Between existential mobility and intimacy 5.0: translocal care in pandemic times

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has reconfigured every social, political, economic and cultural aspect of modern society. Millions of people have been stuck in lockdown within and across borders, national and regional terrains, in their homes and worse places. At this time of unprecedented change and ‘stuckedness’, digital communication technologies have served as a lifeline to forge and nurture communication, intimate ties and a sense of continuity and belongingness. But being stuck and simultaneously virtually mobile has brought many difficulties, tensions and paradoxes. In this paper we discuss first insights from a study with 15 members of the older Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) population in Victoria, Australia to explore experiences of being physically stuck and virtually mobile. We find practices of translocal care – ways of caring for distant others through digital technologies, has been made more complex by the pandemic and shaped by two dynamics: networked collective ‘existential mobility’, and a quantification of feeling that we call ‘intimacy 5.0’.

Cuidados vecinales y articulaciones socioespaciales en zonas urbanas diversas: experiencias migrantes durante el COVID-19

“…En menor medida, los espacios virtuales también han sido analizados como espacios de cuidado. En el contexto de la pandemia se ha visibilizado la conexión entre espacio virtual y afectos, y la dimensión móvil, multiescalar y trans-local de los cuidados (Cabalquinto y Büscher, 2022;Jirón et al, 2022). Particularmente, la telefonía móvil ha sido definida como un espacio y tecnología de interacción que mejora la habitabilidad de la población migrante en la ciudad (Bunnell y Kathiravelu, 2016, p. 214) y que facilita el cuidado de quienes están espacialmente distantes (Cabalquinto y Büscher, 2022).…”

The realizing good governance through integrated services in the era of society 5.0

“…The essence of public service is the provision of excellent service to the community, which is the embodiment of the obligations of government officials as public servants. Cabalquinto & Büscher (2022) states that the service concept will be networked and more integrated into the era of Society 5.0. In good governance, of course, this is one of the government's efforts to improve and improve public services in the context of bureaucratic reform.…”