Introduction

In recent years, a set of activities known as ‘citizen science’ has emerged in public consciousness. The idea behind it comes from the realization that scientific enterprises have become highly sophisticated and thus more remote from the lives of ordinary, non-professional people. Normally science is a closed enterprise in that the activity is performed by highly trained specialists whose work is closed to the public in the sense that the public does not understand what is going on due to the highly specialized nature of the content, or the public are not allowed to have a role to play because it may be thought that the public's role is irrelevant. This results in the work of scientists becoming largely divorced from the public, and when it comes to communicating science to the public, usually only the positive aspects of science are communicated with the aim of propagating findings of research projects which already have been completed. The public's role thus becomes only that of passive recipients of the fruits of scientific and technological products. The aim of citizen science, on the contrary, is that science should be more inclusive. The lay public should take on more active roles in how science is communicated and practised. In this case, the line between professional scientists and the non-professional members of the public thus is beginning to blur.

In this era of COVID-19, furthermore, the role of citizen science, as I will argue in more detail in this chapter, has become more pronounced. The disease is a new one. Even though the disease bears some resemblance to the earlier severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle-East respiratory syndrome (MERS) diseases as all three are caused by the Coronavirus, there are enough differences between COVID-19 on the one hand and these two earlier diseases are different enough that much of the earlier knowledge obtained from SARS and MERS cannot be used with the new disease.

Introduction

The discussion presumes that COVID-19 pandemic has generated deeper socio-philosophical concerns and questions, which reveal to us inescapable principles of human and biospherical coexistence. The pandemic has been powerful in inviting the civilizational change at a global level, compared with instruments like global ideas and ideologies, such as modernity, science, technology, globalization, free markets, and so on. Also, the pandemic became a moment of comprehensive critique and understanding position of all the major existential crises that the humanity is facing. Therefore, the discussion argues that the crises tendencies which act as disvalues, capable of de-structuring or even destabilizing the normative needs and imagination of human coexistence, are civilizational in nature. The discussion in this connection, therefore, highlights the crises tendencies and the disvalues they created as inevitable ethical choices, particularly, when we look at them from the point of view of democracy or democratic coexistence.

Lifeworld and Pandemic

COVID-19 pandemic has generated deeper philosophical concerns and questions, perhaps more standing questions, than the empirical and practical issues which the pandemic created. The multi-dimensional philosophical and social theoretical questions, and perspectives that the pandemic opened are ethical, political, existential, theoretic questions related with rationality, phenomenological, so on and so forth. Besides, the philosophical questions created by the pandemic are epochal in nature.

As popularly phrased, COVID-19 pandemic has been on us as a game changer. Thinkers have pointed out that it has been more powerful in inviting the civilizational change at a global level, compared with instruments like global ideas and ideologies, such as modernity, science, technology, globalization, and free markets. It has reversed or is in the process of reversing many institutional frameworks which were thought to be impossible to change. They include modern globalized world and its culture of production and profit, which were creating a huge unbridgeable gap between Anthropos and Nature and thus inducing human-made ecological and environmental crises.

For many New Women, London was a site of promise: invigorating, excit¬ing, liberatory, enticing, inspirational, and much more. Female authors often found London a stimulating environment that encouraged creative efforts. London seemed a life force with its crowds, omnibuses, sounds, and other elements. The work of Amy Levy and Rosamund Marriott Watson (who also wrote under the name Graham R. Tomson) constitutes the primary focus of this chapter, for they wrote numerous poems about London's opportunities, influences, and environment.

The first section of the chapter concentrates in totality on urban experi¬ence as considered by Levy. She praised metropolitan life in many poems included in A London Plane-Tree and Other Verse. The opening poem stems from the volume's title and reveals an affinity between women and urban settings, suggesting an analogous status through resiliency, adaptability, and addi¬tional qualities. “Ballade of an Omnibus” describes the vehicle that opened the city to the New Woman through its commanding perspective, expansive routes, and affordable cost. In “London Poets,” the speaker positions the cur¬rent generation of writers in this place of artistic history as taking on the mantle of talented predecessors. Imaginative energy becomes harnessed pro¬ductively and transformed as the speaker embraces the city in “A March Day in London.” The metropolis takes on the traits of a living being in “Straw in the Street” with its pulsations providing a sharp contrast to individuals on the verge of death.

The second section, “Lure of London,” also begins with a Levy poem, the sole one in this part of the chapter. “The Village Garden” cites the attrac¬tions of country life but rejects it in favor of the city. Watson's “A Song of London” also expresses a preference for the town and values the spirited city's peculiar attractiveness.

