Editing Covid 19 Personal Whereabouts

[[File:Ice pressure ridge background (sm).png|thumb]]

The ice pressure ridge remind us that agency is not a property that is possessed by individual readers, researchers and authors. Our ways of becoming knowledgeable always correspond intra-dependently with conditions that are set by many other agential forces, both human and non-human. 

When the spread of Covid-19 was declared a pandemic it shaped an ice-pressure ridge that was so immense, that it not so much required me to redirect- as it asked me to re-locate.

=Making a New Home=

In 2019, at the start of my doctoral studies I had relocated from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, to Ka'tarohkwi (the area known as Kingston, Ontario) on the traditional homelands of the Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabek and Huron-Wendat nations. 

I arrived ready to commit- aspiring to make Kingston my new home.

Which it became, in multiple ways, over time. 

The building of these relationships became somewhat more complicated from 2020 onwards, however . The COVID-19 pandemic ended up uprooting me from all my home-bases, both Dutch and Canadian.

=The Netherlands in Isolation=

After the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, I initially chose to take shelter in my country of origin; the Netherlands. I stayed there for three months. 

I moved in with my sister and her family to save money. I slept on an airbed and shared a room with my 2-year old nephew. It was nice to be close to family. I preferred it above self-isolating in an apartment.

[[File:Selfportrait during lockdown.jpg|thumb|Selfportrait during lockdown]]

Nevertheless, my commitment to be present, and make a new home in Canada- combined with the financial stresses of maintaining two home-bases- eventually drew me back to Ontario at the first seemingly reasonable opportunity.

=Kingston in Isolation=

The reality of returning to Canada as an international student, during the Covid-19 pandemic, was- while I acknowledge my privilege of being able to stay safe and healthy- rough for me. 

Once back in Ontario, I was stuck in my tiny in Kingston apartment by myself, without a university campus to go to, or access to the regions in which I would have to conduct my fieldwork. 

I wrote a lot. 

=Falling In-Between=

By June 2021 I had to return to the Netherlands for family matters. During this latter trip, I was offered an affordable apartment in Amsterdam- and decided, considering the ongoing uncertainty of Covid-19 pandemic to accept it. 

One month later, In July 2021, I received the news that we could travel to Nunavut again for fieldwork, and Canada slowly started to open up again. 

=Becoming Nomadic=

From July 2021 onward, I continued my PhD in a state of flux. I would come to Canada for fieldwork, and spent an average of six weeks up North each trip. I would then stay, on average, another six weeks in Ontario. Usually I would spend up to twelve weeks back home in the Netherlands, before I would return again to Canada. 

This rotation was possible because of being awarded a Canada Graduate Vanier Scholarship, and my decision in September 2020 to purchase a campervan: "Butter". As a result of these two events, my time in Canada took a completely different shape in comparison to what it had been before. 

<div class="next_choice">
'''"Return to Cut 1"''' to learn more about Gjoa Haven's "Voices of Thunder" came to shape after Covid-19 restriction were lifted.

Or, 


'''"Return to Cut 3"''', to continue tracing other parts of the BearWatch project that I got involved with.


Alternatively, 


Accept an '''"Invitation"''' to tag along and take a ride in "Butter". This ride will allow you to learn about the possibilities that  "becoming nomadic" brought to my research, before returning to Cut 1.</div>


<span class="return to-cut-1 link" data-page-title="Multiple Voices" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="return">[[Multiple Voices|Return to Cut 1: Voices of Thunder]]</span>

<span class="return to-cut-3 link" data-page-title="Wayfaring_the_BW_project" data-section-id="1" data-encounter-type="return">[[Wayfaring the BW project#Coral Harbour First Trip 2020|Return to Cut 3: Spring Coral Harbour 2020]]</span>

<span class="redirective invitation link" data-page-title="Conference_Calls_from_the_Road" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="invitation">[[Conference_Calls_from_the_Road|Invitation: Thinking from the Road During Covid-19]]</span>