REflections

RE-CITY network members on research, working from home, and societal changes during the COVID-19 pandemic

PhD-ing in Times of Corona

by Agnes Matoga, early stage researcher at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern

A couple of days ago I read a tweet that said something similar to: “You are not working from home. You are at your home during a crisis trying to work”. This is exactly the situation I am finding myself in, as I have been beating myself up for not being “productive” enough. The nature of doing a PhD in our field does not require us to stand in a lab, which could lead many to believe that it was easier for us to just shift from office to home office. Although this is partly true, as large parts of our work require nothing but a desk, and I feel very bad for those without access to their labs, let’s not forget that our lab is the city. How are we supposed to do fieldwork, talk to people, do observations when cities are in lock down? I have found myself thinking about this a lot, because the current situation puts my research on hold.

Having talked to my supervisor, and having agreed on staying flexible with the thesis – which in the end might turn out to be very theory-heavy – has given me a small relief. However, working from home has not become easier. To this date (ed. note: we were slow to publish this piece, which Agnes wrote for us back in early April!) I have been at home for three weeks, and each week has been different in terms of productivity and mental health.

Agnes’s ever-growing collection of houseplants helped keep her company at home (photo: Agnes Matoga)

I purposefully took the first week for myself to adjust to being at home for the entire day and thinking about how I could best implement work under these circumstances The second week my productivity has been at a high – bear in mind that “a high” during quarantine is totally different from a high level of productivity at the actual office. If I could bring myself to read a couple of papers a day, that was enough. During the third week I focused on doing admin work, completing random tasks, clearing up folders and so on.

Do I feel bad for not producing my best work? Yes, of course. But completing a puzzle or binging Disney+ have felt more comforting for my personal mental health in some moments of these weeks. I believe that setting small and realistic goals is the only way that I can deal with the current situation, reminding myself that this is not a normal state and nobody has taught us how to do our work during a crisis.

Staying in touch from a distance…Agnes (bottom right) and three RE-CITY colleagues on a zoom call about content analysis

My double insecurity as a half-way PhD and social science researcher

by Ruiying Liu, early stage researcher at the Technical University of Dortmund

Every time, the email from our dean begins with ‘the coronavirus has a firm grip on our country’. Indeed, it has not only the nation physically in grip, but mentally. News, conversation and posts are all tuned to the topic and anything else risks being out of place and neglected.

I begin to notice what is essential and what is missing to make a good life and a good society.

Oh dear. In times of and following crisis, long-term but less dramatic issues are often the first to be sacrificed in terms of public attention and resource allocation. My PhD research began with nothing to do with pandemic or disaster prevention, but already research discussions are all around me about what planning can do for this new challenge. The world is evolving too fast for a slow-paced PhD like me.

I keep thinking back on the concept of path-dependency — what already happened can shape the future, not through direct causality but through the changing of parameters. From the personal level, the time I spent in isolation during this long-awaited secondment to the University of Amsterdam will come back to haunt me as I race to complete my PhD. From the professional level, when economy is hit, the funding for social science research could go to the more urgent or efficient sectors. From the level of society, I pray that countries will be able to resist trying to make up for lost GDP by sacrificing support for environment and social progress. In short, of all the concerns that visit my mind, few are actually about the virus.

On the other hand, the days I lived in isolation, trying to re-establish social interaction, re-design my daily life, and re-connect with mass media, I become more mindful of the meanings of things that I used to perform as routines. I begin to notice what is essential and what is missing to make a good life and a good society. And from the proliferating discussions online (what else can you do in these times but express and listen a lot), I think others have noticed it too. Consumerism — where you keep consuming passively — offers little to make life enjoyable if you cannot roam around freely and interact with your environment productively. Individualism, the shadow upon social values and collective action, obscures the deep structures that divide and exploit societies. Reflections on the ways we have lived up till the fateful month of March 2020, I hope, could also shift the path of our collective future.

Walks are a good chance for reflection. Ruiying snapped this photo in Park Oeverlanden, near where she and Bozhidar spent their secondments in Amsterdam

So even as the crisis subsides, the real fight goes on. A month ago most people would believe the world probably would not change much when the crisis stops. However, it will not ‘stop’ like a switch; rather, it has triggered many other things — things that maybe if we try very hard, can be steered and shaped towards a brighter path.