Methods & Sources of Historical Research
From Wikicliki
Notes from a course on methods and sources of historical research at IHR, 11 July 2016 - 15 July 2016
The Nature of Archives and Primary Source Material
- Notion of difference between primary and secondary sources... but its quite fuzzy
- Primary = unmediated access to past (not processed by another mind)
- Newspapers = a report of what has been told. testimonies are primary but the reporter has chewed thru the material.
- Historians make statements about things which should be believed - by people who don't have access to primary sources
- Having looked at the primary sources = is the reason why people listen to historians
- Does digitization undermine the authority of the historian who derives his/her authority on basis on having the ability to find the primary source material? - should not be - because the historian should define his/her role based on his/her ability to contextualise
- Primary sources tend to be gathered and held in institutions called archives. historians tend to be interested in written material. others look at other types of materials , objects, material culture, etc.
