During the government-imposed contact restrictions in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, older adults feared that they may no longer be able to experience physical contact with family members. They were, however, given hope by a ‘cuddle curtain’, a device that promised to enable familial intimacy while blocking the exposure of older bodies to the coronavirus. Our research team traced how one such artefact was used in nursing homes in Switzerland. Here, we discuss its cultural biography to explore notions of intimacy by relating discussions about the curtain to anthropological discussions about entanglement and detachment. We contrast positive associations between the curtain and familial intimacy with regulations surrounding body fluid barriers in sex work, in order to relate the ‘thing’ to the larger context within which it circulates.

中文翻译：

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家庭亲密关系和我们之间的“事物”

在德国、奥地利和瑞士政府实施的接触限制期间，老年人担心他们可能不再能够与家人进行身体接触。然而，“拥抱窗帘”给他们带来了希望，这种设备承诺在阻止老年人接触冠状病毒的同时实现家庭亲密关系。我们的研究团队追踪了一件这样的人工制品是如何在瑞士的疗养院中使用的。在这里，我们讨论了它的文化传记，通过将关于帷幕的讨论与人类学关于纠缠和分离的讨论联系起来，探索亲密的概念。我们将窗帘和家庭亲密关系与围绕性工作中体液屏障的规定进行对比，以便将“事物”与其循环的更大背景联系起来。