In France, as elsewhere, the Covid 19 pandemic led to a large number of grassroots archiving projets. The aim of these initiatives was to collect the 'ordinary' memory of the event and thus help to build a collective memory that reflected a diversity of experiences. Using qualitative and quantitative data, this article examines the genesis of these initiatives in France and draws up the socio-economic profile of the participants, asking the question: to what extent did these operations reach the entire target population in an egalitarian manner? What kind of memory will be preserved over the long term by the archive centres, and who are the people whose words will go down in history?
Sarah Gensburger is a Full Professor of Sociology at the French National Center for Scientific Research - Sciences Po Paris. In her most recent work, she has been investigating the relationship between memory, public policies and neoliberalism. She is the author of a dozen of books among which, in the perspective of this talk, Memory on my doorstep. Chronicles of the Bataclan Neighborhood (Paris, 2015-2016), (Leuven University Press, 2019), with Gérôme Truc (eds.), Les Mémoriaux du 13 novembre (Ed. EHESS, 2020) and with Orli Fridman (eds.), The Covid-19 Pandemic and Memory. Remembrance, commemoration, and archiving in crisis (Palgrave, 2023). In 2021, she was elected President of the Memory Studies Association.
Wednesday, 27 September 2023
14.00 - 15.00
C²DH Open Space (4th floor, Maison des Sciences humaines and online