Catching a glimpse: Corona-life and its micro-politics in academia

Gend Work Organ. 2020 Sep;27(5):804-826. doi: 10.1111/gwao.12481. Epub 2020 Jun 23.

Abstract

The spread of COVID-19 acutely challenges and affects not just economic markets, demographic statistics and healthcare systems, but indeed also the politics of organizing and becoming in a new everyday life of academia emerging in our homes. Through a collage of stories, snapshots, vignettes, photos and other reflections of everyday life, this collective contribution is catching a glimpse of corona-life and its micro-politics of multiple, often contradicting claims on practices as many of us live, work and care at home. It embodies concerns, dreams, anger, hope, numbness, passion and much more emerging amongst academics from across the world in response to the crisis. As such, this piece manifests a shared need to - together, apart - enact and explore constitutive relations of resistance, care and solidarity in these dis/organizing times of contested spaces, identities and agencies as we are living-working-caring at home during lockdowns.

Keywords: crisis; feminist care; resistance; solidarity; writing differently.