The emergence of COVID-19 pandemic conveys the lack of means to preserve the historical clues of this tragic and unexpected experience. Which sources will help us write this history, after all? The Coronarchive project has come forth as a CHD initiative to compose understand the ascension and the implications of COVID-19’s digital archives and memory in Brazil and worldwide.
This project studies the agents, resources, and collections of digital archiving initiatives related to the COVID-19 memory in Brazil. In addition to the Coronarchive, several other similar initiatives have arisen in the country. The forms of constitution of collections, the responsible agents, the infrastructural conditions, and the documentary focus, however, vary according to the initiative, which creates a constellation of digital archives that is both rich and methodologically challenging.
COVID-19 is a global phenomenon; its archives go beyond Unicamp and Brazil, occurring throughout the whole world. This project seeks to surpass national boundaries to look at digital archiving as a global theoretical issue, based on memorial reactions to the novel coronavirus. We give special attention to the periphery, where the pandemic has had major intensity, breaking through boundaries and shaping transnational characters.
