Irene Rafanell - Emotions in Digital Interactions: Ethnopsychologies of Angels Mothers in Online Bereavement Communities

Cover illustration: Pattern John Rawsterne/patternhead.com

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This book arose from the encounter between the authors, who saw in their collaboration a fruitful way to combine their respective theoretical and empirical work to enhance an understanding of the nature of social reality. This collaboration was underpinned, however, by a person-centered outlook about the life-world of women who have suffered an acute loss. The idea to go into the realities of their online communities was sparked during a conversation of one of the authors with a friend who suffered a perinatal loss. This accidental exchange of thoughts offered a glimpse of a universe of feelings regulated by a unique affective logic obscure for an outsider to this world. This book is an attempt to unravel this logic and translate this universe of suffering to those who might be oblivious to its very existence. In doing so, it attempts to reveal the varied nature and properties of the social world and its contextual grounding. Underpinning this work there are philosophical and ideological considerations aimed to contest, and provide an antidote to, forms of dogmatic essentialism which explicitly or tacitly silence and exclude individuals whose subjective experience, practice, and identity are made to be deviant or abnormal. The authors collaboration emerged from a wish to not only advance academic and theoretical knowledge, but also to highlight the humanizing potential of a social constructionist position which aims to stress the right to being and existence of the marginalized.

This book would not have been written had not been for the bereaved women: courageous in their willingness to openly share the stories of their loss, and compassionate enough to support each other by exchanging their experiences. With this in mind, we would like to thank the anonymous participants of the online communities that we investigated, andespeciallythose few who agreed to become our interviewees. In a sense, the analysis we present here is also for them: it is meant to give voice to their experiences and to reconstruct the internal logic which underlies their actions and feelings. We hope that it accurately depicts their plight and, by highlighting its sociological underpinning, somehow eases it as well.

Needless to say, this project would not have been successfully completed had it not been for the support of many people we met on our way, friends and family. We definitely owe much to Lynn Jamieson, who supported us both throughout the process of writing by unfailing confidence in our work, warmth, and friendship. We are also both indebted to our mentors Mirosawa Marody and Martin Kusch, from whom we learned much about the aims, principles, and worth of sociological analysis. Part of this work was supported financially by the Institute of Sociology of the University of Warsaw (donation no. DSM-107700/16).

During the process of writing this book our personal family environment changed. One son left home to go to his own academic adventures and another was born to populate the nest of another home. We dedicate this book to our children, Samuel and Jerzyk, and our families and friends, whose support and insights were crucial in the process of writing the book.