Foreword
In issue number 65 of Revista Brasileira de História we complete four years editing it, with a total of eight issues having been coordinated and 140 articles published. During this period RBH, created in 1981 with the aim of creating a channel for divulging the production of Brazilian professors and historians, has undergone significant transformations, becoming exclusively digital and offering a version in English. These innovations have expanded the scope of its circulation, granting access to our production to a public which does not understand Portuguese, making the consultation of new and old volumes easier.
For this issue the Editorial Council chose the theme "History and Social Demands" for the dossier which, as in the previous issue, was also expanded in terms of the number of articles published. As we have stated, interest in publishing in RBH has been growing in the community of historians and social scientists, and the number of contributions submitted for evaluation grows every number. For example, the volume of texts received increased by 226% between 2009 and 2010, when the journal became exclusively digital. In addition, there has been a growth of 227% in the number of RBH accesses on SciELO, between when the publication was both print and digital and since December 2009, when it has been exclusively electronic. This new search for Brazilian historiographic production by channels aiming at internationalizing its studies is very welcome, but it raises many challenges for RBH and indicates the need not only to expand the size of the issues, but also to publish more often. This volume has 14 articles.
The Dossier "History and Social Demands," in accordance with the theme of the National Symposium, has the objective of contributing to debates about the uses of history and the role of the historian. The idea of the social demand for history still remains vague, it is used in very different context of analysis and covers very diverse phenomena; memorial demands and media and editorial demands are some examples. The boom in memories and the growing interest of different social groups in the past has expanded the space of historians in the means of communications and publications, but at the same time it has raised the challenge for them of transposing and adapting knowledge in search of communication with a non-specialized public. Often this leads the historian to try to resort to simplistic formulas and ambiguous responses to the demands coming from society and the state. Furthermore, we can mention the risks of external interference which can put in question the autonomy of history as a scientific discipline and contaminate scientific judgment with media values. In this scenario it is necessary to be attentive to the instrumentalization of history due to social demands and to rethink the connection between the social function of knowledge and the social function of history, especially when the analysis of sensitive pasts is involved, such as the holocaust or the Latin American dictatorships.
While these points are threats to historians, their omission or isolation can also involve serious consequences. Numerous times these social demands have not been listened to by historians who have not managed to transpose new academic contributions to the non-specialized public. In turn, this posture means that popularizing books and manuals produced by journalists or non-specialized authors fill this gap and are privileged by the publishing market.
Given the set of texts received and selected, we can say that this area is now a great challenge for historians. Seven articles were selected for the Dossier, five of which focus on the Brazilian reality, the other two looking at Mexico and Europe. In relation to the temporal focus, texts were privileged which dealt with themes related to the History of the Present Time. In relation to the approaches adopted, works are presented which adopted as a strategy the theoretical and methodological discussion of research about the so-called traumatic themes, such as the study of repression and slave-like labor in Brazil and the political uses of the past, especially in relation to text books.
We start this issue with Antoon De Baets' "A theory of the abuse of History," which intends to sketch out a theory about controlling the irresponsible use of history. The abuse of history is defined as the use in a non-scientific manner of historical knowledge with the purpose of hoodwinking and fooling society about traumatic and polemical events. Joana Maria Pedro and Anamaria Marcon Venson in the text "Human Trafficking: a historical approach to the concept," deal with the discussion of human trafficking, focusing on the specific question of prostitution. In "Photography and the 1968 student movement in Mexico" Alberto del Castillo Troncoso focuses on the history of this movement and the complex relations between the press and political power at the time, privileging the analysis of the political and cultural use of photographs on the part of different factions. Américo Oscar Guichard Freire discusses in "Intellectuals, democratization and the fight against poverty in contemporary Brazil" the theme of the participation of intellectuals in social inclusion programs and projects, taking as its subject of analysis the political and intellectual trajectory of Herbert de Souza, (Betinho), and Carlos Alberto Libânio Christo, (Frei Betto). Ernesta Zamboni and Cristiani Bereta da Silva in the text "Political culture and history teaching policies in early 20th-century Santa Catarina" present analyses of the relations between historiographic production and the production of a history of the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina for school use, with the aim of meeting the challenge of developing a civic and patriotic education concerned with symbolic projections about the future of Brazil. In "The places of production of historical school knowledge in Brazil: historical compendiums and reconciliatory narratives in Paraná (1876-1905)" Maria Aparecida Leopoldino Tursi Toledo discusses the role of text books in the construction of the national state and in the meaning of the nation, highlighting in the case of Paraná how national history had difficulties in establishing itself as an autonomous discipline before the advent of the Brazilian republic. Finally, Alexandre Veiga deals with "Work and workers: Labor Court archives as a research source." The article describes the trajectory of the Labor Court Memorial Center in Rio Grande do Sul, reporting experiences of working with the preservation and dissemination of documentary and museological heritage of the labor courts in the state.
