11 - 11 - 1999

• HuD.NEW RESEARCH PROJECT
• HaD. Segunda fase de la Encuesta
• HuD.Second phase of the Inquiry

Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1999 20:02:27 -0600
From: had@cesga.es
Subject: HuD.NEW RESEARCH PROJECT
Bcc: Semin-ING

NEW RESEARCH PROJECT
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas ( CSIC)
"Change in Historiographical Paradigms"( 1999-2000)

TEAM
Carlos Barros Guimeráns, University of  Santiago, CSIC (Head researcher) (Medieval History)
Israel Sanmartín Barros, University of Santiago, CSIC (Historiography and Theory of History)
Francisco Vázquez García, University of Cádiz (Philosophy of History)
Gonzalo Pasamar Alzuria, University of Zaragoza (History of Historiography)
Miguel Ángel Cabrera Acosta, University of La Laguna (Contemporary History)
Juan Manuel Santana Pérez, University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Modern History)
Francisca Colomer, University of Murcia (History of Latin America)

SUMMARY

This new project, conducted by the same team as in the first phase of the project, seeks to process the results of the international, macro-inquiry "The State of History" (1996-98) currently in the phase of circulation and data gathering. The inquiry has been addressed to more than 30,000 historians across the world so as to have at our disposal what intends to be the most objective and comprehensive reference available of the situation of our discipline at the threshold of the new millennium. It is our intention to build up a database with all the answers submitted to be analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively and later published with the initial conclusions firstly among those who completed the questionnaire and thus help define the current change in historiographical paradigms. This task demands a study of the international bibliography generated by the intense, turn-of-the-century historiographical debate along with the individual and collective reflection of the Spanish research team which profits from the experience of organising the First and Second Conferences "History under Debate" and their enriching conclusions. The fact that an initiative like this has its origin in Spanish

universities and research centres demonstrates the maturity and capacity of Spanish historiography to break free from old dependencies to become a serious reference for the global historiography ahead, deserving as a result the requested administrative and institutional support. ( N.B. the HuD project received almost all its funding from the Xunta de Galicia, with the previous endorsement of the National Evaluation Agency).

BACKGROUND

For the 1996-1998 period, the research team developed the project "The State of History" (XUGA40101B96) in an attempt to answer the question : where is history heading to? by means of an international macro-inquiry among professional historians.

1. By designing the inquiry, which comprises 89 questions, which actually correspond to 425 items, most of which are quantitative . There have been a number of drafts and beta versions.

2. By building two databases, one with 35,000 postal addresses and another with 15,000 electronic addresses of historians and historical institutions across the world , well beyond the initial objective of addressing 15,000 colleagues.

3. By publishing and circulating the Inquiry, something which had to be postponed until the convocation of the Second International Conference "History under Debate" to share mailing expenses, given that the funding obtained for the first stage to the project was not enough to cover the posting of the inquires.

As anticipated on the first stage of the project, only a small (but valuable) amount of historians have completed the inquiry: a) out of inconvenience ( all of us are extremely busy), b) out of the lack of the habit of professional historians to reflect on history (some colleagues have admitted to their inability on this respect), c) out of the individualism of the academe ( and of society at large) always wary of collective and anonymous projects ( and its statistical results). The first accomplishment of this inquiry is its wide circulation and its role as formative and fundamental question-raising element among all the historians who have read it , regardless of whether they have submitted it to us or not.

In parallel with this project, we have maintained the Permanent Seminary "History under Debate" (at the Instituto Padre Sarmiento of the CSIC) in which professors from universities in a number of countries have participated throughout these three years.

Since the research team is part of the Scientific Committee of the History under Debate conferences, the work in the international inquiry project has been taken advantage of in the design of the contents of the Second Conference History under Debate, the proceedings of which, as well as the debate on the History under Debate Website, will enable us to gauge the discipline with a view to the second phase of the project .

OBJECTIVES

1. Quantitative analysis and international circulation of the results of the inquiry on "The State of History; build up a database with the responses submitted ; calculate numbers, percentages , tables and graphs derived from the initial matrix; analyse responses to qualitative items; publish and circulate these final results among (a) the historians who submitted their questionnaires (b) the members of the History under Debate discussion list and (c) the international community of historians represented in our database.

2. Qualitative follow-up of the change in historiographical paradigms through international, theoretical and specialised bibliography ( chronological and national areas).

