AAG Fieldtrip: Applied Memory: Putting affective and embodied methods into practice on the National Mall
Convenors: Jacque Micieli-Voutsinas, Tess Osborne, and Danielle Drozdzewski
April 2, 2019.
Fieldtrip Summary:
'Applied Memory: Putting affective and embodied methods into practice in the memorial capital' will provide researchers with opportunities to acquire new methodological approaches to the study of place, emotion, and memory.
The fieldtrip comprises a series of 'lab' experiments using biosensory, affective and embodied methods; it will facilitate skill-building and advanced methodological practice. The fieldtrip will visit four memory sites in Washington DC, including: the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial; Korean War Veterans Memorial; Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Public memory is complex, and it matters to representations of the self in the present (be that self the nation, individual and/or community, or more). On the fieldtrip we actively think through this contention and the different ways to access and understand the memory landscape in the highly memorial laden landscape of the American capital.
Methods and Further Details
The workshop builds on representational analyses of cultural heritage, but ventures beyond sole visual, narrative, and textual critiques, to engage in somatic, visceral and sensory methods at memory sites. The skill-based sessions will instruct on the following method applications:
- biosensing
- video and sound ethnography
- virtual reality
- autoethnography
Processes and events of memory and emotion are deeply entwined at an embodied level. While non-representational theories have considered the practice and process of memory at an embodied and pre-cognitive level, the biological factors influencing memory recall remain largely uncharted in geographical inquiry (see Osborne 2019 for a notable exception). Nascent scholarship on these biosocial aspects of memory demonstrates growing interest in how to research affective and embodied memory encounters (Higgins, 2018; Ingold & Pálsson, 2013; Youdell & Lindley, 2018). The use of biosensors- an umbrella term for technology that records somatic responses, including heart rate and electrodermal activity (cf. de Freitas, 2018; Osborne & Jones, 2017; Osborne, 2018)- GoPros, Virtual Reality headsets and voice recorders, in this fieldtrip will allow attendees to critically explore the biosocial and sensory aspects of cultural memory in the heart of US memorial culture. We will, for example, collect data on pulse and heart rate, GPS location, and even perspiration, indicating bio-social experiences of place, where participant's bodies are physically responding to the emotional content of the landscape.
Registration
The field workshop is open to all registered participants of the main conference. Please specify your participation when you register for the conference.
If more participants apply than we have planned spaces for, we will seek representation across career stages and opportunities. Furthermore, participants will also need to commit to attending the panel session as this reflexive exercise provides the opportunity for peer feedback and the sedimentation of new knowledges.
Integral to the fieldtrip will be a follow-up panel session during the AAG conference, which will enable reflection on the methods learned, discussion of analysis and synthesis towards a publication based on the data collected.
Contact Details
For further details please email Jacque JMicieliVoutsinas@clarku.edu, Tess t.c.osborne@pgr.bham.ac.uk, or Danielle danielle.drozdzewski@humangeo.su.se
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Danielle Drozdzewski
Stockholm University
danielle.drozdzewski@humangeo.su.se------------------------------