Look, Don't Touch: Reflections on the Freedom to Feel

by layla-roxanne hill, Francesca Sobande

Overview

What does the command "look, don't touch" suggest about the (lack of) freedom to feel in society?

layla-roxanne hill and Francesca Sobande reflect on society's nurturing and obstructing of emotional expression, physical touch, and connectedness between different species and spaces.

Through the music of feeling across genres from nu-metal to hip-hop, the spectacle of "self-help" social media content, and powerful pop culture portrayals of (im)mortality and "monsters", Look, Don't Touch moves beyond the language of "being okay". It embraces tenderness, dreaming, love, solidarity, messiness, release, and ultimately, feeling.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781916637078
Publisher:	404 Ink
Publication date:	02/20/2025
Series:	Inklings , #26
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	112
File size:	9 MB

About the Author

layla-roxanne hill is an independent writer, researcher + organiser, living + healing in scotland. she thinks + feels about many things, including anti-colonial struggle, care + belonging + the way our conditions move us to act. layla-roxanne is co-author/dreamer with francesca sobande of Black Oot Here: Black Lives in Scotland (Bloomsbury, 2022) + the freely available graphic novel + animation, Black Oot Here: Dreams O Us (2023). she is active in the trade union movement, holding elected positions within the bureaucratic machinery. layla-roxanne likes rabbit holes, finding peace + connection + to lift heavy.

Francesca Sobande is a writer and researcher, who lives in Cymru (Wales). Her books include Big Brands Are Watching You: Marketing Social Justice and Digital Culture (University of California Press, 2024), Consuming Crisis: Commodifying Care and COVID-19 (SAGE, 2022), and The Digital Lives of Black Women in Britain (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). Francesca is co-author/co-dreamer with layla-roxanne hill of Black Oot Here: Black Lives in Scotland (Bloomsbury, 2022) and the free graphic novel and animation Black Oot Here: Dreams O Us (2023). Her bylines include Disegno, Paste Magazine, and The Vinyl Factory. Francesca enjoys midnight skies and all things emo <3