Interpretative Challenges in the Archive: An Introduction

Abstract

Abstract The twenty-first century has already seen extensive handwringing over how disinformation, “fake news,” and conspiracy theories shape contemporary politics. While social media and new technologies have undoubtedly accelerated the dissemination of such information, the problem of how unauthorized, dubious, or discredited claims shape political subjectivities and historical events is not new. In Latin America and the Caribbean, as elsewhere, conflicts over credibility and truth abound in the historical archive, leaving traces of rumor, denunciation, and even outright forgery that pose interpretative challenges for historians. We argue that dubious or challenged claims, instead of unreliable narratives to be separated out and discarded, are an important constitutive part of the historical record and often altered material realities. Introducing readers to select historical cases from Latin America and the Caribbean, we argue that some especially resonant denunciations, forgeries, rumors, and counter-narratives behave less like plot than like event.