Abstract

CASAS, Verónica. Notes on a pandemic: theoretical-methodological reflections on starting an investigation in the context of isolation on the paid domestic work. Trab. soc. [online]. 2023, vol.24, n.40, pp.269-289.  Epub Jan 01, 2023. ISSN 1514-6871.

The present work proposes a theoretical-methodological reflection on starting an investigation in the context of isolation by COVID-19 and specifically carrying out fieldwork mediated by information and communication technologies. During the year 2020 I found myself resuming an investigation on paid domestic work in the City of Buenos Aires, which in previous years I called the complex sphere of the domestic, where specific methodological difficulties were presented due to the particularities of this sector of work. Already in the context of isolation, and based on the need to "know what was happening", it made me find in online interactions -from a survey and Facebook groups of female workers- a great richness that, in addition to opening up new problems and informates, they made me think about the ethnographic practice itself in virtual environments. Later, thanks to the online world, I was able to approach offline spaces -such as the mobilizations of women workers at the Ministry of Labor- that allowed me to continue expanding the horizons of research. These notes in progress rescue the potentiality of investigating the virtuality and the eclectic nature of ethnography, which provide us with new challenges when thinking about research problems.

Keywords : ethnography; virtual ethnography; paid domestic work; pandemic.

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