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

Thanks for interesting and generous response. I have been thinking about the value or meaning of things - virtual objects or sites as forms of remembering and mourning the departed from second life because of a RL death or avatar just inactive for awhile. Thinking about if people go to places because they hold special memories for lost friends or if they have keepsakes...

Thanks for honesty and upfront response. It is all about individual preferences and perhaps SL is more accommodating in this way.

point taken and I appreciate your sensitive handling of what I now see as pretty in your face. I do apologize. You know I am finding this hard going and do feel naive and see myself as the person who needs to learn. so thanks.

thanks for response and insights. I am coming at these questions from a position of genuine enquiry and my email is there because I am an academic and research and write in death, grief and mourning and research protocols require this information. I don't want to be briefed or spammed and I guess this is a risk. Just to clarify my question was about RL death and it's impact on SL relationships, rituals. I know that sometimes people have no idea if someone has physically died and this is why they are inactive. but like in RL people often don't think about death or it is a taboo subject and so their wishes about who should be notified, who might be effected is often unknown and I am sure this has an impact in SL...

Hello - me again, the death and grief researcher. Interested in who of you out there would want a SL funeral in the sad event that you died anytime soon? (apologies if this sounds abrupt or callous). If you did want a funeral, would you want RL family and friends to be invited? Would you want a religion based service/location or something more secular? thanks, MargieG

Hi, I am actually interested in both forms of loss and grief - SL and RL and how the two might relate to each other or even integrate. I did read about a man, a son, who held a funeral for his father in SL because he wanted his SL friends to be part of his grief through a formal ritual. I found this really interesting as a sign of the depth of friendships in SL. I am also curious about if family and friends of someone who has died in RL have a attended a SL funeral because they are want to be part of this aspect of someone's life and acknowledge its importance. Also, there is the question of a second life family - someone in a second life relationship with a family.... what is the impact of a RL death in this instance? What are the repercussions, what happens to the house, property etc.? Do avatars have Wills in SL? I guess also when someone leaves SL the reason may be a RL death or not. I know from reading posts that people are suspected of 'faking' their death because they just want to extricate themselves from their existing SL relationships. And sometimes these same people turn up again in different guises and people recognise them for their personality traits showing through. I believe that friendships in SL can be very strong where a sense real connection (feel free to comment/pick up on my use of 'real' here) and trust is built up over time. But I guess I'm interested in the question of what or whom is grieved or mourned? If someone in SL dies in RL, SL friends are presumably mourning the loss of the personality embodied in the avatar....Is this kind of loss and grief different from the kind of grief and loss experienced when someone we knew and loved in RL in their bodily being dies? Does the absence of a face-to-face history of embodied relationship make a difference to the grief experience? Finally, If anyone can speak to these questions or ideas - have a discussion, debate or raise further questions - that would be great. OK, this is a huge post and I might have to repeat and go back over stuff but here it is for now.....

Brilliant - thank you.

Thank you so much. This is very helpful and I will follow up links and suggestions. kind regards, MargieG

thanks for response and links. cheers, MargG

Hi Knot - not sure what this means but story sounds intriguing. Do tell me more. MargG