Resumen de Historias de las minorías, pasados subalternos
The idea that it necessary to include minorities in national history has a greater complexity than it has been generally admitted. Their incorporation ingto the prevailing trends of historiography constitutes a sign of pluralism and reveals that the discipline of history has acknowledged the existence of differences. However, it must be noted that while the academic world gradually came to consider the history of minorities as an acceptable and creative choice, it imposed some restrictions: this practice should not undermine certain key notions of historic discourse - e.g., the notion of evidences - or those principles of rationality under which its narrative forms take shape. The author uses his concept of subaltern pasts to demonstrate that there are some kinds of pasts which cannot be subsumed under the principles of intelligibility that characterize the historic method in the modern age. As a supporting example, he cites the analysis the founder of Subaltern Studies, R. Guha, made in one of his essays ("The Prose of Counter-Insurgency") in order to underline some of the paradoxes and dilemmas this approach to history is confronted with. In dealing with such issues, one ought to recognize that there is a gap between the modern historian's gestures and some kind os past experiences, and that this breach cannot be mended in an arbitrary manner. When examining 'mirror' or subaltern pasts, the historian should not reduce them to an overarching principle but stay with heterogeneities. It is required to recognize that there are inextricable knots which embody a part of the fabric of history; to accept that a plurality of experiences of temporality coexist at a given period means to learn to live in our disjointed present. The main forces that threaten contemporary historiography do not derive from a variety of irrationalism but from the lack of self-critical awareness manifest in some practitioners of the discipline.
