Abstract

MORALES RUBIO, Josafat. Contributions of historiography to social imaginaries: the case of oil in Mexico. Rev. colomb. soc. [online]. 2021, vol.44, n.1, pp.97-117.  Epub Nov 29, 2021. ISSN 0120-159X.  https://doi.org/10.15446/rcs.v44n1.87842.

In the last few years, there have been more academic studies on social imageries in Latin America. The present work aims to show how historiography , as the writing of history, can contribute to social imageries' formation. This article studies two authors, Jesús Silva Herzog and Lorenzo Meyer, who have written about the oil expropriation in Mexico. Both authors, whose works take almost 30 years, write from different points of view. The first one does it as a witness, having participated as part of the committee in charge of analyzing the capacity of the oil companies to face the labor demands of 1938, being influenced to a great extent by Marxist theories. Lorenzo Meyer speaks from and for the institutionalized Academy, specifically El Colegio de México, and influenced by the Dependency theory. However, it's been proved that both authors impacted the social imaginary in Mexico, where oil has a special place linked to national sovereignty. In the first case the study of Silva Herzog's text, reveals that his work legitimizes government discourse. At the same time, Lorenzo Meyer positioned him as a specialist on the subject, making his impact on the imaginary wide as well. Although reading history books can be limited to a small percentage of the population, they are perceived as truth by their readers so their impact can be much broader than what was initially assumed.

Descriptors: cultural sociology, historiography, political sociology, social history.

Keywords : historiography; Jesús Silva Herzog; Lorenzo Meyer; oil; PEMEX; social imaginaries.

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