The quarantine hotel experience: travel diaries of compulsory confinement

Abstract

During the summer of 2021, 14 days of quarantine at designated hotels was a mandatory Covid-19 restriction for all travellers entering Taiwan. This study employs the duo-ethnographic method to investigate the implications of quarantine hotel confinement on the emotional, physiological and psychological state of individuals. The emic approach of autoethnography provides a reflexive and evocative source for describing the feelings, emotions, perceptions and challenges during compulsory isolation in designated lodgings. Goffman’s (1961) typology for total institutions served as the conceptual tool to examine the characteristics of the social arrangement in quarantine hotels. The empirical data revealed the profound consequences of isolation. This paper outlines the detrimental implications of role dispossession, deprivation of personal freedom, programming and controlling, and disruption of key spheres of life, along with the imposition of acceptable behaviours regarding the mental health and emotional state of guests during confinement.