Idea work online: shelters and crutches in remote collaborative autoethnography

Purpose The three authors of this paper are intrigued by ideas and how they are created. The purpose of this paper is to explore idea creation and work by means of remote collaborative autoethnography. Design/methodology/approach During the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, the authors sent texts to each other, followed up on each other's thoughts and discussed them in online meetings. They shared, analyzed and eventually theorized their lived experiences in order to understand creating ideas as social and cultural experience. Findings The authors develop the notions of “shelter” and “crutch” to make sense of the complexity of creating ideas together; theorize how emotions and identities are entangled in idea work; and discuss how time, space and power relations condition it. Originality/value The authors contribute to understanding idea work in a remote collaborative autoethnography by highlighting its emotional, identity-related and power-laden nature.