Microscopic Views on a Global Pandemic: Social and Cultural Effects of the Covid-19 Pandemic as Documented in Two Dutch Community Archives. (21st July 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Noordegraaf, Julia; Boon, José; Vrhoci, Dora; Dofferhoff, Joost; van der Molen, Pieter; Vlogman, Nuala; Blanke, Tobias
• Is Part Of: Journal of open humanities data. Volume 7(2021)
• Publication Date: 2021-07-21
• Subjects: COVID-19 -- citizen diaries -- public history -- community archives -- Amsterdam -- the Netherlands; Humanities -- Periodicals; 001.3
• DOI: 10.5334/johd.29
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2059-481X

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to the obvious implications for public health and the economy at a global scale, has also had significant social and cultural effects: the partial or complete lockdown of public life breaks social and cultural networks and habits, and necessitates the invention of new forms of communication, contact, and inspiration. Over the course of the pandemic, various initiatives have emerged that have tried to capture this unique moment in history by collecting documentation on the social and cultural impact of the pandemic on people's daily lives. Most of these collections were created bottom-up, either by actively approaching individuals or communities to contribute or be interviewed, or by opening platforms where citizens could directly contribute documentation. In this paper, we analyse two such citizen-generated collections of experiences with the COVID-19 pandemic: the 'Corona in the City' collection, assembled by the Amsterdam Museum for an online exhibition with the same title, and the 'Dagboek Corona' (Corona Diary) collection of diary contributions, assembled by the Dutch public historian and journalist José Boon. The paper discusses the background of these citizen-generated COVID-19 collections, assessing their scope and accessibility, and presenting a first, qualitative analysis of their content. We conclude with a reflection on the implications of the findings for people's social life and identity, indicating how the datasets can be explored in further research and how the findings may benefit effective policy making.