Prof. Vella commented on bias by stressing that “perspective and bias are not exactly the same thing” and interpretations are “acceptable in history.” Dr. Fynn-Paul challenged that idea, speaking of group bias within the field of knowledge, media fashions, or political correctness that can determine “what is an acceptable agenda.” Prof. Vella concluded that it is necessary “to distinguish between academic history, published history, and social media history.” Dr. Wójcicka also added the concern about the authoritarian and semi-authoritarian regimes that “use history as a weapon to fight their inner and external foes.”
The following topic under discussion was awareness of the positionality of a researcher or educator. “Historiography and memory are in a way biased by nature,” argued Dr. Wójcicka, pointing to the multiple factors like family background, memory culture, or professional framework that could create biases or impact the interpretation. Dr. Fynn-Paul added that often students wrote their theses to prove some idea that they already had before. “I'm afraid that we're not teaching our students to think critically,” he noted. Prof. Vella shared some strategies to develop critical thinking towards bias that could be used in school history education by making students look at the same event through different sources and perspectives.
“I think we should send our students to follow up different methodologies,” developed this thought Dr. Gamage. Dr. Wójcicka followed to speak on the classical principles of controversiality, i.e., teaching history through encountering clashes in historical interpretation, and multiperspectivity, i.e., showing that there were different experiences of the same historical event. However, she noted that it was difficult to introduce these principles at school. Dr. Andreas Kahrs, present in the audience, underlined that one should be careful with applying categories of good and bad to historical events when it comes to working with controversial topics. “I don't teach if migration is good. Migration is a fact, and we teach the history of migration,” he said.
More voices from the audience followed, mentioning the issue of the legitimacy of some interpretations as well as researchers in connection to their background or the current agenda reinforced through the system of grants. “I make a distinction between successful science and good science,” stated Prof. Simon, speaking about the mainstream expectations. “Good science has always been done, from my perspective, in resistance to the mainstream,” he added. Dr. Wójcicka pointed to the “validation process” and “methodological discipline” that apply in historiography and constitute difference to memory.
After that, the discussion revolved around history politics and decolonization of memory. “Historians are shaped by cultural memory, and they are also actors shaping cultural memory,” stated Dr. Wójcicka, pointing out that historians have framework “to disarm conflicts by exposing simplifications and biases and showing that history is more complicated than that.” Dr. Gamage mentioned decolonization projects that are carried out in museums in Sri Lanka in order to “give opportunity to the misrepresented marginalized people” and “express our dignity and our culture, our society.” Prof. Vella noted that “in a democracy, all kinds of books should be allowed, all kinds of historical collective memory, even those which might be disagreeable.” Dr. Fynn-Paul spoke on the integrity and strive for objectivity, keeping historical interpretations “as close to the real facts as we can.”∎