Social bodies, physically distanced

What “novel” experiences of embodiment has the novel Coronavirus COVID-19 brought? We explored everyday, slice-of-life accounts of how “social distancing” is being lived out. However widely used that phrase has become to refer to the historical moment, we also problematize it, asking: does physical spacing necessarily create social distance?

We attend to socialities disrupted and emergent, distressing and comforting, protesting and complying. Even as we send higher education students away from campuses (we carried this project across 4 time zones and six North American states/provinces), cease visiting our elders in nursing homes, and many stay-at-home and quarantine almost completely alone, new socialities also emerge, through taking work, education and socializing to virtual platforms; through acts of mutual aid in neighborhoods and community circles; through reworking organizations, schedules, practices, rituals, foodways, identity presentation, and on and on. Ethnographic engagement helps us grasp the seismic enormity of the changes rendered, still early, in the course of this pandemic.

Methods: Each Colorado College team member collected a minimum of five pre-screened examples (via observation or informal interview), and we circulated these on a shared site. On May 6, halfway through our block, we had a convergence course with another “Body” anthropology course at CU-Denver, taught by Dr. Jean Scandlyn, where a portion of her students collaborated in the project. Panels from both schools presented on themes such as pregnancy during COVID, Noncompliance; LGBTQ connectivity; emotional lives and intimacy during distancing. In the second part of the CC block (on top of a seminar with heavy reading), students continued to develop readings of select aspects of their fieldwork. We gladly share them with you here, and welcome your additions, comments, and critiques!

–Professor Sarah Hautzinger,

Cheyenne Canyon, Colorado