In February 2023 Turkey and Syria witnessed the impact of a devastating natural disaster affecting millions. The migrants from these two countries in the Netherlands lead a divided life. They are united in having experienced mass-trauma but not necessarily in their social, emotional and even political reactions to these events. The main purpose of our study “Affective Archives: In the Aftermath of an Earthquake in Turkey/Syria’ is to create an oral history archive that collects narratives and experiences of individuals affected by the earthquake. It will also record the participants’ breathing and heartbeat patterns.

• What is an Oral History Collection?

Oral History Collections aim to capture the subjective impact of the events. As such, these collections consists of interviews about impactful events such as a natural disaster, or a political upheaval, or sometimes a cultural trend. The participants tell about their experiences, explaining their personal perspectives.

• Why do we need an Oral History Collection on the recent earthquake?

A major earthquake such as the one happened last year affects millions of people. These effects are documented in numbers, and will be recalled in the history by numbers: How many people died, how many people moved to another place, how many buildings collapsed. These numbers show the objective story of the earthquake’s effects, but not what people have experienced. Affective Archives aims to document these experiences, and share it with the public. If you decide to participate and tell your story, you will decide if your story and data will be shared publicly or used only for scientific research.

• Why is the study done in the Netherlands?

The planned oral history archive will collect experiences migrants from the affected region go through in the aftermath of the Turkish/Syrian earthquake, given their sense of belonging and affinity to the region. “Belonging” is a concept describing the (spatial, social, cultural) attachment one carries inadvertently. Independent of a migrant feels at home in their new country, in the face of mass-traumatic events, migrants tend to become attuned to the happenings and news from their country of origin, which might trigger a sense of loneliness, and detachment from the everyday life in their settled environment. The archival collection aims to bring these experiences to the surface, and to create a digital space reflecting these communities feelings to the public.