Contextualising embodied cognition: Towards a critical neuro‐geography of ageing

Abstract

Within geography, situated, contextualised, and contingent embodiment is a central theme in non‐representational theory, mobility theories, and feminist, affective, and emotional geographies. Despite this focus on the body, engagement with the strong embodiment hypotheses emerging out of neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy has been limited to only selective theoretical borrowings with practically no attention given to the burgeoning empirical evidence of the relationship between body, mind, and environment. While the neural turn within the discipline has been acknowledged, the flow of influence is found to be largely unidirectional, where cognitive science, and the neurogovernance that stems from it, pays scant attention to the contingencies of spatial lives. At the same time, geographers have been critical of the universalising tendencies and narrow empiricism of neuroscience. This paper advocates a rapprochement between geography and neuroscience following Barad's agential realism approach. Using the geographies of ageing as a case that has relevance across the discipline, cognitive embodiments are understood as body–mind–environment assemblages that continuously co‐constitute material difference, constraint, and possibility for bodies as they age. A focus on recent studies of embodied ageing that show cognition to be both embodied and inherently spatial is used to inspire a critical neuro‐geography that rethinks ageing in place, age‐friendly cities, and age‐related public health interventions, such as those for the COVID‐19 crisis. The paper aims to inspire further critical neuro‐geographies that think through body–mind–environment assemblages and material–discursive intra‐actions without separating mind/body or nature/culture.

Biosocial borders: Affective debilitation and resilience among women living in a violently bordered favela

“…Asking how urban borders are embodied through an interplay between material environment, affective atmosphere, lived experience, and neurobiological processes, our approach views the city as an affective milieu that is heterogeneous, non-deterministic, and enabling (Söderström et al, 2016, p. 105). Our research extends emerging work on biosociality and neuro-urbanism (Fitzgerald et al, 2016;Fitzgerald & Callard, 2014;Gagen, 2015;Naughton, 2022;Pykett, 2018;Pykett et al, 2020) by adapting methods using portable biosensor technology to research in favelas. Despite the great interest in embodiment and preconscious practices in non-representational geographies and related fields, applied research on the combined biological and social mechanisms of urban mental life remains relatively rare.…”

“…In this research we analyse data from mobile biosensors in conjunction with qualitative interviews. By working with EDA readings of women conducting routine journeys in the Maré, we connect work on geographies of affect to broader debates around neuro‐urbanism, neuro‐geography, and bio‐sociality (Gagen, 2015; Naughton, 2022; Pykett, 2018; Pykett et al, 2020). Our research is among the first to extend new mobile biosensing methodologies to challenging fieldwork sites that experience high levels of racialized violence.…”

Cultural memory and neuro-critical reading of Ian McEwan's atonement

“…What Briony produces as an objectified form of cultural status is the harbinger of her mentality which brings about tragic consequences. In other words, "Briony's overactive imagination ruins lives and relationships in Atonement" (Naughton, 2022). Consequently, Brioney's aesthetics is destructive rather than constructive which signifies what she writes based on her imagination is rooted in the way she has been brought up as an aristocratic girl.…”