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Sociomaterialities of health, risk and care during COVID-19: Experiences of Australians living with a medical condition

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  • Lupton, Deborah
  • Lewis, Sophie

Abstract

People living with pre-existing illnesses were identified as one of the groups most at risk when COVID-19 erupted. In this article, using the method of case studies developed from interviews, we explore how Australians in this category considered their risk and responded to it as they were learning about COVID-19 and living with restrictions and lockdown conditions in the early months of the pandemic. Building on the literature on assemblages of health and illness, therapeutic landscapes and the materialities of care, our analysis considers sociomaterialities of health, risk and care described in six featured case studies. Each person recounted a unique narrative that described the coming together of several different human and nonhuman agents in their experiences. Yet a number of overarching and intersecting themes can also be traced across the participants’ narratives: the vital contributions of lay care and self-care as part of the materialities of care, health and wellbeing; the role played by social networks, both online and in-person, for people in learning about and coping with COVID-19 and its potential risks; previous embodied and affective experiences of illness, vulnerability and care; and the role played by place and space in generating either therapeutic or distressing affective atmospheres. These findings have implications for better understandings of the situated sociomaterial contexts of how embodied experience, affective forces and encounters and relationships with other people and with things, place and space come together in crises such as COVID-19.

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  • Lupton, Deborah & Lewis, Sophie, 2022. "Sociomaterialities of health, risk and care during COVID-19: Experiences of Australians living with a medical condition," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 293(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:293:y:2022:i:c:s0277953621010017
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114669
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Andrews, Gavin J. & Duff, Cameron, 2019. "Matter beginning to matter: On posthumanist understandings of the vital emergence of health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 226(C), pages 123-134.
    2. Wiltshire, Gareth & Pullen, Emma & Brown, Frankie F. & Osborn, Mike & Wexler, Sarah & Beresford, Mark & Tooley, Mark & Turner, James E., 2020. "The experiences of cancer patients within the material hospital environment: Three ways that materiality is affective," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 264(C).
    3. Esteve G. Giraud & Sara El-Sayed & Adenike Opejin, 2021. "Gardening for Food Well-Being in the COVID-19 Era," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(17), pages 1-19, August.
    4. Janette Young & Rhianna Pritchard & Carmel Nottle & Helen Banwell, 2020. "Pets, touch, and COVID-19: health benefits from non-human touch through times of stress," Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy, Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics (SABE), vol. 4(S2), pages 25-33, December.
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    Cited by:

    1. Winata, Fikriyah & McLafferty, Sara L., 2023. "Therapeutic landscapes, networks, and health and wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic: A mixed-methods study among female domestic workers," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 322(C).

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