Forhistóría

Forhistória is an interdisciplinary field that studies the construction, transmission, and evaluation of historical narratives that concern both the past and the future. It examines how societies remember what happened and how they imagine what may happen, including forecasts, prophecies, utopian and dystopian narratives, and the historiography surrounding these narratives.

Derived from for- (before) and historia (history) in several Iberian and Romance languages, the term signals an interest in the time layer before and after events as represented in discourse and records. The scope includes written sources—annals, prophecies, forecasts, journals—and oral traditions, as well as contemporary media that shape anticipatory cultures.

Researchers in Forhistória apply methods from historiography, literary and media analysis, comparative culture, and data-driven textual analysis. They investigate questions such as how predictions influence memory, how retrospective reinterpretations alter perceived outcomes, and how institutions curate anticipatory narratives.

Though the concept has no single canonical origin, scholars identify it as emerging from debates about futurism and historiography in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, with adoption across humanities and social sciences. It is often taught as a cross-disciplinary subsection of history, literature, and cultural studies.

Subfields include the historiography of futures, forecast literature studies, prophecy and memory, temporal ethics in narrative, and methodological reviews of predictive discourse.

Critics argue that Forhistória must distinguish between rhetorical use of future-oriented narratives and empirical evidence. Proponents contend that it provides insight into how societies shape and are shaped by their imagined temporal horizons, with relevance to policy, education, and cultural memory. See also historiography, futurism, and utopian studies.