Abstract:

The essence of the presentation is to reconstruct home space as a work space in the specific situation of lockdown caused by the pandemic and the need to work from home. The research group are working students, while the research technique is visually assisted in-depth interviews.

The aim of research was an attempt to answer the following questions:
-What is home space as a work space in a pandemic situation? How is it defined, perceived and assessed by the respondents? Are the boundaries, thresholds, barriers and "flows" between public and private in the home space visible and in what way are they visible in the photos presented by the respondents and in their narratives? How do the respondents define them and what functions do they attach to them?
-How the respondents deal with mixing public and private orders in a pandemic situation? What strategies are they using? What do they see as the benefits and costs of the lockdown from what is public (professional activity) and what is private (personal and family life) perspectives? What routines and daily practices related to working at home in a lockdown situation developed during the pandemic?
-Has lockdown contributed to the reorganization of social roles in families and to what extent?
-What has lockdown taught us about ourselves/our families/ relationships? What kind of tacit knowledge has developed in this situation, and how can it be used?

The pilot research conducted by the research team (Dr. Katarzyna Rychlicka-Maraszek, Dr.hab Ewa Marcianiak, the University of Warsaw) in March and April 2020 (30 students working at home and studying) indicate several important areas requiring more in-depth research. The study will continue in November and December 2020.

The pilot research made it possible to formulate the following conclusions:
1. The traditional sphere of privacy, characteristic of the home, was violated by the pandemic forced remote work, which, in the opinion of the majority of respondents, disorganized family life and mixed daily routines, arousing anxiety and increasing the level of tension in family relationships, but also resulted in lower performance of the researched students.
2. The respondents, after an initial phase of euphoria, experienced frustration and anxiety resulting from their inability to carry out planned actions, e.g. learn or work effectively. They attempted to transfer public rules to their private order; clearly indicating a need to establish boundaries; they also established separate rituals for this two order that were meant to support such boundaries.
3. Violating the principle of exclusive home zone, understood as the sphere accessible only to the invited ones, relatives: a need to carry out teleconferencing or other professional activities requiring switched on cameras was often described as very depressing and devastating.
4.The respondents created daily practices used to obtain self-discipline (applications imposing time restrictions on social networking portals, growing virtual plants).
5. A transition from incidental to permanent (habitual) use of media may be observed. It refers mainly to the Internet and social media.
6. Rituals related to the use of media were used and they performed a stabilizing and time structuring factor; ritualizing the use of media constitutes a type of enforcement or restriction of other activities. An important function of the rituals is to support a community, here, a community transferred into the virtual world.

Keywords:

Work, lockdown, work space, home space.