 (0.07) Physiotherapists who work with children Grant et al [33] NR Audience members Karam and Naguib [41] 2 (0.01) A couple in couple therapy Lord [34] 1185 (7.73) Allied health clinicians treating people with musculoskeletal conditions Malliaras et al [19] NR Men with learning disabilities Moloney et al [43] 59 (0.38) Participants aged ≥18 y capable of engaging in physical activity Rugh et al [2] NR Children and teenagers with a variety of mental health issues Snyder [42] NR Dance students Sieradzki and LeMarquand [37] 17 (0.11) Women working in the sport and fitness industry Thorpe et al [18] NR People displaced because of conflict, persecution, and poverty Usiskin and Lloyd [38] 15 (0.1) Adult-trained hospice nurses Weaver et al [40] a A total of 47% (8/17) of the studies had unspecified participant numbers.…”

Section: Description Of the Included Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Artists, for instance, encountered technological and financial challenges when delivering performances on the web, whereas manual therapists were resistant to the concept of hands-off care and patients expressed unmet expectations [16,17]. Conversely, benefits such as improved accessibility and lower costs are frequently highlighted by both health practitioners and participants of web-based fitness classes [5,18,19].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Creatively Adapting Touch-Based Practices to the Web Format During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Systematic Review

Gauhe,

Cisneros,

Ward

et al. 2023

J Med Internet Res

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Background The COVID-19 pandemic forced numerous touch-based fields, including manual therapy, body psychotherapy, arts therapy, creative arts practices, and the fitness industry, to swiftly transition to web-based service delivery. These disciplines faced substantial challenges in adapting their traditionally in-person practices, which rely heavily on physical touch and close proximity, to a web format. Objective This review intends to provide a systematically sourced overview of the literature concerning innovative approaches for adapting touch-based practices to the web format in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods A systematic search across 7 databases and gray literature sources identified studies presenting innovative web delivery methods, particularly those addressing the challenges arising from the absence of physical proximity and touch. The inclusion criteria were designed to encompass studies exploring the creative adaptation of touch-based practices to web formats in response to the COVID-19 pandemic irrespective of study methodology. The exclusion criteria applied to studies focusing solely on technical aspects of web delivery or nontouch or noninteractive practices. There were no geographical restrictions, but the selection was limited to publications from 2020 onward. As only qualitative studies were found, data synthesis was conducted thematically. Results The review encompassed 17 studies revealing that touch-based fields successfully devised innovative and creative methods for web service delivery. These methods were categorized into five main themes: (1) adapted working methods (cross-field methods), (2) adapted working methods for sensorial experiences and nonphysical connections, (3) creative methods using materials or additional tools, (4) creative use of web-based platform tools or additional technologies, and (5) creative methods requiring previous preparation of practitioners or participants. These creative approaches allowed practitioners to address the challenges of web touch-based practices, fostering connections and offering unique sensory experiences, albeit with some concerns related to technology and preparation. Conclusions These innovative methods demonstrate promise in circumventing the limitations imposed by the lack of physical touch and proximity in web settings during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, these insights hold potential for application in other fields in the future. This systematic search and thematic synthesis provide valuable guidance for practitioners and educators seeking to navigate the evolving landscape of web service delivery in touch-based disciplines, ensuring continuity of care even in challenging circumstances. Trial Registration PROSPERO CRD42022379731; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=379731

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Section: Description Of the Included Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Description Of the Included Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Creatively Adapting Touch-Based Practices to the Web Format During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Systematic Review

Gauhe,

Cisneros,

Ward

et al. 2023

J Med Internet Res

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…While many practiced yoga (some for the first time) (see Jeffrey et al, 2021), others created home-gyms with borrowed or adapted equipment (i.e., milk bottles full of water as weights) to support a range of movement practices. Most of the women used digital technologies (both synchronous and asynchronous online fitness programs) to support their home-based movement practices (Thorpe, Jeffrey, et al, 2022). However, some of the women, particularly the mothers, struggled to find time and space for fitness.…”

Section: Analysis and Discussion: Deterritorializing The Fitness Asse...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Women's Physical Activity as Becoming: Lines of Flight from the Fitness Assemblage

Thorpe,

Brice,

O’Leary

et al. 2023

Journal of Sport and Social Issues

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Building upon and extending a growing strand of research engaging feminist new materialisms to understand women's moving bodies as more-than-human phenomena, this paper considers the pandemic as an event that initiated new expressions and contents for the fitness assemblage. Engaging a feminist reading of Deleuze and Guattari's writings on becoming, we examine women's physical activity practices during the coronavirus pandemic. Drawing upon object interviews with 38 women living in Aotearoa New Zealand, we ask: How do women's pandemic relations with spaces (home, neighborhood), others (family, pets) and matter (objects of fitness) prompt new ways of knowing their own moving bodies and the importance of physical activity in their lives? Through our affective, material, and embodied analysis, we explain how the pandemic event surfaced new lines of flight away from the dominant gendered fitness assemblage. Women's affective relations and movement encounters prompted the emergence of new forms of bodily autonomy and fitness for pleasure and connection, offering glimpses of alternative ways of knowing, feeling, and sensing physical activity as becoming.

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“…Although connections were found in digital spaces, we, like the women in our study, noticed the ways technologically mediated interactions affected our embodied and affective relations with others. Various scholars have considered the potential of digital platforms for fostering a sense of intimacy online, including sustaining familial connections and fostering community through pandemic (e.g., Gallagher et al, 2020;Matthews et al, 2021;Thorpe et al, 2023;Watson et al, 2020). However, in our pandemic research, we also experienced the limitations of digitally mediated methods.…”

Section: Digital-materials Intimaciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relational Ethics of Care in Pandemic Research: Vulnerabilities, Intimacies, and Becoming Together-Apart

Jeffrey

Thorpe

2023

Qualitative Inquiry

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In this article, we draw upon the ethico-onto-epistemology of feminist new materialisms to reflect on our experiences as feminists doing research on women’s embodied experiences of sport, fitness, and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. For qualitative researchers around the world, COVID-19 presented a radically changed research environment. For many, the shift to doing digital interviews required the navigation of unfamiliar technologies and experimenting with different strategies for establishing connections through computer screens. As feminist scholars, working together and with the participants during times of increased stress and uncertainty prompted us to reimagine our ethical research practices. In this article, we engage and extend Rosi Braidotti’s writing on affirmative ethics and offer our personal experiences of grappling with the affective intensities of pandemic while doing ethical feminist research. Through this creative inquiry, we describe supporting one another through research and illustrate how the unique intersections of work, family, health, isolation, and exhaustion were influencing our own and participants’ lives differently. Engaging with Braidotti’s writings on affirmative ethics in the posthuman convergence, we illuminate the ways that our digital-material experiences and the human/nonhuman aspects of the research processes were re-turning our ethical considerations. Researching together, with a focus on creating space for the voices of women who have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19, we found moments of hope and joy as we creatively imagined expansive potentials for feminist research, fostered through caring collaborations.

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“We seek those moments of togetherness”: digital intimacies, virtual touch and becoming community in pandemic times

Cited by 12 publications

References 37 publications

Creatively Adapting Touch-Based Practices to the Web Format During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Systematic Review

Creatively Adapting Touch-Based Practices to the Web Format During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Systematic Review

Women's Physical Activity as Becoming: Lines of Flight from the Fitness Assemblage

Relational Ethics of Care in Pandemic Research: Vulnerabilities, Intimacies, and Becoming Together-Apart

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