Historians in the kitchen
I had trouble deciding this week’s issue. I could write about genocide, Palestine and the banality of evil. But in the special issue of LARRUN I could not add anything better than what has already been said. He could also write about the historiographical debate that has taken place in Navarre about Carlism, but Hedoi Etxarte went ahead in Berria. Faced with the massacres, we should not be drunk, but I will not have a liver to write with this raw material. I have decided at the moment to address more innocent and innocent issues: in this case, sources and historical-scientific methodology.
Sources for historians are essential because they bring us closer to the past. They can be of various kinds. The most common and used are public and private documents (political, economic, legal, letters, censuses…), newspaper publications (newspapers, magazines), personal memories and journals, literary sources and so on. Iconographic and audiovisual sources include the plastic arts (painting, sculpture, posters, propaganda, …), music, cinema, videos of all kinds, cartography or photographs. Archaeology, on the contrary, deals with material sources, analyzing buildings, objects or landscape in its context. Oral sources collected through interviews are also important.
Well, all those historical sources are our components. But of course, we cannot use these sources raw. We can't believe this information at all, that's where the culinary ability of the historian lies. First, we have to define and define what our object of research is and ask questions and hypotheses about it. We then look for and select the most appropriate sources to answer these questions or hypotheses (if possible, conform to what is otherwise). Next, and this is the key, we must critically analyse the credibility of the sources. Can we guarantee that the sources are original and from that time? What is the issuer? What is the recipient? Why does this source arise? We must not forget that the sources are not neutral and objective, but that behind them there can be political and social interests depending on their social and cultural context. Once the data is extracted from the sources, all this information must be contrasted, that is, whether it is compatible or contradictory to what other sources say. Finally, we use and serve the prepared. That is, it must be written according to the data obtained, because history ultimately adopts a narrative form. The text should reflect our ideas and arguments and, according to the information obtained, respond to initial questions and provide an interpretation of historical facts.
In short, choose the sources, rigorously judge their content and context, contrast the data obtained and finally publish them. That is the historical-scientific method, which is our recipe.
Tennessee (United States), 1820. The slave Nathan Green is born, known as Nearest Uncle or Nearest Uncle. We do not know exactly when he was born and, in general, we have very little data about him until 1863, when he achieved emancipation. We know that in the late 1850s Dan... [+]
The Centre Tricontinental has described the historical resistance of the Congolese in the dossier The Congolese Fight for Their Own Wealth (the Congolese people struggle for their wealth) (July 2024, No. 77). During the colonialism, the panic among the peasants by the Force... [+]
New York, 1960. At a UN meeting, Nigeria’s Foreign Minister and UN ambassador Jaja Wachucu slept. Nigeria had just achieved independence on 1 October. Therefore, Wachuku became the first UN representative in Nigeria and had just taken office.
In contradiction to the... [+]
Today, 50 years ago, the labor movement of the Basque Country wrote a very important chapter in its history. In Hegoalde, some 200,000 workers went on a general strike in protest against the Franco regime, which lasted two months. This mobilization made it clear that the... [+]
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have discovered several cylinders with inscriptions at the present Syrian Reservoir, the Tell Umm-el Marra. Experts believe that the signs written in these pieces of clay can be alphabetical.
In the 15th century a. The cylinders have... [+]
Pamplona, 1939. At the beginning of the year, the bullring in the city was used as a concentration camp by the Francoists. It was officially capable of 3,000 prisoners of war, at a time when there was no front in Navarre, so those locked up there should be regarded as prisoners... [+]
