Webinar Overview

Transitional Objects, Affective Spaces and Continuing Bonds in Bereavement. 

This webinar will explore the meaning, significance and value of objects and spaces associated with the deceased in bereavement experience. It will introduce D.W Winnicott's concept of transitional objects and spaces, to consider their value in understanding and supporting people in bereavement. The webinar will give examples of how people negotiate the personal, digital and household objects/remains of deceased loved ones drawing on my own research and recent studies in media studies, cultural studies and philosophy. It will consider practical, emotional and ethical issues in grieving online and decision-making concerning the digital remains of deceased loved ones. In so doing, concepts such as hierarchies of grief and continuing bonds will be discussed in terms of the efficacy, potential limitations and assumptions. The webinar is contextualised by an understanding that our existential condition on a global scale now includes a profoundly digital lifeworld of interconnection and memory work that shapes how we live and die, search for or find meaning and connection with others as well experience forms of disconnection and alienation.

While this webinar will consider the role of digital technology in how bereavement is experienced in regard to the traces or legacies of the deceased, it will also reckon with the value and significance of physical places and objects in bereavement in adapting to loss and absence through ritual and embodied practices.This will enable insights into the significance of objects and places charged with memories and emotion, sometimes comforting, sometimes difficult and traumatic. This will circle back into questions of' 'grieving rules' or 'norms' and the kinds of imagined as well as socially and culturally regulated boundaries, openings and ruptures between personal, private and more public forms of grieving in bereavement.

Learning Outcomes 

What can participants expect to have learned after attending this webinar:

• Increase in awareness of personal and unexamined grieving rules.
• Increase awareness of the role and complexity of social media and connectivity in grief expression and bereavement experience.
• Reflect upon the value and meaning of significant objects and places in bereavement to support ways of understanding how people might negotiate absence and continue bonds with the deceased.
• Sensitive engagement with the nuances and diversity of bereavement experience in the everyday.
• Reflect on the role of bodily or embodied practices in bereavement

Presenter Bio

Dr Margaret Gibson is a cultural socialist and senior lecturer who has written extensively on objects of memory and mourning, public grieving in social media and on the internet, death scenes in film, the question of grievable lives, and geographies of violence, loss, and grief. She is the author of several books and has contributed to multiple publications. She contributes extensively to public media discussions on death and bereavement on ABC radio programs and she is currently doing research on offical and grassroots memorials concerning domestic and intimate partner violence in public spaces in Australia examining their negotiation in everyday spaces of encounter.

Webinar Details

Date

Time

10:00 AM - 11.30 AM AEST 

The webinar will be recorded - if you are unable to attend live, register to receive a copy of the recording when it becomes available. 

Prices

• ACGB Member: $50.00
• Non Member $75.00

Cancellation and Refund Policy

The Australian Centre for Grief and Bereavement reserves the right to cancel education programs that do not achieve minimum participation, in which case all fees will be refunded.

Registration cancellations will not be accepted unless made in writing to the centre. Cancellations made more than thirty (30) days prior to the event date will be refunded less 25% of the registration fee to cover administration costs.

No registration refunds will be made after this date. Please note: The full invoiced amount will still be payable in the event of non-attendance on the day.

Terms and Conditions 

1. Intellectual Property 

ACGB's program and program content is copyrighted. Its use and dissemination is restricted and unauthorised duplication is prohibited. A copy of the webinar presentation will be available after the webinar and is for personal/non-commercial use only. The content is not to be modified or republished in any way without the prior consent of ACGB and the presenter. Any breach of copyright, including the recording of the presentation or any unauthorised use of the material may lead to legal action. 

2. Links and Material From the Webinar

Webinars and the follow up email may contain links that lead to external websites to ACGB. ACGB have no control of these websites and ACGB makes no representations about the accuracy of the information contained on these websites. ACGB is not liable for the content on these websites. The presenter may also provide further reference materials for your use after the webinar. These may include (but are not limited to):

- A copy of the webinar slides
- Journal articles
- Templates or other documents

All webinar-related materials remain copyrighted of ACGB and the presenter. They must not be distributed to any third party at any time or in any form without written permission from ACGB. 

3. Registration

Viewers agree to use the product under the purchase agreement terms, which restrict number of viewers based on registration type. 
Individual Registration:
Provides one person, the registrant, access to the webcast or recording for personal viewing only. 

Multi-viewer (Group) Registration
To organise multi-viewer registration, you must contact the Centre via email: [email protected] or phone 03 9265 2100. Groups purchasing multi-viewer and individual registration will need to provide first and last name and an email address of all those who will be streaming and listening to the recording. 

4. ACGB Webinars are recorded

ACGB webinars are recorded and by joining any session, you automatically consent to such recordings. Webinar participation may require you to configure your software settings on your web-device upon first use, or require you to download the software for your operating system. Please note that you may require administrator privileges on your computer to be able to manually install software.