ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses personal experiences of being an academic during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic in a Northern European university city. In this context, the COVID-19 restrictions and public health policies affected every single aspect of sociality even if, to the date of writing, an actual epidemic did not accelerate in this society. The article discusses the experience of the government implementing a range of restrictions since mid-March 2020, which were surprisingly successful in halting the epidemic, yet with profound social consequences, also affecting the content of academic scholarship. Three interconnected themes will be discussed: Social isolation and academic motivation; feminist politics of knowledge production and epistemological considerations; and vulnerability, loss, and imposed social distancing connected to microbial co-existence and safety/privilege as a loss.
