The “new normal” of academia in pandemic times: Resisting toxicity through care

Abstract

In this piece, we dwell on the shadow sides of the “new normal” of academic labor during the pandemic. As the greedy, neoliberal university penetrates our homes and bodies during lockdown, it infuses our (work) lives with a magnitude of mixed pressures and troublesome effects and affects. Embedded in very different home situations, we explore autoethnographically how we are affected similarly and differently, through questioning our senses of toxic productivity, toxic passivity and toxic affectivity. We recast toxicity as – not a characteristic of the university but – a fundamentally relational issue which works through and exacerbates individualization and isolation in the context of the pandemic, thus requiring relational forms of feminist resistance in response. For this purpose, we develop an approach for writing our differences together, which cares for and fleshes out our lived, multifaceted experiences including the filth and shame associated with the toxic new normal. In doing so, we are not escaping toxicity, but reconfiguring our embodiments and enactments of it by caring for ourselves and others, which re‐energizes us to push back and unsettle how we may live academia, and perhaps become happy academics, during this crisis and beyond.

The impact of working in academia on researchers’ mental health and well-being: A systematic review and qualitative meta-synthesis

“…Nevertheless, recent evidence suggests that many of these systemic issues continue to pervade academic spaces [ 56 ]. Indeed, there remains an expectation to meet high academic performance standards, despite the ongoing disruptions the COVID-19 pandemic has caused across researchers’ personal and professional lives [ 57 ]. The impact of COVID-19 on the higher education system should continue to be monitored, as evidence suggests that the pandemic has both illuminated and exacerbated the risk particular systemic issues highlighted in this review (such as financial and job insecurity, as well as gender and ethnicity) can have on researchers’ mental health and well-being [ 56 , 58 ].…”

A lack of mess? Advice on undertaking video-mediated participant observations

“…The COVID-19 pandemic forced researchers in many fields to rapidly adapt ongoing research projects to fundamentally changing conditions. With much of everyone's work and personal lives disrupted and moved online (Pereira, 2021; Plotnikof and Utoft, 2021), many “traditional” ethnographers (i.e. those who employ on-site, face-to-face observations) have found themselves becoming participant observers through technology, just as much as ethnographers of interactions and spaces mediated by technologies like Zoom – whether they wanted to or not (Howlett, 2021; Podjed, 2021; Boland et al.…”

“…, 2021; Howlett, 2021). This multitude of recent publications suggests that COVID-19 has not only shaped a “new normal” in the lives of academics (Plotnikof and Utoft, 2021) but also spurred a “renewal of ethnography” (Arya and Henn, 2021; Podjed, 2021) and much methodological innovation (Podjed, 2021; Pereira, 2021).…”

“…We constantly considered how the Zoom frame affected the situations we observed, affected us as observers in a scene and affected how participants related to us through this medium (Howlett, 2021;Saatçi et al, 2019). We believe that there may be many other ethnographers who, like us, struggled in their learning-by-doing such video-mediated observations while also trying to cope with the stress of living through lockdowns and the global health crisis (Pereira, 2021;Plotnikof and Utoft, 2021). Therefore, we offer this article to fellow novices of video-mediated observations based on our practical experiences of adapting in order to not let the setbacks produced by the pandemic prevent our research.…”

“…While initially lacking guidance in our transition from on-site to video-mediated observations, an abundant literature has emerged since the pandemic outbreak (Arya and Henn, 2021;Boland et al, 2021;Howlett, 2021). This multitude of recent publications suggests that COVID-19 has not only shaped a "new normal" in the lives of academics (Plotnikof and Utoft, 2021) but also spurred a "renewal of ethnography" (Arya and Henn, 2021;Podjed, 2021) and much methodological innovation (Podjed, 2021;Pereira, 2021).…”