Mapping historians: historians' orientations and historical production

Authors

• Lisa Muszynski Muszynski Helsingin yliopisto
• Jyrki Reunamo

Abstract

Narrative historians have long exhibited greater or lesser awareness of their own agency as authors, where absolute objectivity is precluded. Indeed, historians' reports of the past include their own orientations or attitudes, which can also be examined in historians' autobiographies. In this article we present a study in which a questionnaire was used to ask historians about their orientations toward their subject matter. How do historians approach their work as agents and what might this reveal about the nature of historical production? In our model, we have distinguished four criteria, sorted the answers using statistical analysis and weighed the results in the light of our expectations. Indeed, by exploring historians' presuppositions (exemplified in examining historians' autobiographies), historical production can be seen as an institutional process also steered by historians' orientations and agency with important philosophical implications for the integral relationship between historians' public and private roles.