Intimate revolutions: the relationship between spatial form and personal change in the COVID-19 pandemic

The predominant spatial form of the COVID-19 pandemic constituted a mass confinement of people to domestic space and major restrictions to mobility and access to public space. This spatial change has personal implications; the material contexts in which people live are part of what shapes the possible range of experiences, relationships and selves to which a person has access. In this article we draw on mapping interviews conducted with a community sample of 46 Australians during 2021 and 2022, highlighting experiences of change: new ways of thinking, being or relating which participants developed in lockdown or intended to take up in the future. These changes were orientated towards similar concerns, wanting to sustain a greater focus on relationships, creativity and meaningful activity beyond lockdown. We note that these concerns reflect the symbolism and activities associated with domestic space (relationality, care, reproduction, the private self), indicating that these new futures and ways of being were crafted from the ingredients available in the spacetime of the pandemic. Implications for literatures on change emerging from crisis are discussed, arguing for greater attention to be paid to the spatial form of crisis situations.