31/12/2020

Transversal Research Project: #yeswecare

Collecting testimonies on how people working in the care sector deal with the pandemic on a European level.
 
The Center for Contemporary and Digital History (C2DH) at the University of Luxembourg has launched a large initiative collecting stories, material culture, digital creations and ephemera on Covid-19. The project is inspired by the “Rapid Response Collecting” approach that has been used in digital public history and museum circles for historical events such as Hurricane Katrina (hurricanearchive.org) or the 2015 terrorist attacks in France (www.memoire13novembre.fr).
 
Inside this larger frame, a small team of historians has started to collect testimonies from people working in the medical and health care sector. The pandemic is indeed shedding light on the functioning of hospital and care systems, showing great inequalities between countries, expliciting racial, gender and class boundaries and making visible professions and practices that are normally hidden.
 
The chosen framework is part of a longitudinal perspective through the conduct of regular (every 3-4 days), short (15 to 20 minutes) and repeated interviews with the same interlocutors, based on an indicative question grid: the aim is to set up an audiovisual personal diary of care workers in Luxembourg. Till now (23 April 2020) we have contacted around 50 interviews with 12 people collecting 16 hours of audiovisual material.
 
The Cost Action “Who cares in Europe” seems a perfect network to start a larger collection of testimonies on how people working in the care sector deal with the pandemic on a European level.
 
If you are interested in joining this initiative please contact Benoit Majerus, benoit.majerus@gmail.com