Quarantined, Sequestered, Closed: Theorising Academic Bodies Under Covid-19 Lockdown

Abstract

The term ‘quarantine’ is derived from the Italian quarantena, from quaranta, referring to the forty days of isolation traditionally imposed during the era of the Black Death in Europe. This paper examines this and related contemporary terms, in order to consider the complex and contradictory nature of enforced sites of isolation, with reference to the historical literature. The centrality of spatial practices in the current pandemic is emphasised, with a focus on the normally unobserved, micro practices of individuals under ‘lockdown’. The paper reports on an interview study conducted at a large UK Higher Education institution during the Covid-19 ‘lockdown’, and analyses the accounts of six academics, focusing particularly on their embodied and sociomaterial practices, with reference to the etymological analysis. The paper considers the extent to which their reported experiences reflect the various meanings of the term sequestrato, going on to propose that their working practices, particularly focused on screens and video calls, are characterised by a need to ‘perform the university’. I speculate on how the ontological nature of the university itself has been fundamentally altered by the closure of the campus and lockdown, proposing that the site of the university is now radically dispersed across these sequestered bodies. I conclude by calling into the question the accuracy of the term ‘online teaching and learning’, instead suggesting that in a fundamental sense, none of these practices is in fact ‘online’ or digital.

There Is No ‘Virtual Learning’: The Materiality of Digital Education

“…In the recent Moving to Online Teaching and Homeworking interview study with academics under lockdown, Gourlay (2020b) found a range of orientations to the conditions of enforced confinement among the participants. The analysis revealed a situation which in some ways corresponded to traditional notions of being under 'quarantine' in order to shelter from a dangerous disease and protect others.…”

Lockdown literacies and semiotic assemblages: academic boundary work in the Covid-19 crisis

“…The University College London Institute of Education 'Moving to Teaching Online and Homeworking' research project was funded and established at the start of the 2020 March lockdown, in order to investigate the impact the move to working online at home was having on academic and professional services staff across UCL (Gourlay 2020;Littlejohn 2020). Institutional ethical approval was secured, which included commitments to informed consent, confidentiality and anonymity; all names used in this paper are pseudonyms.…”

“…These blurred or abandoned boundaries took many forms; some were temporal, with interviewees reporting working longer hours, or work spilling into the weekend, due to the lack of punctuation normally provided by commuting to and from the campus. Another prominent blurred boundary was spatial, with most of the participants having converted an area of their home into a work space, again obscuring the distinction between home and work, with domestic spaces such as kitchen tables, a nursery chair, and a bedside table converted to work areas (Gourlay 2020). For some participants, boundaries were felt to have been eroded in terms of identities, with the role of parent and caregiver being intermingled with the professional role (Gourlay 2020).…”

Vulnerable bodies and invisible work: The Covid-19 pandemic and social reproduction

“…Working parents were expected to ensure that their children continued to follow the routine of the school day during the lockdown period. This had to be combined with working remotely, which continued to carry expectations of 'professionalism' and conformity to the ideal, domestically unburdened worker (see Gourlay, 2020). The increased pressure of juggling caregiving and other social reproduction with professional obligations was described by one commentator as a 'never-ending shift' (Boncori, 2020).…”