History

History is a discipline that aims to study and understand past societies throughout the world from protohistoric, ancient, medieval, modern or contemporary eras. Historians seek to shed light on the changes and continuities, connections and separations between societies on all continents. This explains the importance assigned to the areal dimension of research which is very much present in CNRS Humanities & Social Sciences laboratories with a historical dimension to their work located both in France and abroad (UMIFREs). These researchers particularly focus on forms of economic, political, legal and social organisation; settlement dynamics and displacement routes; human sociability and grouping patterns; the circulation of living beings or objects, ideas or modes of action, beliefs or values; and religious, spiritual or cultural practices. Power, domination or subordination relationships, the multi-factorial dimension of social phenomena, the forms human groupings can take, conflicts, protest movements and resistance are all core subjects for historical research. For all these subjects, historians aim to identify the intrinsic temporalities, detailed chronologies and the issues' own dynamics or obstacles.

Above all history is a process of knowledge and the search for traces, constructing corpora, the notion of archives, the administration of proof and the critical analysis of sources are all of particular importance to historians. Those writing history have traditionally focused on the study of written documents (codicology, diplomacy, epigraphy, palaeography, philology) but are now also taking increasingly varied documentation (iconographic, material, oral, palaeoenvironmental, audiovisual, digital, etc.) into account. The development of AI means historians can explore increasingly massive documentary corpora. All of these sources are analysed in a variety of ways including archaeological excavations, fieldwork, audiovisual processing, images and sound, statistical surveys and case studies. History also uses other practices and tools like network analysis, lexicometrics, prosopography, automatic text, sound and image recognition and so forth. It is therefore essential for history to open up to other humanities and social sciences disciplines like archaeology, anthropology, law, economics, sociology, political science or economics as well as disciplines from other CNRS Institutes such as archaeosciences, acoustics, chemistry, medicine, physics or information sciences. In addition, history researchers are aiming to develop the public writing of history which is leading to the development of new and alternative forms of historical writing (graphic novels, blogs, documentaries, immersive experiences, exhibitions, films, podcasts, shows and so on).

Historians use a variety of working approaches corresponding to diverse historiographies, whether these involve varied epistemological approaches, writing styles, methods, objects or the problems raised. All of this work is carried out on varying of scales, ranging from micro-history, individual or local history to connected, cross-referenced or mixed history. The study of political stakeholders, events and conflicts was the exclusive focus of historians for a long time. This study is now being driven by a new impetus with an emphasis on empires, colonial societies and world history, multiple forms of collective organisation, popular or situated history, and violence. Other fields of study are also being explored – how societies adapt to environmental and climatic conditions; the relationships between humans and animals; the local and the global spheres; issues linked to demography, generations and filiations; economic and social systems; work, activities and leisure pursuits; the circulation of knowledge, science and technology; emotions, sensitivities and tastes; the private dimension; the prism of gender, identities, social inequalities and so forth. History also focuses on the interactions and indeed the tensions between past and contemporary societies conveyed through issues involving memory and the social and political uses of history. The discipline's researchers may work in areal units as well as thematic laboratories.

Research centers and networks