Writings on Historical Documentation: The Benefits of Oral Examination

This brief guide, written in the form of a plea, challenges "proclaimed certainties." Through a critical examination of the artificiality of many of the prohibitions surrounding historical documentation-an examination supported by a bibliography and a series of inclusive citations-the aim is to encourage historical schools south of the Sahara, heirs to colonial education, to become aware of the nominalism of history. That is to say, history: a science that claims a particular and concrete knowledge, as opposed to other sciences that aim for abstract and general knowledge. And thus, history must be conducted using documents available within a given society under study, at a given moment in its evolution. This is the historiographical truth that historians must share when they engage in debate regarding the documentation pertaining to the practice of their science.