The spanish flu through the lens of local history: archives, memory and origin myths in Botucatu, São Paulo, Brazil, 1918

Considering that the logic of historical investigation is grounded on the development of empirical research, this study approaches challenges in the construction of local history about the spanish flu pandemic in the city of Botucatu, State of São Paulo, in view of scattered and fragmented collections without archival care and with damaged materiality. The study discusses memory-producing places and shows how the selection and articulation of the past reflect what one intends to preserve around local discourses and representations by power apparatuses. It captures, in a dialectic game involving the past that has not ceased to exist and is brought to the present in the power of archives and collective memory, the social forces that acted in institutionalized care at Botucatu. Thus, it deconstructs origin myths, contextualizes singularities, historicizes inequities, and captures representations and expectations about the city’s order and the body’s health, in this space-time.

1918-1919 influenza pandemic; Local history; History of medical and health practices; Public health; History and memory