Restorative and afflicting qualities of the micro-space encounter:psychophysiological reactions to the spaces of the city

There is a long-standing narrative within health research that nature (or green space) is beneficial for health while urban (or grey spaces) are not. This prior research often focuses on broad, often binary, nature/urban categorizations rather than the particular qualities of the micro-space encounter, stimulating embodied stress or restorative human reactions. Drawing on the findings of an interdisciplinary and exploratory mixed-methods study investigating how people physiologically respond to their environment, this paper discusses the micro-space encounters which can evoke restorative and afflicting human responses. In doing so, this paper demonstrates the strengths of combining biosensing technology with qualitative methods but stresses that narrative and psychophysiological capture only identifies a small aspect of an experience

Embodied virtual geographies:linkages between bodies, spaces, and digital environments

Within an ongoing debate about the relationships between the body and technological experiences within virtual reality (VR), there has hitherto been limited consideration of the spatial. Geographers, meanwhile, have only just begun to engage with VR and its spatialities but have paid less attention to its embodiment. The technology allows users to go beyond merely imagining themselves in a different world, creating a real sense of presence in the digital realm. Immersion and presence in VR are, however, a mix of space, embodiment and the digital. As such, any discussion of VR requires critical consideration of both embodiment and space. This paper therefore explores some of the linkages between bodies, spaces and VR to demonstrate how engagement with VR can enrich geographical scholarship

From Urban Stress to Neurourbanism:How Should We Research City Well-Being?

Urbanicity has long been associated with stress, anxiety, and mental disorders. A new field of neurourbanism addresses these issues, applying neuroscience laboratory methods to tackle global urban problems and promote happier and healthier cities. Exploratory studies have trialed psychophysiological measurement beyond laboratories, capitalizing on the availability of biosensing technologies to capture geo-located physiological markers of emotional responses to urban environments. This article reviews the emerging conceptual and methodological debates for urban stress research. City authorities increasingly favor new data-driven and technology-enabled approaches to governing smart cities, with the aim that governments will be enabled to pursue evidence-based urban well-being policies. Yet there are few signs that our cities are undergoing the transformative, structural changes necessary to promote well-being. To face this urgent challenge and to interrogate the technological promises of our future cities, this article advances the conceptual framework of critical neurogeography and illustrates its application to a comparative international study of urban workers. It is argued that biosensing data can be used to elicit socially and politically relevant narrative data that centers on body-mind-environment relations but exceeds the individualistic and often behaviorist confines that have come to be associated with the quantifying technologies of the emerging field of neurourbanism

Care and rhythmanalysis:Using metastability to understand the routines of dementia care

An increasing number of people living with dementia worldwide receive informal care from their family members. A key element of dementia care is maintaining a daily routine and familiarity, making caring an extremely rhythmic practice. To explore the rhythmic nature of informal care, we apply and advance Lefebvre's unfinished rhythmanalysis by developing an original typology of eurhythmia as a metastable equilibrium. Metastability, although appearing macroscopically stable, is a vulnerable state where a slight disturbance can result in deviation to another state (i.e., stable or unstable). Drawing upon interviews with informal caregivers, we discuss the rhythms and (dis)harmonies of caring practice, including the substantial rhythms of caring practice, the relational balance of rhythms between the caregiver and care recipient, and the various rhythmic disruptions that occur. We demonstrate how metastability provides an understanding of the ever-changing rhythms of every day and allows us to move beyond the immediacy of arrhythmic breaks and explore the subtle changes that occur in (poly)rhythms. Thus, eurhythmia as a metastable equilibrium allows us to explore the gradual and subtle development of, and changes to, dementia care and other routine practices in health geography

Virtual Reality Methods

ePDF and ePUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Since the mid-2010s, virtual reality (VR) technology has advanced rapidly. This book explores the many opportunities that VR can offer for humanities and social sciences researchers. The book provides a user-friendly, non-technical methods guide to using ready-made VR content and 360° video as well as creating custom materials. It examines the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches to using VR, providing helpful, real-world examples of how researchers have used the technology