The Ezrachion: The People’s Archive for Social Struggles in Israel/ Palestine is an independent, community led initiative documenting political and social movements from the perspective of those directly engaged in them. While the Ezrachion operates as a digital, open access platform, it also maintains an independent physical space that serves as a hub for activists, protest groups, and marginalized communities to meet, organize, and support each other amid anti democratic forces. This workshop introduces grassroots methods for participatory construction of political and social archives developed as tools for collective memory, resistance, and democratization of knowledge in times of rising fascism. The session connects with the conference’s focus on public engagement, collaborative knowledge creation, and the role of Digital Humanities in confronting political repression. By working directly with open, community based infrastructures, participants will experience how digital community archiving can function as a political act that challenges state hegemonic narratives and preserves the memory of resistance. This workshop combines conceptual framing, live demonstration, and hands on practice. Participants will be guided through the process using a printed zine, based on English translations of Ezrachion’s local publications. The zine will serve as a working manual, leading participants step by step through the cataloguing process. The session will also demonstrate accessible, low budget technological tools to model how political archives can be built collaboratively without reliance on institutional or state funding.
Structure:
- Presentation of Ezrachion’s model and principles of independence, collectivity, and feminist queer documentation.
-Short case studies from social struggles, illustrating archiving as an act of resistance and community building.
-Hands on Cataloguing: Participants upload, describe, and classify materials together, simulating collective field archiving.
-Demonstration of how to use community catalouged materials to build accessible activist archives .
-Discussion: Ethical and political dilemmas of documentation under authoritarianism: safety, exposure, and solidarity.
20260731T140020260731T1530America/Argentina/Buenos_AiresWORKSHOP: Grassroots Methods for Participatory Construction of Political and Social Archives in Times of Rising Fascism: Lessons from Israel/PalestineSV405 (ART)MSA Buenos Aires 2026buenosairesconference@memorystudiesassociation.org
