Sources and archives Flashcards
Source criticism includes questions like…
- Who are the social institutions/actors that created them?
- Why did they produce them?
- How reliable is the data?
- How relevant are they for your research question?
“The archival turn”
From “archive-as-source” to “archive-as-subject” - process of collecting the sources and building the archive as a historical process which can be the** object of research** - also always reflect on motives and positionality **
- reading along and against the archival grain **-
- addressing the “epistemic anxiety” of those who produced the archives (reflect the intentions and positionality of those having build and organized the archives)
What are the challenges of multi-sited research?
- the **different logics **of the archives
- the materiality of the research (conditions and access ability of the archives and sources)
- languages
What are the languages of Global history?
- Linguistic skills
- politics of language
- collective research and linguistic/cultural skills
The linguistic turn has led to…
a new understanding of objectivity - the subjectivity of the scholar must be seen –> not transparent anymore
Since the linguistic turn objectivity is seen as…
a mutual relation between the knowing subject and an external object
Restraint narratives means…
That behind every research there are choices that have been taken by the researcher - choices that mean other choices have not been made - (**limitation **and pre-reading - always in research)
Narratives must be detached from the sources, because…
- sources are already shaped and constructed by the social actors who produced them –> caution and awarness when interpreting sources
- social process have been constructed by different actors, o there is not the same interpretation of the historical reality, because it was not homogeneous but they were various realities already in the historical moment –>
self-reflexivity is necessary and awarness about…
the procedures of construction of historical writing
The linguistic turn requires changes and awarness in…
- script and emplotment
- writing and framing (selection among the sources…)
- Editing
