Expatriate Life in the Time of the COVID-19 Pandemic
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During the extraordinary COVID-19 pandemic times, many people have started documenting what this experience did to us, our close ones and our communities. To preserve material describing this historic crisis through the eyes of expatriates around the world, the Expatriate Archive Centre (EAC) decided to launch the ‘Expatriate Life in the Time of the COVID-19 Pandemic’ Initiative.
As an institution that focuses on the social history of expatriation, the EAC collects and preserves material about how expatriates and repatriates are meeting the challenges they face while living abroad. This mission is even more important during exceptional and unprecedented times. Social history gives necessary context to the nuts-and-bolts information gathered by historians and their institutions: how do people cope, connect, make decisions, etc.? What was the local, lived experience of this global pandemic from day to day and week to week?
If you are an expatriate* or have moved back home — regardless of country of origin or residence — and you have written about any topic related to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are interested in preserving your story. Because of the global nature of the pandemic, we are open to receiving material in any language and any format. Most forms of media and media channels will be accepted, such as:
• blogs;
• personal writings on paper;
• emails;
• social media posts and exchanges;
• photography that supplements writing.
The method of archiving will be tailored to the type of material, and a depository agreement, which outlines rights and responsibilities of the archive and the donor, will need to be signed,.
Please send all inquiries to welcome@xpatarchive.com.
* We define an expatriate as someone who lives temporarily in a country other than their ‘home’ country. We are also interested in repatriation, third culture kids, and other roles and situations adjacent to expatriate life.