In this post (/series?) I want to offer some reflections on the idea of ‘working from home’ during the COVID-19 crisis, and what that means as an Early Career academic. I’m not sure I’ll offer anything particularly meaningful, but I do want to record some thoughts and feelings both in terms of my individual experience, and the broader difficulties facing academics (specifically precarious and early career ones), at the moment.
Probably my main concern currently is the lack of visible conversation around supporting early career academics on precarious, fixed-term contracts. Because of various issues (including the fact that I’m arguing for furloughing here), I’m thinking primarily about researchers (or any ECRs unable to work remotely) here, not say teaching fellows, who are likely to able to continue their work (more or less successfully and for the time being) thanks to the move to online teaching. (Needless to say, I think that institutions should be doing more to support ECRs no matter their primary focus in their work, particularly those whose contracts are about to end and are going into a hugely uncertain economic climate).
There has been a lot of conversation online about how to move teaching into its digital formats, some of which I linked in my previous post. Resources have been shared, countless think-pieces (of varying merit – we won’t speak of the ‘Please wash your hair’ piece) have been written, and I have generally seen the emergence of an encouraging, pragmatic, and supportive community of scholars sharing concerns and questions about online pedagogy on twitter and other forums. The primacy of teaching in this conversation has undoubtedly (and understandably) been occasioned by the point at which the lockdown occurred: slap bang in the middle of term, when people were already at their busiest with teaching, marking, and related admin.
Going forward, I think it will be interesting as term ends and marking is completed, to see how this conversation naturally shifts into thinking about research and the struggle of conducting research remotely, or what I’ve called research without resources in the post’s title. This will shake out differently in distinct disciplines of course. For me, as an art historian undertaking an archival and collections-focused postdoctoral project, I am obviously concerned that I have lost the 3 months of international archival research that I was due to undertake this summer. Luckily the institutions/funding bodies supporting this research are being flexible and are allowing me to delay this travel for now, so hopefully I can make this up at a later date. For PhD students at a crucial point of their project, or ECRs desperate to consult sources in order to complete a publication necessary for REF or securing a job, this represents an extremely difficult situation, one that might have lasting effects on their studies and future career. Is there a solution to this issue? Not without institutions reopening (unlikely for some time), and even if they did, the researcher would have to pay staff to photograph the documents/images/objects that they needed (funding for this would likewise be extremely unlikely).
Working on secondary materials from home offers comparable difficulties. Although online access to books and journals can be good, this is by no means true across the sector. Colleagues at more teaching-focused institutions, or institutions with smaller library budgets will feel this lack of resources acutely. You can circumvent this somewhat by borrowing friends’ institutional logins (not ideal to say the least!!) or by buying resources yourself (even less ideal and frankly impossible for many ECRs). Some publishers are offering free e-books for the upcoming period, but this is dependent on them having what you specifically need. In recognition of this issue, it seems logical to encourage institutions to free up book-buying monies for ECRs (for whom publishing is so vital).
If institutions can furlough precarious staff on fixed term contracts, then they should do so, but ONLY if their contract is extended by an amount equivalent to the period of furlough at the other end. If the staff member is furloughed but no additional time is added, then that loss of time could be more damaging in the long term. However, if additional time is added, it’s a win win situation. The institution gets to keep you longer, paying the amount they would have paid you, and you get that little bit of extra security. I believe there are some complications as to whether you can be furloughed while on publicly-funded schemes, so do check these details if this is something you’re considering. It’s worth noting that UCU is recommending that universities take this course of action too, and it’s also worth comparing this request to the fact that lots of PhD schemes have been extended as students are unable to complete and undertake their work – the same is absolutely true for researchers at this level.
Finally, it is vital that research staff are supported adequately by their managers and senior colleagues throughout this time. Even before COVID-19 there had been frequent discussion about the adjacent nature of being a postdoctoral fellow within a department; indeed, many have reflected on problems such as the enduring awareness of the temporary nature of your residency at your host institution, or on the perceived perception that your work doesn’t matter as much as teaching. Such issues are often reinforced by the fact that you might not live in the same location in which you work, with physical distance echoing the social and emotional distance engendered by precarity. Lockdown will inevitably exacerbate these feelings. If staff aren’t teaching, they will likely struggle with lack of structure. Being unable to visit the office in person may heighten feelings of removal. ECRs concerned about their futures may slip into bad habits around overwork, in a desperate bid to exert some control over their lives (this is something that I have definitely noticed in my own behaviour recently). Furthermore, and as noted above, what research staff are able to actually do during this period has shifted massively – it is therefore vital to be clear about how expectations of what they might achieve during this period have shifted accordingly. It might also be nice to establish a regular check in zoom/teams chat, if this hasn’t been established already.
In summary, the three practical and tangible things that I think institutions/managers should consider doing to support their precarious ECRs/postdoc researchers at the moment are as follows:
furlough if possible (and extend contracts accordingly)
provide money for accessing resources, whether that is for commissioning photography of archival or collections-based resources, getting photocopies of materials, or for buying books
be clear about what your expectations are for your ECR colleagues during this period, and communicate with them regularly.
Institutions that are modelling excellence in providing financial support for ECRs during this crisis include the Paul Mellon Centre, the Royal Historical Society (their scheme is forthcoming, so watch out for it, although their definition of ECR is problematically narrow), and the Women’s History Network. I’ve linked the schemes that they’re running, all of which represent meaningful and important responses to the crisis, and it would be good to see universities following suit.
I hope that this post might represent a good starting point for future discussion on these issues, helping to open up a broader conversation about research and other forms of academic work undertaken without adequate resources during this period. If you’ve seen good discussions around this online (either on twitter or in articles etc), then please do let me know and I’ll link it here.
Going forward, I’m also hoping to write pieces on ‘productivity as privilege and non-productivity as privilege’, and on the idea of ‘the ‘home’ in working from home’, as part of this series, so stay tuned!
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