Close Menu
TechCentralTechCentral

    Subscribe to the newsletter

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    Facebook X (Twitter) YouTube LinkedIn
    WhatsApp Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn YouTube
    TechCentralTechCentral
    • News

      World Bank set to back South Africa’s big energy grid roll-out

      20 June 2025

      The algorithm will sing now: why musicians should be worried about AI

      20 June 2025

      Sita hits back at critics, promises faster, automated procurement

      20 June 2025

      The transatlantic race to create the first television

      20 June 2025

      Listed: All the MVNOs in South Africa – 2025 edition

      19 June 2025
    • World

      Watch | Starship rocket explodes in setback to Musk’s Mars mission

      19 June 2025

      Trump Mobile dials into politics, profit and patriarchy

      17 June 2025

      Samsung plots health data hub to link users and doctors in real time

      17 June 2025

      Beijing’s chip champions blacklisted by Taiwan

      16 June 2025

      China is behind in AI chips – but for how much longer?

      13 June 2025
    • In-depth

      Meta bets $72-billion on AI – and investors love it

      17 June 2025

      MultiChoice may unbundle SuperSport from DStv

      12 June 2025

      Grok promised bias-free chat. Then came the edits

      2 June 2025

      Digital fortress: We go inside JB5, Teraco’s giant new AI-ready data centre

      30 May 2025

      Sam Altman and Jony Ive’s big bet to out-Apple Apple

      22 May 2025
    • TCS

      TCS+ | AfriGIS’s Helen Hulett on how tech can help resolve South Africa’s water crisis

      18 June 2025

      TechCentral Nexus S0E2: South Africa’s digital battlefield

      16 June 2025

      TechCentral Nexus S0E1: Starlink, BEE and a new leader at Vodacom

      8 June 2025

      TCS+ | The future of mobile money, with MTN’s Kagiso Mothibi

      6 June 2025

      TCS+ | AI is more than hype: Workday execs unpack real human impact

      4 June 2025
    • Opinion

      South Africa pioneered drone laws a decade ago – now it must catch up

      17 June 2025

      AI and the future of ICT distribution

      16 June 2025

      Singapore soared – why can’t we? Lessons South Africa refuses to learn

      13 June 2025

      Beyond the box: why IT distribution depends on real partnerships

      2 June 2025

      South Africa’s next crisis? Being offline in an AI-driven world

      2 June 2025
    • Company Hubs
      • Africa Data Centres
      • AfriGIS
      • Altron Digital Business
      • Altron Document Solutions
      • Altron Group
      • Arctic Wolf
      • AvertITD
      • Braintree
      • CallMiner
      • CYBER1 Solutions
      • Digicloud Africa
      • Digimune
      • Domains.co.za
      • ESET
      • Euphoria Telecom
      • Incredible Business
      • iONLINE
      • Iris Network Systems
      • LSD Open
      • NEC XON
      • Network Platforms
      • Next DLP
      • Ovations
      • Paracon
      • Paratus
      • Q-KON
      • SevenC
      • SkyWire
      • Solid8 Technologies
      • Telit Cinterion
      • Tenable
      • Vertiv
      • Videri Digital
      • Wipro
      • Workday
    • Sections
      • AI and machine learning
      • Banking
      • Broadcasting and Media
      • Cloud services
      • Contact centres and CX
      • Cryptocurrencies
      • Education and skills
      • Electronics and hardware
      • Energy and sustainability
      • Enterprise software
      • Fintech
      • Information security
      • Internet and connectivity
      • Internet of Things
      • Investment
      • IT services
      • Lifestyle
      • Motoring
      • Public sector
      • Retail and e-commerce
      • Science
      • SMEs and start-ups
      • Social media
      • Talent and leadership
      • Telecoms
    • Events
    • Advertise
    TechCentralTechCentral
    Home » In-depth » The end of the humble handshake?

    The end of the humble handshake?

    By The Conversation13 March 2020
    Twitter LinkedIn Facebook WhatsApp Email Telegram Copy Link
    News Alerts
    WhatsApp

    “Please refrain from hand shaking,” read a sign at an event in London I recently attended. Despite increasing anxiety about coronavirus, for many of us, it was the first time we had encountered such a request. Underneath the words was a small image of two disembodied hands shaking, surrounded by a red circle struck through with a diagonal line.

    Refraining from such a common behaviour was easier said than done. Handshaking comes automatically to many of us. The art of a proper handshake was drummed into me at a young age when growing up in the US. When I was around 10 years old, my father would rehearse my handshake with me: “Make eye contact first. You don’t want to shake hands like a dead fish.” So I gripped his hand as firmly as I could, my little wrist and fingers straining with pressure, my eyes locked on his.

