MargieG

Hi everyone, We (Margieg and Clara Coates) just want to let those of you who participated in our research and sl community generally that we have now turned our research into a book that has just been published. It is available as a digital download and will be released as a physical book next month. It is titled Living and Dying in a Virtual World: Digital Kinships, Nostalgia, and Mourning in Second Life. Big big thanks to everyone who participated and is the link to the book: https://www.palgrave.com/de/book/9783319760988

Ok sounds good logging on now. Hope you are there!

Phew, I got something right. Although I think it is now 12th Oct for me to your 11th. This conversion of time freaks me out. I am terrible at looking up movie times with friends and often stuff up. So what time would suit you on the 11th your time?

Ok. I have just worked this out. Is it 10.05 am for you now on the 11th? it is not 12.05 pm for me on 11th. Gosh I hope this is right!

I am going by Los Angles time which may not be right for where you live.

Sounds really good. I will need to check the time difference - I am in Australia Brisbane. I think my 8am on 11th will be your 3pm. Does this sound OK. I am can do 9am to your 4pm too.

Thanks. I will IM you. If you are free soon that would be great! I would really like to see the eulogy and notecards too.

Amazing story of the connection made between sl and rl family and friends and the care taken to support those in grief and honour the dead through that important work of sharing stories. Thanks so much for this beautiful account. It would be amazing to talk further.

This is such an evocative post which has given me lots to think about. It touches upon exactly the kinds of ways of thinking and talking about memory, love, relationships that we want to write about and include in our book. With thanks

This is a really great story and speaks to some much that we are interested in documenting and talking about. Thanks so much sharing this story and we would like to include it in our book. Regards, Margaret and Clarissa

Thanks Callum for your support. I really appreciate the story that you told of your loss and I do understand it can be painful. Just the comments/observations you are made confirm experiences and ways of thinking that we have found in our research. People don't necessarily take losses through avatar based worlds every seriously and this book is about taking second life lives and relationships seriously and acknowledging mourning in virtual world contexts of dwelling and connecting with others. I wrote a book number of years again titled Objects of the Dead: mourning and memory in everyday life and this current book and more recent research is about digital objects and subjects. Indeed, the subjectivity of things as memory associations and forms of attachment is something I am interested in particularly as death and grief can really change the value and meaning of physical and digital objects - they can seem bereft, abandoned, hostage to the control and will others, but also charged with a sense of fragility and preciousness as both remains and reminders of the deceased. Anyway, enough for now. Good wishes. Margaret

Hi everyone, my name is Dr Margaret Gibson and I am writing a book with Clarissa Carden titled Living and Dying in a Virtual World: digital kinships, commemoration and nostalgia to be published by Palgrave Macmillan. See link: https://sociologicalexplorations.com/second-life-living-and-dying-in-a-virtual-world/ We are writing a chapter on sentimental objects in sl and we would love to hear any of your stories. These could be things in your inventory that matter to you because someone died or they remind you of an important part of your sl or rl. If you are interested in participating in the book more fully and being interviewed via chat in sl we would love to hear from you. As you can see from book title we are interested in death, grief, family relationships in sl, nostalgia... Any responses will be anonymous and if you do not wish for your response on this forum to be included in the book please say so. Here is a link to my professional page: See link to my professional page: https://www.griffith.edu.au/humanities-languages/school-humanities-languages-social-science/staff/margaret-gibson Thanks!

Hi - I should have put in my research project details again. I started posting back in November-December last year where I put in my contact information. I teach and research at Griffith University in Australia in the School of Humanities. My name is Margaret Gibson (email: Margaret.Gibson@griffith.edu.au) and this is a research project registered through my home university. I published a book in 2008 titled Objects of the Dead: mourning and memory in everyday life. This book was partly based on my own bereavement but also had interviews from other people about how they remember and mourn their loved ones through ordinary, everyday 'things'. This book was about different kinds of value - memory value, symbolic value and market value and how sometimes the most economically 'worthless' object can have enormous memory value. So I was looking at how other questions of value can displace and subvert the sphere of economics, monetary value, as an over-riding determinant of value in modern life. So this gives you some idea of where I am coming from. Now virtual property and objects is an interesting shift I think in contemporary life around what we value and what we might want to pass on to loved ones or what they might want to keep or know about in terms of what is meaningful to us.

Hello again - hopefully not bombarding you SL readers out there. This question is a bit philosophical and please feel free to think through the differences between the virtual (representational) object and the things we touch and feel in RL. Do you feel differently about them? Are they equally valuable to you in terms of your identity or how you want others to see you? How you want to be remembered? Take me through your thoughts as I am fascinated. MargieG

Hello, I am the academic doing research on grief and mourning and SL. I am curious about how meaningful and valuable your personal possessions are in SL? Are you attached to certain items of clothing or objects and if so would you want to give them to SL friends if you knew you were going to die or just leave SL? Thanks for your responses in advance. MargieG