ABSTRACT
The onslaught of the Covid-19 global pandemic compelled most academics to shift to online teaching as well as tend to other aspects of their professional work directly from home. Under this ‘new normal’ state of things, many academics found themselves shouldering not just their academic roles but also their personal roles and duties within one single space. Writing for academic purposes, in such a situation, became fraught with challenges. This paper explores how three academics – one male and two females – working at Mauritius Institution of Education (MIE) juggled their multiple roles/identities during lockdown, struggling with the challenging task of academic writing. The researchers used collaborative autoethnography, as methodology, to draw out narratives of their experiences with academic writing during this period (Ngunjiri et al., 2010). The findings suggest that academic and professional identities are strongly shaped and coloured by their personal roles, resulting in different approaches taken to academic writing and other professional duties. Moreover, the lockdown situation provided a unique lens for the researchers to highlight the forces impacting their academic writing. A deeper analysis of findings highlighted systemic and internalized gendered experiences which subtly permeated academics’ personal and professional lives and called for further inquiry into academic identity construction and the complex roles the academic was called upon to shoulder.
