Being Fair Towards the Dead? Historians and Power Relations in Research into Inquisitional Records

ZBÍRAL, David. Being Fair Towards the Dead? Historians and Power Relations in Research into Inquisitional Records. In Religion, Migration and Mutation, Liverpool, 3-6 September 2013. 2013.

Basic information

• Original name: Being Fair Towards the Dead? Historians and Power Relations in Research into Inquisitional Records
• Authors: ZBÍRAL, David (203 Czech Republic, guarantor, belonging to the institution).
• Edition: Religion, Migration and Mutation, Liverpool, 3-6 September 2013, 2013.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Presentations at conferences
• Field of Study: 60300 6.3 Philosophy, Ethics and Religion
• Country of publisher: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• RIV identification code: RIV/00216224:14210/13:00066311
• Organization unit: Faculty of Arts
• Keywords in English: inquisitional registers; inquisitional records; postcolonial scholarship; inquisition; cultural translation; research ethics
• Tags: rivok
• Tags: Reviewed

Abstract

This paper focuses on the question of whether historians, who essentially deal with long dead people, should nevertheless pay attention to fairness and symmetrical relations in research. I argue that fairness should not be dealt with as merely a matter of political correctness – unimportant where no real danger of the "objects" striking back at the scholar is perceived – but as having quite some epistemological significance. There are a handful of stimulating reflections on the ethics of research into inquisitional records and on analogies between the historian and the inquisitor (for example by Carlo Ginzburg, Renato Rosaldo and John H. Arnold) showing that ethical issues have to be dealt with seriously in this type of research, as the authentication of information in inquisitorial records by the scholar is in fact a way of empowering certain historical actors, often necessarily against others. This paper takes these reflections as its starting point and addresses some questions about the triangle of power relations being established between the inquisitor, the deponent, and the historian.

Links

• GAP401/12/0657, research and development project: Name: Prameny ke studiu nesouhlasných náboženských hnutí ve středověkém západním křesťanství se zaměřením na katarství

Investor: Czech Science Foundation, Sources for the Study of Dissenting Religious Movements in Western Medieval Christianity with Special Focus on Catharism