Cornered by Corona while writing a master’s thesis - Juggling multiple and opposing roles in a confined time and space

Writing a master’s thesis is often loaded with expectations and sometimes also a certain amount of anxiety. In this regard, previous research has mostly focused on the importance of the supervisor–supervisee relationship and not how students’ everyday lives and working conditions affect their writing process. Based on a single case study, we reveal tacit understandings and typifications of how everyday life affects master’s thesis writing, Looking at the pandemic as a breach, the analysis shows how COVID19 can function as a magnifying glass and expose how a female student managed to study when confined to home during lockdown. The analysis shows how she struggled to fulfil her ideals of being a good mother, a good student, and a good citizen and how the compression and collision of these typifications within limited time and space placed her in a double-bind situation, which led to emotional exhaustion and was counterproductive for her writing process. In conclusion, we argue that these findings call for a more holistic end ethical approach to master’s thesis supervision taking into consideration the moral and emotional pressures that master’s students encounter in their everyday lives.