How does health feel? Towards research on the affective atmospheres of digital health

Abstract

The concept of affective atmospheres has recently emerged in cultural geography to refer to the feelings that are generated by the interactions and movements of human and nonhuman actors in specific spaces and places. Affective atmospheres can have profound effects on the ways in which people think and feel about and sense the spaces they inhabit and through which they move and the other actors in those spaces. Thus far, very little research has adopted this concept to explore the ways in which digital health technologies are used. As part of seeking to redress this lacuna, in this essay I draw on previously published literature on affective atmospheres to demonstrate and explain the implications of this scholarship for future theoretical and empirical scholarship about digital health practices that pays attention to their affective and sensory elements. The article is structured into six parts. The first part outlines the concepts and research practices underpinning affective atmospheres scholarship. In the second part, I review some of the research that looks at place, space and mobilities in relation to affective atmospheres. In the third part I focus more specifically on the affective atmospheres of medical encounters, and then move on to digital technology use in the fourth part. I then address in the fifth part, some relevant scholarship on digital health technologies. I end the essay with some reflections of directions in which future research taking up the concept of affective atmospheres in the context of digital health technologies can go. The key research question that these topics all work towards is that asking ‘How does digital health feel?’

Telemedicine and the senses: a review

“…It is argued that practice and meaning are intertwined, so that focusing on one to the exclusion of the other fails to fully understand the ontologies of human experience and embodiment. The idea of ‘thinking and acting through body’ (Whatmore : 604) is taken up in these perspectives, as is the notion that non‐human actors play a central role in generating sensation and feeling in human actors (Ash , Lupton , Müller ).…”

“…The term ‘affective atmospheres’ has been employed, particularly in human geography, to describe the ways in which space and place work together with humans and non‐humans to generate feeling. Affective atmospheres are created by and emerge from human bodies, but they are not reducible to them (Anderson , Ash , Lupton ).…”

“…These data are material objects that both record human sensory responses and contribute to them (Lupton ). They should, therefore, be recognised as part of the array of non‐human actors that contribute to sensory experiences and affective atmospheres (Lupton ). Researching sensory engagements from this perspective involves acknowledging the affective intensities of datafied spaces and bodies moving within these spaces (Sumartojo et al .…”

“…These concepts draw attention to the emergent nature of the digital data assemblages generated via telemedicine and other digital technologies, highlighting the challenges faced by healthcare workers and patients in developing sensory practices for gaining purchase on lively data. They can potentially extend the notion of affective atmospheres by suggesting that digital data can be contributors to the generation of sensory feeling (Lupton , Tucker and Goodings ). Data, for example, can ‘feel right’ or ‘feel wrong’.…”

Changing emotional engagement with running through communal self‐tracking: the implications of ‘teleoaffective shaping’ for public health

“…, Svetkey et al . ), medical professionals promote their potential to revolutionise and disrupt health care, self‐care, medical research, public health practice and to reduce healthcare expenditure (Lupton , ).…”