3. Personal and collective reflection on the on-going processes of new paradigm construction . The assimilation of data obtained via the two means above described leads us, therefore, to the third and last objective of the second stage of the project: the reflection on the paradigmatic change and a proposal for alternatives .At the end of a century characterised by the ‘returns', not everything new is good nor everything old disposable. Consequently, a much more pertinent and collective intervention is needed which contributes to decide where we want history to go.

Historical circumstances have made a more self-centred development of Spanish historiography possible and this is also true of Latin American historiographies. This, however, demands a deep knowledge of what is happening in an increasingly globalised world, subject to quick changes, also in the academic field of history. We firmly believe that this project, the International Inquiry on history, on its first and second phase, together with the contribution of History under Debate, may contribute, in fact it is already contributing, to a rebirth of history in both Spain and the Latin world.

METHODOLOGY

The inquiry is providing two types of responses: a test-type one, quantifiable and the most genuine one and a qualitative one ( which consists of the brief texts the respondent may want to add to explain or qualify their responses). The first type is the most important and constitutes the innovation ( and the difficulty) of our initiative , which goes back to four years ago. Our objective is to obtain a more objective and accurate reference than it is the case with the usual individual or bibliographical reflections, impressionistic by nature, on what the international community of historians thinks and feels. Given the voluntary nature of the inquiry, and the relatively little exhaustiveness of the database, despite its bulky dimensions, the obtained sample is essentially representative of the sector of the international community of historians most interested in the state of our discipline, in the debates and reflections. That is all we intend. We want thus to see the collective opinion of a great minority reflected, one which transcends generations and state frontiers; 20th century historical schools and academic fields; one called to decisively influence the future of history as a discipline, of historians as a whole and of the civil and political society that funds our work as historians and researchers.

Well-aware of the empirical-positivist tradition dominating the work of historians , today stronger than ever because of the decline of the great 20th century avant-garde schools, we have been particularly careful not to separate out methodological and historiographical content (more necessary and accessible to all colleagues) from epistemologic and theoretical reflection, which is usually conducted at the margins of the community of historians, sometimes historians and not philosophers being the protagonists. In this second phase of the main project of - so far- historiographical research of History under Debate we are making extensive use of the Internet to publicise the results of the inquiry, learn about the historiographical debate (and take part in it), publicise our own reflections through tools like: the mail list, the website and the chat channel. It is our conviction that historians working with the Web belong to the group mentioned above, namely, those members of the international community of historians most interested in renewal and self-reflection, that is, the most dynamic sector of the profession tend to be those who work the most with the Internet.

HYPOTHESIS

There exists, therefore, an international community of historians who, thanks to the new technologies and the globalisation processes, is increasingly more and better connected. The paradigms shared by 20th century historians have undergone a profound crisis in the last decades of the century and are now going through a transition which, although quite unnoticed, is giving rise to new paradigms ( consensus after Kuhn). This paradigmatic change does not simply consist of changes in the approaches to empirical research but it concerns the foundations of the epistemology of history and our relationship with society ; an on-going change which would be difficult to identify were it not for the tools that allow us to see the wood as it is the case of the International Inquiry which we now seek to circulate and later analyse and discuss both on the Internet and through traditional academic means.

EXPERIENCE

The organisational capacity of the research team, and especially of its head researcher, is demonstrated in the accomplishment of the International Conferences ‘History under Debate' as well as other meetings and seminars in Saragossa, La Laguna, Las Palmas . . . .

As to the team's capacity for reflection on the change of paradigms, it can be appreciated in their respective curricula. These are recent publications by C. BARROS ( History Ahead, La historia que queremos, Towards a New Historiographical Paradigm, The Return Of The Social Subject); I. SANMARTÍN (Evolución de la teoría del fin de la historia de F. Fukuyama), F. VÁZQUEZ (Foucault: la historia como crítica de la razón), G. PASAMAR (Historiografía e ideología en la postguerra española), M. A. CABRERA (Linguistic Approach or Return to Subjectivism?), J. M. SANTANA (Aproximación a la historiografía marxista heterodoxa), F. COLOMER (sobre la pre, la pos y la re-Ilustración). The international academic connections of the members of the research team ( notably with Latin America, the USA, France and Britain), those generated across the world through History under Debate ( over 35 countries were represented in latest edition of the conference) and those established in the design of the inquiry itself ensure the necessary transnational communication for the analysis of the paradigmatic transition from the history of the 20th century to the history of the 21th century.

