“Memories and History: using visual, material and archaeological sources for an alternative history” 

Over the past few decades, archaeological and material sources have emerged, as a powerful means of writing alternatives histories. They have become essential means for recording and preserving memories and the life experiences of people of the south whose histories have often been marginalized in external literary sources.  It enables Historians to ‘eavesdrop’ on events, feelings, attitudes and ways of life which have been hidden from history, and thus to write a more inclusive and a more localized history of our past. Southern historians cannot afford to neglect the insights that these sources provide.   

The main goal of this South/South workshop is to contribute to the training of researchers dealing with alternative historical sources, with a  view to exchanging experiences, theories and methodologies.  It is proposed to bring together within the program some fifteen researchers from Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. The program is expected to have a duration of one week.   

The aim of  the program is to put an end to the diktat of written or statistical sources by collecting knowledge or data based on the oral, visual and material history of marginalized or oppressed groups. Subjects to be covered in this program will include the methodology, theory and practice of visual, oral and material sources in the History of Southern countries. This means the study of non-literary evidence such as recordings of oral sources, images, paintings, photographs, films, and archaeological artefacts. 

This critical approach will also permit a comparison and rethinking of the paradigms and dominant discourses that have shaped these methods in countries of the South with different colonial and linguistic traditions.

These interdisciplinary training workshops will gather a group of junior and senior historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, archivists and museographers, drawn from a diversity of intellectual backgrounds. 

The program aims at encouraging a reflection and creates a debate between these academics of Latin America, Africa, South Asia and the Caribbean on oral, visual and material as sources for alternative history. This will enable an identification and sharing of knowledge between participants through their own activities and to learn both the technical skills and become acquainted with the new conceptual debates regarding alternative history. This will include not only new empirical data and new interpretations of the past but also encourage debate about the use of alternative sources in history and the ethics of these practices.  

Given the complexity of these historical sources, CODESRIA would like to organize three workshops. Every workshop will explore the theoretical and methodological issues confronting our understanding of the past of Southern countries, by using the alternative sources. Each will last  seven days and will be limited to about 15 participants.

The program combines lecture/seminar courses and practical training in roughly equal proportions. Sessions will focus on participants discussion and debate, with the Director helping to direct, facilitate, and moderate discussions.

For every workshop, the Director will organise the reflections by focusing his various presentations on the following:

• Nature, exploitation and methods of analysing alternative sources

• How to present the research outcomes in the form of an article

• Definition of publication perspectives

Two resource persons will animate lectures focused on case studies using these alternative sources. The laureates will be involved in discussing one another’s  papers and will  attend theoretical and methodological courses taught by the Director and the two resources persons. The researchers will reflect together with the more senior scholars on the different methods of analysis, preservation and conservation of alternative historical sources. The workshops will help improve technical skills including: the mechanics of the interview process and tape transcription for oral history; the negotiation of intellectual property rights; the creation of online access to audio collections; pedagogical approaches to analysing images, for visual sources; conducting archival research in iconographic collections. Participants will also learn how to  research historic photographs, conduct and transcribe oral histories. The following practical considerations will be taken into account: the problems of analysis and interpretation of material culture, the caring and handling of historic artefacts, the standards and procedures for cataloguing collections.

These interdisciplinary training workshops will gather a group of junior and senior historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, archivists and museographers, drawn from a diversity of intellectual backgrounds.

Sessions will focus on participants discussion and debate, with the Director helping to direct, facilitate, and moderate discussions. Two resource persons will animate lectures focused on case studies using these alternative sources.