03/10/2026
Archival Research in Brazil: Personal and Political Archives at APESP
I had the opportunity to be invited to and participate in the 1st Lecture Series “Caminhos da Pesquisa no Arquivo” (“Paths of Research in the Archive”), held on September 23, 2026, at the São Paulo State Public Archives (Arquivo Público do Estado de São Paulo – APESP).
Organized in partnership between APESP and the Graduate Programs in History at the University of São Paulo (USP), the event created an important space for dialogue between archives, universities, researchers, and professionals working with historical documentation.
This first edition featured Prof. Dr. Douglas Souza Angeli (USP) and Dr. Marcelo Thadeu Quintanilha Martins (APESP), who discussed the possibilities of research in personal and political archives.
Why does this matter? Personal and political archives can help researchers investigate individuals, institutions, networks, political activity, social relationships, and historical contexts. They also invite reflection on how records are created, accumulated, organized, preserved, interpreted, and used as historical evidence.
For historians and archival researchers, research in archives goes beyond locating documents. It also requires attention to provenance, documentary context, relationships between records, methodology, and the circumstances in which documents were produced and preserved.
Participating in “Caminhos da Pesquisa no Arquivo” was a valuable opportunity to reflect on the connection between archival research, historical methodology, documentary heritage, personal archives, and political archives in Brazil.
Archives do more than preserve the past. They create new possibilities for understanding it.
