Abstract
The article discusses some theoretical issues involved in considering the history of historiography from a global or transnational perspective. By examining studies of historiography in different contexts, especially those elaborated on the basis of subaltern studies and postcolonial studies, it evaluates the problem of using an European conception of history and historiography as a basis for a global reflexion. By questioning the ways in which this historiographic practice of European matrix has travelled and has been appropriated in different contexts, we intend to explore the possibilities of using the center-periphery dynamic for the production of historical knowledge. The article also approaches a relevant question posited especially by the history of historiography that takes into account peripheral traditions: how to consider non-Western representations of the past (as those of indigenous cultures) in the light of a history of historiography, without establishing a hierarchy of knowledge that attributes to the European conception of history an "epistemic privilege", in the words of the Indian historian Sanjay Seth.
Keywords:
historiography; subaltern studies; center-periphery