The new normal of academia in pandemic times: Resisting toxicity through care

In this piece, we dwell on the shadow sides of the new normal of academic labor during the pandemic. As the greedy, neoliberal university penetrates our homes and bodies during lockdown, it infuses our (work) lives with a magnitude of mixed pressures and troublesome effects and affects. Embedded in very different home situations, we explore autoethnographically how we are affected similarly and differently, through questioning our senses of toxic productivity, toxic passivity and toxic affectivity. We recast toxicity as - not a characteristic of the university but - a fundamentally relational issue which works through and exacerbates individualization and isolation in the context of the pandemic, thus requiring relational forms of feminist resistance in response. For this purpose, we develop an approach for writing our differences together, which cares for and fleshes out our lived, multifaceted experiences including the filth and shame associated with the toxic new normal. In doing so, we are not escaping toxicity, but reconfiguring our embodiments and enactments of it by caring for ourselves and others, which re-energizes us to push back and unsettle how we may live academia, and perhaps become happy academics, during this crisis and beyond.

Automated summary

This article delves into the dark side of academic labor during the pandemic, highlighting the mixed pressures and effects brought about by toxic productivity. By exploring the similarities and differences in how individuals are affected in different home environments, the authors reveal the need for feminist resistance to address the relational issues exacerbated by toxicity in the new normal. Through caring for and acknowledging the multifaceted experiences associated with toxicity, the authors suggest a reconfiguration of embodiments and enactments to empower individuals to challenge the toxic academia and strive for happiness during and after the crisis.