The section of individual articles contains seven works. Andréa Lisly Gonçalves in "The struggle of Brazilians against Miguelism in Portugal (1828-1834): the case of the black man, Luciano Augusto" recreates some aspects of the resistance to the regime established by King Miguel (1828-1834) in order to the clarify the transit of people and ideas within the Portuguese Empire, also allowing the establishment of contrasts between the American and European contexts. In "A new world in the Atlantic: sailors and rites of passage cross the Equator, from the 15th to the 20th centuries" Jaime Rodrigues analyzes the origins, dissemination and transformation of these rituals in maritime culture. Giselle Martins Venâncio analyzes in "Commemorate Camões and rethink the nation: Joaquim Nabuco's speech during the celebration of the tercentenary of the death of Camões in Rio de Janeiro (1880)" the events held during this commemoration in order to highlight the ideal of Brazilian national identity defined as fundamentally Portuguese. Jeffrey D. Needell in the text "The Call to Arms: Nabuco's Radicalized Abolitionism of 1885-1886" looks at the role of Nabuco in the abolitionist movement and the transformation of his political visions in the context of the historical trajectory of the movement. Juliana Miranda Filgueiras in "The MEC teaching materials production: from the National Campaign for Teaching Material to the National Foundation for School Material" analyzes the creation and principal achievements of CNME and Fename and how this production highlighted the actions of the Ministry of Education in an area dominated by the private market, especially the textbook publishing industry. Cristiane Hengler Corrêa Bernardo and Inara Barbosa Leão in their article, "The training of the contemporary journalist: the history of a worker without a degree," aim to analyze the context in which the journalist profession developed in Brazil, the influences it came under, as well as the technical changes which altered its material base of production. Finally, in his article João Márcio Mendes Pereira "The World Bank and the political construction of structural adjustment programs in the 1980s" discusses the development and operationalization of the World Bank's structural adjustment programs in the 1980s.
In this issue we also have two texts which highlight important moments and persons in the history of Anpuh. The keynote address given by the then president of Anpuh, Durval Muniz de Albuquerque Júnior, "Ritual of Dawn and Dusk: celebration as an experience of a border and multiplied time or the antinomies of memory," on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of our organization in July 2011, and a tribute to the recently deceased Professor John Monteiro, a figure of great academic relevance, written by Professor Regina Celestino.
There are also two interviews with the historians Jean-François Sirinelli, from France, and Eugenia Meyer, from Mexico, and we are publishing four reviews: Jaime Valim Mansan analyzes En el combate por la historia: la República, la guerra civil, el franquismo, organized by Ángel Viñas; Wanderson da Silva Chaves presents Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life, by Karen E. Fields and Barbara J. Fields; Kleiton de Sousa Moraes reviews O que é um autor? Revisão de uma genealogia, by Roger Chartier, and Fernando de Araujo Penna analyzes Qual o valor da história hoje?, organized by Marcia de Almeida Gonçalves, Helenice Aparecida de Bastos Rocha, Luís Monteiro Resnik and Ana Maria Ferreira da Costa Monteiro.
Once again we would like to invite our readers to consult the sites of Anpuh and SciELO and to download onto their computers or digital readers the articles of interest to them.
Marieta de Moraes Ferreira
Publication Dates
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Publication in this collection
16 July 2013 -
Date of issue
2013
