historiografisk

Historiografisk, or historiographical in English, denotes the study of the writing of history, focusing on how historical knowledge is produced, organized, and interpreted rather than on past events themselves. It examines the methods, sources, narratives, and contexts that shape historical claims.

Historiography traces how historians have approached questions of evidence, reliability, and explanation. It covers shifts from early chronicle-based histories to modern critical methods, including positivist emphasis on documents, the long-term social focus of the Annales School, and later reflexive or postmodern approaches that interrogate authorship, perspective, and power. Contemporary historiography also engages with digital tools and quantitative analysis.

Key practices include source criticism, contextualization, and the construction of historiographical arguments. It assesses biases in sources, the influence of culture and ideology, and how historical narratives contribute to collective memory and identity. The study of historiography is central to public history, education, and the way societies remember and contest the past.

Many languages use similar terms; in Swedish the word is historiografisk, reflecting the same concept as historiography in English.