Using Skype to mother : bodies, emotions, visuality, and screens

Auteur(s) et Affiliation(s)



Description :
This research examines how seeing one’s child or children as part of the communication affects mothers’ feelings towards their children. Through the example of group of mothers in Hamilton, New Zealand using Skype, it reveals that the dwelling places of bodies are no longer just rooms in homes where mothers, and children’s flesh and emotions rub up against each other on a daily basis but screens across which voices and, even more importantly, images are shared. It also demonstrates that ‘seeing’ their child or children enables them to assess their children’s well-being more accurately. In this way the computer screen, as object, by portraying moving visual images, is ‘reorientating’ mothers’ and children’s bodies offering a seemingly closer physical and emotional proximity than in the past.


Type de document :
Article de périodique

Source :
Environment and planning. D. Society and space, issn : 0263-7758, 2013, vol. 31, n°. 4, p. 664-679, nombre de pages : 16, Références bibliographiques : 3 p.

Date :
2013

Editeur :
Pays édition : Royaume-Uni, London, Pion