‘Lost futures’ and undermined pasts of the pandemic: digital lecturers’ ghostly reflections of time, self and the university

This article seeks to bear witness to the spectres of uncertainty and anxiety experienced through workplace isolations as university teaching occupied solely digital environments during the early weeks of the pandemic. We reflect on the ways lecturers experienced uncanny and fearful moments as orders of organisational time and its expected realities were abruptly abandoned, exploring working life and its unsettling, ghostly insights during this singular moment of social pause. Using Derrida’s hauntology as a theoretical framework, this study fuses reflections from previous research using three-level image and content analysis to trace the covert realms temporarily inhabited during the liminal episode of lockdown. Alternative and hitherto unnoticed understandings residing in real-time narratives and curated images enable a recognition of lost and stifled futures alongside a tracing of working histories during a moment of crisis. The spectral lens provides an understanding of how a temporary disjuncture in organisational time, coupled with disembodied work in the digital sphere, sees individuals questioning self and role and struggling with reincorporation. The article also reflects on possible implications of professional and personal isolation, relating how pandemic discomforts haunt subsequent trajectories and working relationships in university life.