What makes our archive special?
Our archive is the centerpiece of the Center for Research and Documentation Chile-Latin America e.V. and it is a key instrument for our educational work, information work and public relations.
Meanwhile our considerable newspaper, journal and book collection has grown into the biggest independent non-governmental archive about Latin America in the German-speaking world. It has a collection available which is unique in this form.
The archive does not only collect books, journals and newspapers but also provides special collections which arose from political campaigns and projects (e. g. Chile solidarity, armament, 500 years of Latin America, multicorporate enterprises, Zapatistas/Mexico, energy/biofuel, women, femicide).
The only places where diverse matters, produced by the very heterogenic and new social movement, are being collected systematically, are in those archives which supported and accompanied this movement. Due to their preserving function the 'grassroot archives' or 'free archives' are the memory of the movement. They retain comprehensive experiences from past and actual social conflicts. Thus the FDCL-Archive, for example, evolved out of the work of the Chile solidarity movement, in which the FDCL played an important role.
Meanwhile, throughout Germany there are only a few archives or documentation centers left, which have accompanied - and still do - political and social processes by documenting them.
An archive like ours not only collects information sources and information, but also systematizes them by clear criteria, indexes them by content, makes them accessible for users and additionally puts them in a context that makes sense, in intermediating seminars and events: Instead of a flood of information the FDCL offers political education and a base for scientific work.