Events

How has COVID-19 impacted the lives and societies of people across Southeast Asia? What can we learn from oral and visual histories collected amid upheaval? This trio of short roundtables offers exploratory answers informed by the ongoing research project ‘Living with Covid-19 in Southeast Asia: Personal and Visual Experiences of Crisis, Control and Community’ based at National University of Singapore’s Asia Research Institute.

Led by Professor Naoko Shimazu, Dr Gerard McCarthy and Dr Yang Yang in partnership with more than a dozen collaborators across Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) countries the project has two main planks: an oral history archive of interviews with essential workers, the elderly, COVID-positive cases and minorities from every country of ASEAN; and a visual repository of lockdown images and social distancing signage from across the region.

The three panels of this event probe questions of memory, community and governance raised by personal and visual experiences of the pandemic recorded through the project. They also examine the possibilities and pitfalls involved with building diverse archives during a pandemic and the merits of collaborative methods. Discussions feature insights from collaborators and discussants from Southeast Asia and beyond including researchers and curators from Columbia University’s Interdisciplinary Center for Innovative Theory and Empirics, National Library Board of Singapore and National Museum of Singapore – all of whom are leading COVID-19 social archiving initiatives of their own.

Thinking from and beyond the region, the event spotlights the role of oral histories and images in telling the story of trauma and resilience amid the upheaval of the pandemic and how these experiences are likely to shape cultural, social and political trajectories in the years to come.

CONVENORS

Dr Gerard McCarthy | Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
Dr Yang Yang | Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
Prof Naoko Shimazu | Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore & Yale-NUS College

REGISTRATION

Registration is closed, and instructions on how to participate in this webinar has been sent out to registered attendees.
Please write to valerie.yeo@nus.edu.sg if you would like to attend the webinar.