Illuminating proximate ambivalence: Affect, body, and space in COVID-19 digitally-mediated teaching and learning

Abstract

We offer the concept of proximate ambivalence to highlight the ambiguity inherent in the social and spatial relations of higher education’s digitally-mediated teaching and learning that replaced in-person seminars during the COVID-19 pandemic. By proximate ambivalence, we refer to one’s simultaneous proximity and distance in relation to an object, person, or space. We employ affect theories (i.e. collective bodies and affective atmospheres) and affective methodology—grounding our analysis in our lived experiences as illustrative examples—to demonstrate how proximate ambivalence manifests. We first show how proximate ambivalence manifested as digital technologies facilitated and disrupted collective bodies’ emergence. Second, we illuminate how proximate ambivalence materialized as affective atmospheres changed while differentiated spaces and the transitions therein faded. We argue that proximate ambivalence helps reveal interconnections between affect, bodies, and space in digitally-mediated teaching and learning.