Caring through a screen: caring for kin under lockdown

Abstract

COVID-19 and UK-wide lockdown measures in spring 2020 confined people to their homes, with implications for exchanging care. In a small-scale qualitative study, I examined the impact on individuals’ everyday caring practices with adult kin beyond the home. In this article, drawing on empirical evidence from my study, I argue that lockdown restrictions on in-person interactions and the increased reliance on ICTs shaped interactions and how relationships were experienced. The shift in practices highlighted the significance of the physicality and embodiment of everyday practices of care and perceptions of relationships. I argue that ‘caring through a screen’ under lockdown had impacts on subjective and relational wellbeing. I use the concept of developing co-presence across distance through ICTs to analyse shifts in family caring practices in the unique context of a national lockdown. I show how experiences of the disruption of the physicality of everyday micro-acts of care have shaped perceptions of family relationships.