Knowledge, Knowing, and the Knower: A Postdigital Autoethnography of Learning to Live with Long Covid

This chapter opens a window into the lived experience of failing to recover from a novel virus in a developed country where health systems have evolved to address acute illnesses and life-threatening events using evidence-based guidelines, a place where recovery follows anticipated timeframes. Sociomaterial studies of learning pay careful attention to the complex nested relations between the conceptual, social, and material structures of learning. To date, much of this work has been carried out in formal settings. Taking a postdigital stance this chapter broadens the scope, exploring informal networks of people learning to live with Long Covid, asking how access to online networks (e.g., Facebook peer-support groups, medical Twitter), wearable technologies (e.g., fitness trackers), consumer health devices (e.g., pulse oximeters), and open access publishing (e.g., Research Square for preprints) are changing the nature of relationships between patient, practitioner, and researcher. Conducted as autoethnography, it processes theories of epistemic injustice and relational autonomy through lived experience, detailing the emergence of a distinctly postdigital sociomaterial practice of being-the-patient, offering insights for action in the creation and sustenance of convivial learning environments shaped by global challenges.