History under Debate
E-mail: had@cesga.es
Website: www.h-debate.com
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Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1999 20:31:59 -0600
From: had@cesga.es
Subject: HaD. Segunda fase de la Encuesta
Bcc: Semin-ESP

Queridos/as colegas:

Hemos comprobado con inquietud que una parte importante de los 602 miembros actuales de la lista no están entre los 500 profesores e investigadores, de más de 40 países, que han cubierto y remitido a HaD, en su momento, la Encuesta Internacional sobre el estado de nuestra disciplina en el mundo.

Tenemos por lo tanto un número suficiente de respuestas, pero necesitamos más. Hemos decidido abrir un segundo plazo para ampliar la representatividad de esta muestra internacional de historiadores/as "ambiciosos/as" y "optimistas" Se trata de un proyecto importante, llevamos varios años trabajando en él, no tiene precedentes y no se podrá repetir, probablemente, en bastante tiempo. No dejes escapar la ocasión.

Estamos seguros de que los resultados de la Encuesta serán relevantes para estudiar el cambio de paradigmas historiográficos del siglo XX al siglo XXI. Estamos pensando en publicar, como una parte importante de los resultados a analizar, la larga lista de los colegas que colaboren, clasificados por países.

Sabemos que os estamos pidiendo algo difícil, pero creemos sinceramente que este esfuerzo personal que os demandamos merece históricamente la pena. Sabemos que cubrir y remitir la Encuesta implica superar graves obstáculos:

1) estamos muy ocupados (relájate cubriendo la encuesta)
2) debieran de hacerlo otros colegas (está pensada para tí)
3) es demasiado larga (cierto, algunos rellenan las primeras preguntas y se cansan, pero tú eres constante y llegarás al final)
4)es difícil (no lo negamos, se pueden y deben dejar preguntas en blanco)
5) no me beneficia para el curriculum personal (pero satisface intimamente)

Resueltas todas la dudas, esperamos vuestras respuestas.

Podéis rellenar la Encuesta en español, inglés o francés, bien a través de la página Web (www.h-debate.com), bien cubriendo el folleto que hemos repartido en mayo, junio y julio, con la convocatoria del II Congreso, y que remitimos bajo demanda.

¡La historia os lo agradecerá!

Saludos y amistades,

Carlos Barros

Historia a Debate
E-mail:had@cesga.es
Website:www.h-debate.com
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Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1999 21:04:56 -0600
From: had@cesga.es
Subject: HuD.Second phase of the Inquiry
Bcc: Semin-ING

Second phase of the Inquiry

Dear colleagues,

We have seen with concern that an important part of the 600 current members of the list are not among the 500 lecturers and researchers from over 40 countries that have completed and returned to History under Debate the International Inquiry on the state of our discipline in the world. We have therefore, enough responses, but we would wish more . This has led us to open a second reception period to widen the scope of this international sample of ‘ambitious and ‘optimistic' historians.

This is an important project, on which we have been working for a number of years. It has no precedent and most surely will not be repeated for a long time. Do not miss out on it.

We are convinced that the results of the inquiry will prove relevant for studying the change in historiographical paradigms from the 20th to the 21th century. We are considering the publication, as an important part of the results to be analysed, of the long list of colleagues that participate in it, classified into countries.

We are aware of the difficulty of our request, but we do it in the sincere belief that this personal effort we are asking from you is historically worth . Again, we are aware that completing and returning the inquiry implies overcoming some obstacles:

1. We are very busy ( have a break filling in the inquiry)
2. It is for other colleagues to complete ( it has been designed for you)
3. It is too long (true, some colleagues fill in the first few question and then give up but you are constant and you'll make it to the end).
4. It is difficult ( we don't deny it, you may and you should leave out some questions)
5. It adds nothing to my curriculum ( but it self-satisfying ).

Having cleared away all hesitation, we are looking forward to receiving your responses. You may complete the inquiry in English, Spanish and French, either on the Website ( www.h-debate.com) or returning the booklet we have mailed eailier this year with the Second Conference convocation.

History will appreciate it !

Greetings

Carlos Barros

History under Debate
E-mail: had@cesga.es
Website: www.h-debate.com
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