    Since then, I’ve become fascinated with the choreography of the handshake: steady eye contact, slight head nod in acknowledgement, slight step forward, extension of the right hand in one fluid movement before grasping your partner’s hand with just the right amount of pressure.

    The handshake has long been understood as a gesture that establishes a positive connection between two people

    The handshake has long been understood as a gesture that establishes a positive connection between two people. It’s one of the first gestures mentioned in Henry Siddons’ 1807 Practical Illustrations of Rhetorical Gesture and Action, a manual of gestures designed for English actors that was an adaptation of a classic earlier text, Ideen zu Einer Mimik (1785), by Johann Jacob Engel of the National Theatre Berlin.

    Siddons defines the handshake, an action that “joins two extremities of the human body to each other”, as: “An expression usual in friendship, benevolence, and salutation. This gesture is rich in signification, for the hand is the tongue of hearty good will.”

    But what do we do when the formerly benevolent handshake becomes potentially dangerous? Angela Merkel’s interior minister Horst Seehofer recently rebuffed the German chancellor’s extended hand, while Italians, reeling from the highest numbers of infections in Europe, are trying out new rules of social engagement that represent a drastic departure from their high-contact normal social gestures of kissing and embrace.

    Suspended

    But perhaps the most extreme example comes from Denmark, where naturalisation ceremonies have been suspended because a handshake has been a legally mandated part of the ceremony since a conservative change to the law in 2018. Widely criticised at the time as an anti-immigration initiative, the law is now making hundreds wait for Danish citizenship because of the pandemic.

    Does this all spell the beginning of the end of hand-shaking?

    I wondered about this as I walked into a conference room at the aforementioned handshake-free event where I was to teach an improvisation workshop for drama teachers, many of whom had considerable acting experience. I had planned to lead several exercises that involved touch, including one where the participants support the weight of one another’s bodies as a means to understand their relationship as a group. Another began with a series of handshakes exchanged throughout the room.

    Before we began, I decided to ask participants whether they felt comfortable touching one another. Most didn’t mind – but some did, so I adapted the workshop to remove all direct contact that might, to echo Siddons, join the human body together. I asked participants to work in groups as originally planned, but mime the handshake (and other such gestures) with a gap between their bodies.

    The removal of touch had a palpable impact on the workshop, as participants struggled to maintain the gap and resist the impulse to touch one another. The German dramatist Bertolt Brecht recognised the power of performance to make the familiar seem strange — what he famously termed the Verfremdungseffekt — thereby revealing that which is hiding in plain sight of society. Indeed, the shift in focus made the familiar handshake seem strange; removing the element of touch called attention to its ubiquity within common gestures.

    Replacing the handshake with a representation increased the group’s awareness of the learned impulse to perform collegiality with one another. People kept apologising for not touching one another.

    Removing the assumption that we will probably touch one another fundamentally changes the repertoire of gestures we have at our disposal

    The coronavirus outbreak is causing people to rethink the handshake and seek other gestures that perform similar functions without touch. The news site India Today has advocated the replacement of the (western) handshake and cheek kiss in favour of a return to the traditional namaste greeting: a slight bow with hands pressed together. Besides noting its hygienic advantages, the article championed the desi (local to the Indian subcontinent) nature of this form.

    This global health crisis calls into question the role of touch in culturally specific gestures of greeting and expressions of connection. Removing the assumption that we will probably touch one another fundamentally changes the repertoire of gestures we have at our disposal. The request to “refrain from hand shaking” has the potential to significantly re-script how we perform our relationships to one another.

    A global response might result in moving toward new performed gestures that redefine how we interact with one another.The Conversation

    • Written by Erika Hughes, academic lead in performance, University of Portsmouth
    • This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence


    top
    Subscribe to TechCentral Subscribe to TechCentral
    Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email Copy Link
    Previous ArticlePIC and Sekunjalo: a bizarre, value-destroying relationship
    Next Article How jellyfish crippled Koeberg

    Related Posts

    18GW in unplanned breakdowns cripple Eskom

    2 November 2021

    Nersa kicks the Karpowership can down the road

    13 September 2021

    If you think South African load shedding is bad, try Zimbabwe’s

    13 September 2021
    Company News

    Making IT happen: how Trade Link gears up to enable SA retail strategies

    20 June 2025

    Why parents choose CambriLearn for online education

    19 June 2025

    Disrupt first, ask questions later – the uncomfortable truth about incident response

    18 June 2025
    Opinion

    South Africa pioneered drone laws a decade ago – now it must catch up

    17 June 2025

    AI and the future of ICT distribution

    16 June 2025

    Singapore soared – why can’t we? Lessons South Africa refuses to learn

    13 June 2025

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    © 2009 - 2025 NewsCentral Media

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.