The ASSA Project is a collaboration between 11 researchers. Each week, we will be posting more about each researcher’s work to give a better overview of each fieldsite in the project. (Short thread)

This week, we’d like to introduce you to Pauline Garvey, who did her fieldwork in Thornhill, a suburb of Dublin city. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/anthropology/assa/meet-the-team/#pauline

Thornhill is a suburb of around 20,000 people, most of whom commute into the city. A lot of her research participants were professionals, including civil servants and those who work in the banking sector.

Pauline joined various community groups as part of her fieldwork, including a craft and coffee group and a walking club. Most of her research participants were retired, but she did also include some younger individuals who considered themselves in ‘mid-life’.

Pauline is an associate professor in anthropology in the Department of Anthropology in Maynooth University, the National University of Ireland. Her research interests include digital anthropology, material culture, design and domesticity, and the anthropology of mid-life.

Pauline is currently co-writing a monograph with Daniel Miller @DannyAnth about ageing with smartphones in Ireland. This will be out in 2021.

1: Pauline during the making of films that feature in the monograph.

2: A Thornhill research participant, showing Pauline her difficulties in negotiating touch screens with arthritic fingers.

3: A photo of all the retirement gifts that one of Pauline's research participant had - all stuffed into a cupboard and forgotten!

Here is her latest blog post, on wild swimming during lockdown in Ireland https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/assa/2020/09/09/wild-swimming-during-lockdown/

End of thread - we will introduce another team member next week!