I was sitting at my computer when we got the call. My father in his chair, my mother on the sofa. Two days earlier we had found out that my father’s aunt was in the hospital in Rio with the coronavirus. She was my grandmother’s twin sister. My biological grandmother died in the early 1970s, two decades before I was …
As lockdowns impose physical distancing, communities are imagining new ways to connect, and there is one surprising, shared tactic communities across the world are using to bolster social ties: bingo.
Image by Carrie RyanStories of bingo play during the pandemic abound online. Neighbourhoods across Englandhave joined together to play bingo in the streets, with many offering cleaning supplies and toilet …
Warm haze
As I spoke, people looked at me worriedly. The kindness in their eyes was mixed with curiosity and concern. Rather than answering me, they turned to each other to discuss something beyond my grasp. I had aphasia and my incoherent stream of words was puzzling to the people around me. I spoke, I thought, in perfect sentences but …
Refraction of participation
What does it mean to participate? What does participation do?[1]
The etymology of ‘participation’ traces from the Latin word participationem, which translates as ‘sharing, partaking, make partaker of’.[2] The word is composed of the Latin pars (a part, piece, division), and the stem capere (to take). To participate is thus to take part.
We …