Academic Work During the Covid-19 Pandemic in Italy. Structural Factors and The Redefinition of Spatial, Time and Relational Boundaries

The pandemic represents a turning point which affects the micro‐politics of managing productive, reproductive and social life in our new everyday lives. In this paper, we make a contribution to the recent and growing scientific debate by exploring academic researchers' processes of construction and de-construction of spatial, temporal and relational boundaries that take place in the pandemic work-life stay-at-home style. Particular attention is paid to some macro-structural drivers of work and family life, specifically to the role of gender and class, as well as to the organizational culture of the neoliberal university. We chose an exploratory, qualitative, non-directive methodology in order to grasp the permeability between the public/private and the work/life spheres. The empirical material consists of in-depth narrative video-interviews conducted online with Italian early career researchers and images collected through the native image making technique