Tanjong Pagar Fitness Corner, in the southern edge of central Singapore, adjoining Yan Kit Playfield, is a well-planned play space. Activities are var¬ied but circumscribed, surveillance is prominent and notified, target users span different age ranges and its location adjacent to several high-rise housing developments, both public and private, makes it popular with residents. The fitness corner and playfield are covered in signs. On the ground are painted images of skateboards, scooters and bikes inside a prohibition sign, and the same image is featured on elevated signs at eye level, along with the words: ‘NO RIDING’ (Figure 1.1). There are prohibition signs featuring a human figure climbing, a human figure kicking a ball, a detached human hand feed¬ing a cat, a bird and what appears to be a deer. On a sign that reads ‘Free to Play’ are prohibition signs advising no food, no smoking, no littering and ‘care for your neighbourhood’ depicted by a speaker emanating sound waves (Figure 1.2). Throughout the site are a different set of signs themed ‘Active Health’ offering information prompts on physical activity, nutrition, sleep and screen time. One advises users about the benefits of switching off gadgets an hour before bedtime, another advises against drinking caffeine six hours before sleep, another gives information on the benefits of walking for stress relief (Figure 1.1). All feature QR codes to scan for further information.

A small running and walking track loops around the site and on the painted surface is more health information, such as ‘RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! You need at least 150 minutes of exercise a week’ and ‘LOOK UP! Don't let your phone spoil a good walk’. While looking up (as advised), users can see surveillance cameras affixed to lighting poles, as well as signage advising of 24-hour surveillance. Scattered around the area are QR codes that users can scan to report a fault, gesturing to the norms of resident ‘place-keeping’ in Singapore's shared spaces (Gopalakrishnan & Chong, 2020).

Verses condemning harmful responses to nature and urging a respectful val¬uation were early examples of important ecofeminist work penned by New Women. Stirrings of ecofeminism appeared in the fin de siècle with the rec¬ognition that industrialization and other factors were compromising nature. Three thematic trajectories are especially notable, as evidenced in the fol¬lowing poems composed primarily by Mathilde Blind, L. S. Bevington, and Alice Meynell.

The first section focuses on human interference in the natural world and the damage it can bring. A piece by E. Nesbit, “The Meadows of Long Ago,” provides an apt beginning, for the poem mourns the incursion of buildings on meadowlands irretrievably ruined. Bevington's “April” indicts the domi¬nation of nature motivated by greed. “The Story of a Scarlet Flower,” also by Bevington, criticizes the exploitation of the natural realm as evidenced with the titular plant. Blind authored several verses that explored negative human activity. “On a Forsaken Lark's Nest” describes the devastating effects on a female bird attempting to raise her young, but ruinous agricultural prac-tices cause the offspring to perish within their shells. Destruction of animal life brings grave consequences to humanity, as indicated in “The Hunter's Moon.” Underlying “The Sower” is a hope in a resilient nature after agri¬cultural activity. “The Reapers” cautions that seemingly minor actions can cause undesirable effects. In “The Red Sunsets, 1883,” factory workers feel awe at the sight but have little opportunity to enjoy natural beauties.

The next group of poems examines the far better situation of human respect for and harmonious coexistence with nature. Blended in various verses is a recognition of the beauty nature provides, reminding of the Romantic valu¬ation of that world.

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed a worldwide challenge of unprecedented nature, impacting all communities across the globe. The pandemic has caused significant disruptions in various domains of people's lives, including work, education, finance and domestic affairs. In addition to the health and safety consequences, the pandemic has caused significant disruption to individuals’ lives, leading to the implementation of lockdowns, limitations on movement, closures of schools, heightened emotional distress, elevated risks of violence and increased food insecurity (Moorthy and Akwen 2021) Based on projections, the pandemic is expected to have a twofold increase in its adverse effects on individuals’ lives. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in significant and catastrophic socioeconomic upheaval, placing a substantial number of individuals at high risk of plunging into extreme poverty. As per the World Health Organisation (WHO), the current count of undernourished individuals, which stands at around 690 million, is projected to increase to 132 million by the conclusion of this year (WHO 2020a). Many businesses and organisations that support workers face formidable challenges in surviving this pandemic; many have already failed, leaving their employees jobless. Nearly half of the world's 3.3 billion workers are said to be in danger of losing their jobs. According to WHO (2020a) workers in the informal sector are by far the most vulnerable because most lack social benefits and access to healthcare and have lost access to productive assets. Loss of income, particularly for daily wage earners, translates into an inability to feed themselves and their families. In the worst-case scenario, prolonged movement restrictions or lockdowns will pose serious food security concerns, particularly among the most vulnerable members of society.

