The multiple history

Abstract

The evidence of the multiplicity in the descriptions of political events, mainly when they are generally well known, is stronger when it is revealed inside the same type of analytical framework: the same (or very similar) analytical models produce different basic narratives with the same political events. This evidence of a «multiple history» revealed itself spontaneously in the normal process of research and debate inside the Institute of Social Sciences, when some critical notes, written on the pretext of an article previously published by Manuel Braga da Cruz, were used to compare different descriptions of the same political events. The text that resulted from these notes was not originally conceived for a public audience and its style, colloquial and more irreverent than is advisable in this type or serious issues, shows that it was to remain a form of conversation between friends and colleagues. However, a final evaluation concluded that its publication could help to clarify the internal mechanism of analytical production about political relations.