ABSTRACT: 

 

Workers’ Voices in the Digital Age: A Newspaper-Based Collection on Portuguese Self-Management movement
 

Following the Portuguese Carnation Revolution of 1974, workers mobilised autonomously in response to the profound economic and social instability inherited from more than four decades of Estado Novo dictatorship. (Fontes & Cabreira, 2020). In the absence of effective trade union mediation, many workers self-managed their workplaces as a strategy of resistance, survival, and collective organisation. This digital collection brings together journalistic coverage from Diário de Lisboa and O Combate, two of the most significant Portuguese newspapers of the period, with the aim of foregrounding workers’ voices and lived experiences. Rather than merely documenting events, the collection seeks to reflect on how such historical processes can be meaningfully communicated, interpreted, and structured within a digital environment.[1]
 

The digital collection is conceived not simply as a repository of sources, but as an interpretative and organisational framework through which historical knowledge can be curated and made accessible to different audiences. Drawing on approaches developed within Digital Humanities scholarship (Terrón Quintero et al., 2023), the project integrates technical procedures with historiographical reflection, ensuring that digital mediation supports rather than diminishes historical complexity and meaning.
 

How can a digital collection effectively structure and communicate historical sources in ways that go beyond preservation and support critical interpretation? In what ways can digital environments facilitate comparison, reuse, and reinterpretation of archival materials related to labour and self-management movements? How can a digitally mediated collection function simultaneously as a scholarly research tool and as a platform for broader public engagement? Finally, to what extent can digital humanities methodologies contribute to reshaping how historical narratives are constructed, accessed, and communicated in contemporary contexts? By addressing these questions, the project clarifies its central aim: to demonstrate how digital collections can serve as shared, interpretative frameworks that enhance historical understanding while fostering dialogue between academia, cultural institutions, and the public. (Sinn, 2012)

 

[1] To understand how this digital collection will serve as a starting point in the academic research process, consult the Figure 1 and 2 – “Development Stages of a Digital Collection on Workers' Self-Management OCR Tools searching process”; and “Workers’ Voices in the Digital Age: A Newspaper-Based Collection on Portuguese Self-Management - A starting Point”.