Love (and Loss) in the Time of COVID-19: Translating Trauma into an Archives of Embodied Immediacy

Abstract

This article contributes to the emerging body of literature on grief and trauma in archival and records management work through the lens of COVID-19. The pandemic has put into stark relief the fragility of our individual and collective lives and livelihoods. Now, more than ever, we must take seriously the mental health and well-being of archivists. Inspired by the loss of a lover due to coronavirus-related symptoms, which brought on a deep grief that had profound professional, academic, and personal affects, this article—in a nod to Michelle Caswell's writing on feminist standpoint epistemology—represents the author's effort to “[value] the view from the margins.” More acutely, it speaks from the vantage point of a queer, Filipino, precariously employed archival student and practitioner grasping for meaning during a global pandemic. Engaging with affect theory, queer studies, and work on grief in archives, the author develops the concept of affective porosity, a means through which archival practitioners might seek a richer sense of relationality. Grounding theoretical expansiveness within contemporary practice, this article concludes by using field reports on archival trauma and case studies on BIPOC student labor to productively interrogate the state of archival labor today. As a profession, it is critical that archivists strive toward a path of embodied immediacy, caring for fellow archivists as much as we do archives.