Abstract

VELASCO MESA, Custodio. History and memory: one and the same. Epistemological contributions of History under Debate to the controversies surrounding historical memory. memorias [online]. 2017, n.33, pp.120-141. ISSN 1794-8886.

The memory of the victims of past violence is, for different reasons, a persistent source of controversies. Besides the strictly scholarly ones, revolving around the incorporation (or not) of memory in history, there are related polemics that have a political, social, and ethical scope linked to the effects that memory has on history: a discipline widely employed as an instrument to build cohesion around the powers that be. Memory is, accordingly, a contentious issue due to the consequences it has for the (de)construction of hegemonic narratives of the past. It is not without reason that part of the citizenry is calling for justice, redress, and truth for those victims with regard to the facts that the said narratives have overlooked or distorted. It should therefore come as no surprise that the emergence of memory movements on the international stage since the end of the twentieth century has gone hand-in-hand with the process of political empowerment of the citizenry in the face of the development of imperfect democracies. The History under Debate platform has not remained on the sidelines of the historiographical controversies in this respect, or the demands of memory movements. Thus, the aim of this paper is to underscore and explore the platform's epistemological contributions to those disputes, highlighting two major proposals that are also vindications: the incorporation of the testimonies of the victims in the quest for historical truth and the commitment of historians to the defence of human rights.

Keywords : Historical memory; memory policies; historiography; epistemology of history.

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