Observation and the Everyday: How the experience of lockdown has affected our perceptions on outside interactions and home life?
2500 words, double spaced
What does it mean to observe the everyday during a period of mass social distancing? In what ways can observing the everyday become the basis to make knowledge claims about the world we live in? What are the ethical or political challenges one may encounter when observing the
Things to be thought about…When doing your observations, what do you observe during the everyday? Are there any issues you encounter when observing? How does observing the everyday affect you — what emotions, sensations or feelings does it bring about? How might ‘theoretical’ material help you make sense of your observations? What do your observations tell you about the world we live in?
• Demonstrate awareness of the range of ways in which researchers might engage in practices of psychosocial observation.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the concept of the everyday within Psychosocial Studies and related fields.
• Demonstrate the development of a psychosocial sensibility that is attuned to the visual, the auditory, the olfactory, and the kinaesthetic dimensions of everyday life.
Demonstrate an awareness of the importance of reflexivity and the positionality / situatedness of the observer / participant. An ability to think about the relationship between subjectivity, space, and embodied experience.
• have an understanding of what is meant by ‘phenomenology’;
• have a general understanding of the methods, rationale, and assessment of the module;
• have an awareness of some of the key ethical and political issues associated with observing the everyday;
• have an awareness of the scholars we are studying and the traditions within which they work;
• have an understanding of how to conduct your weekly observations and detail them in a diary.
Jennifer Mason. Observing and Participating .
• have a consideration of why human life can be understood as ‘relational’;
• have an understanding of some of the violences associated with solitary confinement;
• have an understanding of the way incarceration links to issues of race and racialisation, particularly in a United States context;
• have an understanding of the issues related to observing the world when one is in isolation.
Relevant reading for above points if addressed (Lisa Guenther. Solitary Confinement: Social Death and Its Afterlives . Please read ‘Introduction: A Critical Phenomenology of Solitary Confinement)
• have an understanding of the various resonances of ‘presence’;
• have an understandng of what we mean by ‘the everyday’;
• have an understanding of some of the methods we might deploy to make sense of ‘the everyday’;
• have a consideration of the ethical and political import of ‘apprehending’ particular people in their singular uniqueness
Relevant reading for above points if addressed Gail Lewis. Questions of Presence .
Les Back. Why Everyday Life Matters: Class, Community and Making Life Livable .)
• have an understanding of what Campt means by ‘still-moving-images’;
• have an understanding of some approaches to making sense of visual cultures;
• have a consideration of the way issues of race and racialisation affect forms of observation;
• have a consideration of the ethical or political import of posture, comportment and ‘inclination’.
Relevant readings for above points if addressed Tina Campt. The Grain of the Amateur .
Adriana Cavarero, ‘Inclining the Subject: Natality, Alterity, Ethics)
