ABSTRACT
This paper juxtaposes experiences of researchers and researched in a study that explored Covid lockdown experiences in Scotland. It considers how the shared situation of being confined 'at home' during a health crisis shed light on inequalities between and within these two situations. The study on which this chapter is based focused on four groups where people already were facing isolation, marginalisation, and hardship prior to the pandemic: refugees and people seeking asylum; people living with disability or long-term health conditions; those under some form of criminal justice control; and survivors of domestic abuse and sexual violence. Building on anthropological interest in doing research 'from home' as well as anthropologies of structural violence, we show how the pandemic imposed particular conditions of at-homeness, in which inequalities and isolation were central factors shaping the lives of both researchers and researched, though at sharply different scales. That is, people who were structurally marginalised faced much greater risks and harms but at the same time, inequalities existed and shaped the experience of the pandemic for all. It also shows how systems (justice, migration, health, university) governing lives alternately facilitated and protected people from harm. We pursue these arguments by reflecting on themes that emerged in our research related to the meaning of home, gendered experiences of the pandemic, and different temporalities of crisis, concluding with a focus on the trapping and enabling qualities of systems. This reveals the myriad forms of sameness and difference constituted through pandemic and the power of crisis to amplify structural inequalities and violence.
