Paper short abstract:

Drawing on my recent fieldwork experience in Japan during the covid pandemic, the paper discusses how mental distress in the field must be understood as a symptom of a complex intersection of unfavourable structural conditions, as well as personal predicaments.

Paper long abstract:

In dialogue with the growing number of social anthropologists, mostly women, who have recently engaged with this topic, I will discuss my ethnographic experience in Japan during the coronavirus pandemic and the mental health issues I faced while in the field. 

In late autumn 2019, I moved to Tokyo to conduct my postdoctoral research. Full of enthusiasm, I quickly immersed myself in reading the relevant literature. But when the coronavirus hit Japan in early 2020, my professional work came to a complete halt. Instead, I desperately searched for information on how to protect myself and my family from infection. Living far away from a reliable social network did not help with my worries. As a result, I gradually found myself in an undesirable situation, feeling anxious and depressed. This disturbed mental well-being strongly influenced my research decisions and consequently the research design throughout my stay in Japan.

In retrospect, however, I am well aware that my mental health problems in the field were not only caused by the pandemic, but also by the wider structural situation. I am not referring to inadequate institutional support per se, but to the precarious economic situation I found myself in after completing my PhD. I will argue that the neoliberal academy, with its demanding working conditions, combined with the precarious economic situation faced by early career researchers in particular, takes its toll on our mental well-being and negatively impacts both our professional and personal selves.