Historians and the possible uses of their knowledge: The contribution of the International Congresses of the History of America in the conformation of an American identity (decades of 1930-1960)

Abstract

The objective of this article is to reflect on the meanings and interpretations of the past built and enunciated in the historiographical field, but whose impact transcends the boundaries of the academic world to reverberate in other spaces. Congresses and scientific meetings are privileged means to approach these historiographical dimensions, especially those where the cognitive, scientific and pedagogical dimension of knowledge are conjugated with public intervention, politics or diplomacy. We will analyze the International Congresses of the History of America held in Buenos Aires between the decades of 1930-1960. In these congresses, historians, supported by the legitimacy of their knowledge, designed interventions in which history had a central place, contributing with historiographical arguments and reasons to establish some meanings about the American identity, about the past and the future of the continent and about its role in the international context.