There was a pandemic in the middle of my doctorate

No, my research was not affected by the pandemic. On the contrary, this moment is making things move faster. Interviewees available to speak, outside researchers willing to participate.

But something doesn’t seem to be right.

I haven’t been to the university since March 12th, when I attended a lecture on the role of women in innovation. At the time, we no longer knew how to greet each other. On March 13th, an event at work was hastily canceled due to a decree banning agglomerations. Since March 17th, exactly five months ago, I have been working from home, with a few shifts of four hours every fifteen days in my work, in a solitary room where almost fifteen people previously worked.

I had plans for a doctoral internship (or, at the very least, a quick visit as a researcher) that will not happen anymore. In my mind of months ago, if the internship didn’t work out, I would try to travel more often for leisure. Beg your pardon? I also had plans to do a teaching internship. It will take place this semester: remotely.

“Something doesn’t seem to be right,” I said. And that is the exact feeling of living in a dystopia. The other day, I asked some colleagues if they felt their academic identities fading as I do. The answer was a big YES.

All these months have erased the “I do,” “I go,” “I am,” for a simple and big SELF. And what do we do with this individual who appeared there? Sometimes it’s difficult, right? These months threw into our hands everything that was not working properly, but that was beautifully camouflaged in our routine, and plans.

May 2020 not just be a year to regret everything that did not work. But may it be that year in which we found ourselves really naked, in the most intimate of our being. If everything is taken away, if all your plans are canceled, who do you see?