Documentare l’emigrazione italiana nel mondo: l’archivio digitale SEIM sulle voci degli italiani in Australia

In this article we present the digital archive SEIM (Storie di Emigrati Italiani nel Mondo), which brings together video interviews conducted in Melbourne, Australia, involving Italians who migrated there between the ‘50 and the ’70’s. The establishment of digital archives represents a fundamental tool to document and preserve testimonies that are very often only handed down in written form. In addition to representing a source of historical evidence from the interviewees with respect to their emigration experience, this collection can also be used to highlight different phenomena of orality which may not emerge otherwise. After a brief introduction on the role played nowadays by digital archives,followed by an overview of Italian migration to Australia and existing digital archives and materials, the project is then presented, based on an initial phase of data collection involving fifteen interviews conducted in Melbourne in 2019.