Paper short abstract:

Locked up at home, it is the field that enters my life, not me deciding where or when to visit the field. I cannot shut down my home, the field imposes on me, on my everyday life. For me, is the ideal timing to reassess my position as researcher at home and to re-think my relationship to the field.

Paper long abstract:

Locked up at home, it is the field that enters my life, and not me deciding where is the field site or when to visit the research field. I cannot shut down my home, the field imposes on me, it has become part of my everyday life.

I became infatuated with Covid-19 not because it’s a trendy response of the moment in the arts and social sciences, but as an inescapable way of being in the world. Covid-19, the lockdown, the ensuing home quarantine, provoked my interest in a fieldwork setting outside my primary scholarly interest (the Middle East) as it profoundly affected all aspects of my everyday musicking activities at home in Athens, Greece. I could not shut my door to Covid-19 and the effects it brought to my music-making ventures. It was the field, suddenly and unexpectedly entering my everyday life, my house, nuancing every aspect of my music world. Under such circumstance, I was unable to draw a line between personal life and fieldwork, between home and the field. Ethnomusicology at home, is inextricably bounded to my identity as researcher, performer, concerned citizen and a parent of a child involved in music activities.

The current pandemic confront ethnomusicologists with new and challenging social realities; it is an opportunity to reconsider what a home is and observe how contexts and fieldwork settings change rapidly. For me, is the ideal timing to reassess my position as researcher at home and to re-think my relationship to the field.