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- Convenors:
-
Fredrik Nilsson
(Åbo Akademi University)
Niklas Huldén (Åbo Akademi University)
Karin Gustavsson (Lund University)
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- Formats:
- Panel
- Stream:
- Archives and Sources
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 23 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Helsinki
Short Abstract:
We propose a panel that will focus on three themes. What did we learn about documenting crises and fast changes during the pandemic? What has happened since the material was collected? How can we establish transnational cooperation as we document acute crises?
Long Abstract:
As the pandemic hit Europe in the spring of 2020, archives and museums almost immediately began documenting the effects on everyday life. A vast source material was collected that captures changing habits, worries, fears and perhaps even ignorance; the material mirrors surprise and frustration as everyday life all of sudden seemed strange, unrecognizable.
We propose a panel that will focus on three themes. Firstly, what did we learn about documenting crises and rapid changes; what was difficult and what could have been done differently; what methods were used and to what extent were they adjusted to be able to capture different aspects of the crises?
Secondly, we want to discuss what has happened since the material was collected; have there been any follow-ups; in what ways have the material been used and/or made available; will material collected by museums and archives with a weak tie to the universities still make the material available to the researchers?
Thirdly, the pandemic reminded archives and museums that crises of this magnitude are not stopped by national borders, and perhaps documenting crises should not stop at the borders either. How can we establish transnational cooperation as we document acute crises? What rules or traditions do we need to break to be ready to document the next crises?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 23 June, 2021, -Magdalena Radkowska-Walkowicz (University of Warsaw)
Paper short abstract:
I will present the Children's pandemic archive - the collection of Polish children’s accounts about coronavirus. I will identify the benefits for anthropologists from such collections. I will ask what image of children’s pandemic lives do we get from the archive, and what remains hidden from researchers?
Paper long abstract:
In March 2020, shortly after the schools were closed, I together with the Childhood Studies Interdisciplinary Research Team (University of Warsaw), started collecting children’s accounts about the pandemic. Via the social media and with the help of parents, teachers and journalists we managed to gather several dozen works, mainly drawings and photographs, but also letters, diaries, and song’s lyrics.
We made all the works accessible for researchers and the general public, by creating a website on which the whole Children’s pandemic archive can be found (https://mip.uw.edu.pl/en/).
With our archive’s project, we would like to allow children’s voices to be heard. We would like to find out what children think about the current situation, and how they feel about it, but we didn’t have a chance to speak to the authors of the works gathered in the Archive.
Moreover, that with the Children’s pandemic archive we were only able to reach a specific group of young people: mostly children from middle class families, whose parents made the effort of photographing the works and sending them to us. Therefore we treat this collection rather as a resource that allows us to map the important issues and formulate meaningful questions to ask children in the future interviews.
In my presentation I will identify the benefits for anthropologists from such collections. I will ask what we can learn from this archive about children and their pandemic experiences. What image of children’s pandemic lives do we get from this collection, and what remains hidden from researchers?
Ilze Ļaksa-Timinska (Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art of the University of Latvia) Justīne Jaudzema (Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art of the University of Latvia) Sanita Reinsone (Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art, University of Latvia)
Paper short abstract:
The focus of the paper is the creation of an open-access archive of pandemic diaries in the digital archive of Latvian folklore. It was a new archiving experience, as the submitted data were processed continuously, the archive records were updated daily.
Paper long abstract:
On March 13, 2020, an emergency was declared in Latvia due to the spread of the Covid-19 virus, people had to adapt to new living conditions. Reflections about the lockdown, distancing, new working conditions appeared more and more on social networks, therefore on March 18 Autobiographical collection of Archives of Latvian Folklore and the literary and philosophical magazine Punctum launched the Pandemic Diaries initiative, inviting people to submit daily documentation.
Between March and June, more than 200 authors took part in the initiative. After the lifting of the emergency, the activity of writing diaries also slowed down, but in November 2020, the state of emergency was restored in the country and the sending of pandemic diaries was resumed.
The focus of the paper is the creation of an open-access archive of pandemic diaries in the digital archive of Latvian folklore. It was a new archiving experience, as the submitted data were processed continuously, the archive records were updated daily. The processing and integration of social network (Facebook, Twitter) records into the digital archive was also a challenge. In parallel with the archiving of records, metadata was also managed: information about photographs, authors, place of writing. All records were also mapped to create a map of the geographical area of the pandemic diary.