Present feelings, feeling present: Liveness in research on time and feeling during the Covid-19 pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic made the liveness of the social world readily apparent. Everyday rhythms and routines were, for many, upended and new and uncertain ones were rapidly and repeatedly re-made. A plethora of intense and flattened feelings – from anxiety to depression to pleasure – were generated. This article considers our collaborative research project on everyday experiences of time during the early stages of the pandemic in the UK through a focus on liveness. The research included commissioning a Mass Observation (MO) directive; holding Feel Tanks with university and school students where participants wrote reflective diaries, had collective discussions and made artworks; and a co-produced artist response to the research. We build on ‘live methods’ work to explicate the significance of temporality, the present and affect to understandings of liveness and the pandemic. We make three specific contributions that focus on the methodological, conceptual and analytical dimensions of our research. First, we examine the methodological pivots involved in researching a live phenomenon as it was unfolding. Second, we develop a sociological understanding of liveness by discussing recent cultural theory on presents and affect. Third, we analyse the feelings of and about the present articulated by research participants, focusing on: stuckness and suspension; repetition, drifting and boredom; and jolts, jars and glitches. In conclusion, we argue that a sociological interest in liveness infuses many aspects of our research, and signals possibilities for attuning to the possibilities of the present for other kinds of social worlds.