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Oral history, pandemics, and the present’s urgent documentation

Abstract

This article proposes a reflection on the methodological challenges presented and faced by oral history research as a result of the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and the physical isolation it entailed. It conceptualizes and focuses on actions for the present’s “urgent documentation,” arguing that they are neither a discontinuation in relation to oral history research traditions, nor a return to the documentary ambition that marks the very emergence of the practice of oral history– but a practice that merges plural methodological principles and theoretical propositions developed from the use of the method. Finally, the article assumes the construction of narrative communities and the creation of visibility of experiences of subjects and groups in situations of vulnerability as public commitments that are imperatives for researchers in and of the present, for whom technology presents itself as a challenging ally.