Carrier Bag Stories of List-Keepers: Academic Mothers' (In)Visible Labor During the COVID-19 Pandemic

• In Event: Motherscholars Juggling Their Work in the Academy

Abstract

When the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the globe, the familiar rhythms of work-home-life were disrupted. One participant’s description of herself as a ‘list-keeper’ became an apt naming of what we call the (in)visible labor of academic mothers during the pandemic. In this research, we consider: What family-based labor was carried by academic mothers during the COVID-19 pandemic? How is the labor storied by these mothers? Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction serves as the conceptual framework for this study. With Le Guin, we center the carrier bag stories of our participants to cultivate a feminist reading of a world attuned to the repetitive and mundane ways by which they constructed and maintained their world.

Authors

• Kelly Woodall Guyotte, The University of Alabama

• Shelly E Melchior, The University of Alabama

• Carlson Coogler, The University of Alabama - Tuscaloosa

• Stephanie Anne Shelton, University of Alabama