This paper explores the ontological politics and practices of handwashing using hot tap water during the COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden through attending to how handwashing was performed, what thoughts and emotions handwashing practices evoked, and reflections about why these thoughts and emotions emerged. In analyses based on written diaries, stories, digital photos, and videos from the private sphere of the home, we show how the concepts of humans, non-humans, childhood, economy, ethics, infrastructure, and nature – together with public health organizations’ promotions of handwashing recommendations – are enacted and woven into the fabric of hot tap water use. Hot tap water emerged as an ambiguous commodity, differently shaped depending on past experiences and how messages from authorities were received. The politics of the seemingly mundane activity of washing hands (especially prior to the COVID-19 pandemic) consists of connectivities and relationships between various phenomena in fluid space, and blurs the boundaries between local and global, past and present. Thrifty handwashing practices previously established in the private sphere were challenged during the COVID-19 pandemic, as popular versions of surgical scrubbing were promoted. These versions were sometimes challenged when the inclusion of hot water was questioned at home and in public debate.

Este artículo explora la política y las prácticas ontológicas del lavado de manos con agua caliente durante la pandemia de COVID-19 en Suecia, prestando atención a cómo se realizaba el lavado de manos, qué pensamientos y emociones evocaban las prácticas de lavado de manos y reflexiones sobre por qué surgieron estos pensamientos y emociones. En análisis basados en diarios escritos, historias, fotografías digitales y videos de la esfera privada del hogar, mostramos cómo los conceptos de humanos, no humanos, infancia, economía, ética, infraestructura y naturaleza, junto con las organizaciones de salud pública que promovían las recomendaciones de lavado de manos; se promulgan y se integran en el tejido del uso de agua caliente. El agua caliente desde el grifo surgió como un bien ambiguo, con formas diferentes según las experiencias pasadas y cómo se recibieron los mensajes de las autoridades. La política de la actividad aparentemente mundana de lavarse las manos (especialmente antes de la pandemia de COVID-19) consiste en conectividades y relaciones entre diversos fenómenos en un espacio fluido, y desdibuja los límites entre lo local y lo global, el pasado y el presente. Las prácticas ahorrativas de lavado de manos previamente establecidas en la esfera privada fueron cuestionadas durante la pandemia de COVID-19, cuando se promovieron versiones populares del lavado de manos quirúrgico. Estas versiones fueron cuestionadas en ocasiones cuando la inclusión del agua caliente fue cuestionada en el hogar y en el debate público.

Cet article étudie la politique ontologique et les pratiques de lavage de mains à l’eau chaude du robinet pendant la pandémie de COVID-19 en Suède. Il examine les techniques de lavage de mains, puis les pensées et les émotions qui en ont résulté. Il considère ensuite pourquoi ces dernières apparaissent. À l’aide d’analyses reposant sur des journaux personnels, des histoires, des photographies numériques et des vidéos provenant de l’espace privé du domicile, il montre comment les concepts d’humain, de non-humain, d’enfance, d’économie, d’éthique, d’infrastructure et de nature, ainsi que les promotions de conseils pour se laver les mains issus des organizations de santé publique, ont été adoptés et incorporés dans la trame de l’usage de l’eau chaude du robinet. Celle-ci s’avère être une ressource ambiguë, prenant des formes différentes selon les expériences vécues et la perception des messages gouvernementaux. La politique de cette activité apparemment ordinaire, surtout avant la pandémie, consistait de connectivités et de liens entre des phénomènes divers dans l’espace fluide, et estompe les frontières entre les échelles locale et internationale, entre le passé et le présent. Les pratiques économiques de lavage de mains, établies antérieurement dans l’espace privé, ont été remises en question pendant la pandémie de COVID-19, avec la promotion de versions populaires de la désinfection chirurgicale. Celles-ci étaient parfois contestées quand l’inclusion de l’eau chaude était remise en cause à la maison ou dans le discours public.

