REPORT ON THE II INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS
HISTORY UNDER DEBATE
Santiago de Compostela (Spain), July 14-18, 1999
Is the History still a science? How should we do global History?
Men and women, do they have a common History or a split one?
Which will the relation history-narration-fiction be in the
future? What kind of History will we be teaching in the next
century? Is the division in chronological periods out of date?
What kind of commitment should the historian have, and what
should be his relationship with the power in the XXI century?
These and other questions of the kind were presented and
discussed by more than 600 historians attending the II
International Congress History under Debate held in Santiago de
Compostela, Galicia, Spain, on July 14-18,1999. More than
thirty-five countries from five different continents were
represented in Santiago, so confirming that in these days of
fragmentation, the periphery may and also must get involved in
the search for new ways of consensus and new paradigms. Five
plenary conferences, eighteen round tables, more than one hundred
and twenty papers divided in seventeen sections, speak clearly
about the importance of this reunion of international nature
whose main aim is to present, discuss and analyse one of the
branches of History with less academic tradition and where
discussion is not so developed: epistemological questions,
matters of theory of History, methodological issues, or
historiographical balances, which are topics that Carlos Barros,
organizer of History under Debate, proposes.
The organization of the congress was divided into three different
parts. The symposium started with a plenary lecture, each day,
given by a well-known historian: E. Florescano, G.G. Iggers, J.
Revel, C. Barros, H.J. Kaye. Professor Florescano talked about
the relationship between history, myths and nationalism; the
relationship between history and narrative, one of the constants
all through the congress, was discussed in consecutive days, and
from different and clashing points of view by the professors
Iggers, Revel and Barros. Whereas Iggers criticised the theories
by Hayden White about the scientism of history, Jacques Revel
talked from a opposing perspective: we should not talk about the
return of the narrative because history is always narration, and
it cannot stop being narration without losing its identity;
Carlos Barros, within a more extensive paper, in which he tried
to find out the way of making history in the future, also
expressed his opinion about this scientism of history, pointing
out the necessity of liking the scientific proof and the
appealing narration to reach this way a wide range of people,
which is the commitment of the historian towards the society; in
the last plenary session, Kaye went back to the topic concerning
this commitment of the historian through the analysis of the
contributions from the British Marxist Historiography; such
commitment was reached without forgetting the scientific rigour.
Once the plenary sessions had finished, there were three halls
where different workshops of fifteen minutes each took place,
followed by their corresponding debates; and there were round
tables, followed by debates as well -debates are fundamental for
History under Debate. These are some of the titles of the
thematic sessions: "Balance of the historiography of the XX
century", "Crisis of the history and change of
paradigms", "Post-colonialism historiographies",
"The history in the XXI century: new perspectives",
"Historiography, definition and history of science"…pretty
much the same happened in the round tables:
"Interdisciplinarity under debate", "The
historian, ethics and social commitment", "Sexuality,
history and politics", "Theory and history: a difficult
relation". It was mainly in these working sessions where the
answers to the questions stated at the beginning of this review,
and to many others, which came up all through the different
speeches, were founded. These answers were not only from the
speakers or participants but also from those present as public in
the halls who participated animously in the debates in a very
friendly way but voiced their disagreement with many of the
topics. The debate is, with no doubt of vital importance, because
thanks to it we can establish the existent problems, analyse them
in depth, and so reach signs of possible solutions. Only with a
consensus reached after profound debates, it is possible to find
the new paradigms which guide our discipline in the future.
The contents of the Congress can be divided as well in three
parts: First, we had epistemological, theoretical and
methodological problems (e.g. XXI c. History: new approaches;
History crisis, changes of paradigm; Postmodernism, History and
new Enlightenment; History and discourse, narration and fiction);
secondly, we had the matter of the social commitment of the
historian ("Chiapas and the History", "The
Historian and the Power", "Pasts and Presents, Pasts
and Futures", "How to do Global History?",
"Myths, Historiography and Nationalism"); and finally
there was a section dealing with the institutional question of
History ("University, access to teaching profession and
teaching university course", "The debate on Humanities:
balance and perspectives", "History, employment and
generation reshuffle").
The question of social commitment for the historian or the
relationship between the historian and society, together with the
already mentioned relationship between history, narrative and
fiction, that is to say, the scientism of history, were the
constant concern all through the congress, from the plenary
sessions to the papers themselves, and of course, in the debates.
All this work does not take just a few days. This II Congress HaD
belongs to a more extensive historical project which has already
started with the I Congress HaD, whose acts were publish in six
volumes, and still continues permanently on internet, where there
is a list of debate and a web page (www.h-debate.com) which can
be used as a vehicle of transmission of ideas in order to
establish the common paradigms of the historians for a near
future. This way, when we get to the third edition of HaD we will
have done part of our job. This third edition will take place in
Santiago in the year 2004.
Pablo Chaves Montenegro
Universidade de Santiago de Compostela
e-mail: pchaves@cesga.es