Creating playable surfaces can be easy. Surfaces like marble rarely need any modification. Granite and other hard surfaces might just need a coat of wax applied by hand; the same goes for anything painted. Powdery surfaces, like new concrete, need a lot of preparation. In any surface, cracks and holes can be plugged if the volume of space to fill is small; otherwise, rocks and rubble need to be shoved in first. One of the most challenging surfaces is pebble-crete. Pebble-crete is very rough. The gaps between pebbles make it diffi¬cult to shred the surface with parts of the skateboard; steel trucks (axles), the wooden underside of the skateboard (deck) and the urethane wheels are no match for the thousands of tiny surfaces and angles of a pebble-crete surface. However, in certain cases, skilled repair work can make even pebble-crete playable.

The surface in Figure 3.1 is one of four patches around the edge of this emptied pond in foreshore parkland in Newcastle, Australia, known locally as ‘2300 Pond’. The preparation work making this surface skateable has many stages: smoothing the rough surfaces, filling thousands of gaps between the pebbles with a thick coat of Bondo,1 adding a further layer to the top and side of the right-angled ledge, then applying clear coat or another sealant for weathering and finally wax to make it easier to skate. The work in Figure 3.1 was four years old at the time of this photograph, battered by the sun, rain and hundreds of hours of play. The Bondo work is impeccable. Adhesive tape has been used to keep a straight, clean edge.

At some point in the early seventeenth century, an otherwise unknown playwright called Anthony Brewer wrote a play called The Lovesick King, set nominally during the reign of King Canute although the subplot centres on a Newcastle merchant named Roger Thornton who lived during the fourteenth century. Although it was not published until 1655, M. Hope Dodds argues that it was certainly written for one of James I's two visits to Newcastle in 1603 and 1617, since its main agenda is to showcase the splendours of Newcastle. Dodds thinks 1617 the likelier date, since there would not have been much time to prepare it in 1603 when James was in the city from 9 to 13 April on his way south after the death of Elizabeth; however, I think the earlier date is the more probable because the play seems likely to have been commissioned by the local Catholic aristocrat John, Lord Lumley, whose home at Lumley Castle King James visited on 13 April 1603, when he saw portraits which included those of Lumley's first wife Jane Lumley, daughter of the Earl of Arundel, and her first cousin Lady Jane Grey. At some point in the early 1550s, Lady Jane Lumley translated Euripides’ play Iphigenia at Aulis into English, becoming both his first English translator and the first known Englishwoman to write a play. Although her achievement has sometimes been scorned and her grasp of Greek derided, recent scholarship has provided new evidence for her competence and shown that her translation offers a powerful meditation on the fate of Lumley's cousin, Lady Jane Grey.

William Rowley's A Shoemaker a Gentleman was published in 1638, but had clearly been written some time before: the prefatory matter declares that ‘as Plaies were then, some twenty yeares agone, it was in the fashion’, which would give a date of c. 1618 if taken literally, and Trudi L. Darby argues that this is indeed the likeliest time for it to have been composed. The title suggests that its main agenda is to tell the story of Saints Crispin and Crispian, but it also has a lot of other things to do: though the Crispin and Crispian scenes take place mainly in Faversham, we also visit St Winifred's Well and St Albans, and whereas both Crispin and Crispian, unusually for saints, live happily ever after, we also meet the martyrs St Hugh, St Winifred, St Alban and St Amphiabel (more usually called St Amphibalus, though that, in fact, means ‘cloak’ and derives from a story about someone who gave St Alban a cloak to enable him to disguise himself). St Alban, England's first martyr, was also the possible or certain subject of two lost plays, Warlamchester and James Shirley's The Tragedy of St Albans, either or both of which might have described his martyrdom, and St Albans was a suggestive location because it had recently been the scene of a power struggle between civic and religious authorities. In his biography of Bess of Hardwick, Wyn Derbyshire observes of St Albans that ‘as the sixteenth century dawned, the Abbey began to suffer a decline, as exemplified by the fact that St Albans town began to break free of the Abbey's dominance, with the townsfolk gaining control of important civic posts, such as those of the town bailiff and the clerk of the market, offices which had previously been at the disposal of the Abbot’; Derbyshire argues that this made the abbey easy prey for Bess's second husband William Cavendish and the other commissioners implementing the dissolution.