This open access book explores the multiple forms of curatorial agencies that develop when museum collection digitisations, narratives and new research findings circulate online. Focusing on Viking Age objects, it tracks the effects of antagonistic debates on discussion forums and the consequences of search engines, personalisation, and machine learning on American-based online platforms. Furthermore, it considers eco-systemic processes comprising computation, rare-earth minerals, electrical currents and data centres and cables as novel forms of curatorial actions. Thus, it explores curatorial agency as social constructivist, semiotic, algorithmic, and material. This book is of interest to scholars and students in the fields of museum studies, cultural heritage and media studies. It also appeals to museum practitioners concerned with curatorial innovation at the intersection of humanist interpretations and new materialist and more-than-human frameworks.

This chapter analyses the manifestations and operations of curatorial agency on the content-sharing platform Pinterest. While the manifestations of curatorial agency are explored through an analysis of the recontextualisations of museum digitisations of jewellery associated with the Viking Age in user-made collections, its operations are investigated through a long-term engagement with the platform’s employment of machine learning models to select and display images in line with its business model. On Pinterest, museum digitisations take on a transnational and dispersed life as inspiration for historical imagination and craft, as well as for contemporary fashion. Due to the complexity of machine learning models, the politics of curatorial agency becomes a delicate issue to locate as it morphs between human and machinic forms of intelligence.

In a SweClarin cooperation project we apply topic modelling to the texts found with pins in Pin-terest boards. The data in focus are digitisations of Viking Age finds from the Swedish History Museum and the underlying research question is how they are given new contextual meanings in boards. We illustrate how topic modelling can support interpretation of polysemy and culturally situated meanings. It expands on the employment of topic modelling by accentuating the necessity of interpretation in every step of the process from capturing and cleaning the data, to modelling and visualisation. The paper concludes that the national context of digitisations of Viking Age jewellery in the Swedish History Museum’s collection management system is re-placed by several transnational contexts in which Viking Age jewellery is appreciated for its symbolical meanings and decorative functions in contemporary genres for re-imagining, relivingand performing European pasts and mythologies. The emerging contexts on Pinterest also high-light the business opportunities involved in genres such as reenactment, neo-paganism, lajv and fantasy. The boards are clues to how digitisations serve as prototypes for replicas.

This is a collaboration between artist Hasti Radpour, an art curator and researchers in the humanities and social sciences.

Theoretically our study has found inspirations from concepts such as everyday life practices, ethical dimensions and moral terrains in the use of hot tap water in homes, and includes an exploration of complex intersections between age, class, ethnicity and gender, and how it is interlaced with practices of washing hands, bathing, taking a shower and washing up the dishes.

An overall aim of the project is to contribute with new understandings of resource use in intimate spheres. We are particularly interested in embodied experiences, emotions, performative habits and memories and how these might influence hot water use.  

Currently we are exploring socio-cultural sensitive and ethical methods to understand how hot tap water comes to matter in everyday life. Our ongoing work includes a qualitative iterative research process with collecting narratives of hot tap water practices, thoughts and emotions that are associated with routines in washing hands, showering, bathing and washing up the dishes.

In our planned future work, when we are able to visit people’s homes again, researchers and artist will collaborate in home visits and ask questions about people’s practices: how they use hot tap water; and their thoughts and feelings; and why they think they have these thoughts and feelings related to their use of hot tap water.

This article brings together theories on copyright, information commons and political economy to discuss the implications of memory institutions’ convergence with informational capitalism. The imperatives of sharing and participating prompt memory institutions to deal with their holdings in terms of property, and they invest time and resources in rights clearances, licensing procedures and in marking up works and artefacts as belonging to the public domain. This situation also compels them to allocate working hours to interaction on platforms owned and controlled by global media companies. Viewed through the lens of political economy, sharing and participation become gifts, not only to the public, but also to social media businesses when data traces are turned into private goods of value in informational capitalism. In return for their gifts, memory institutions fulfil democratic missions and gain reputation. However, data mining and the strategic placement of information which this allows for, run the risk of supporting populist misappropriation of heritage.