WE ARE OPENING RIHO-REVISTA INTERDISCIPLINAR DE HISTORIA ORAL

Dear colleagues,

We are pleased to present RIHO – Revista Interdisciplinar de Historia Oral, a new academic publication that aims to become a reference space for the study of orality, memory, and testimony in the Iberian context.

Its launch responds to a long-felt need. After the disappearance of Historia, Antropología y Fuentes Orales —HAFO—, the field of oral history was left for many years without a dedicated journal capable of continuing a fundamental intellectual tradition. HAFO played a decisive role in consolidating studies on oral sources, memory, experience, and testimony, and opened an essential path for several generations of researchers. RIHO seeks to recover that legacy, acknowledge its importance, and at the same time expand it through new questions, methodologies, and interdisciplinary perspectives.

Published by the Institute of Contemporary Studies, Politics and Governance and the Julio Caro Baroja Institute of Historiography, both at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, the journal is based on a clear conviction: oral sources not only broaden our knowledge of the past, but also require us to rethink the methods, languages, and frameworks through which we study it. Orality is not merely a documentary complement, but a privileged way of accessing lived experience, social memory, subjectivities, and the ways in which people narrate, interpret, and give meaning to their past.

At a time when academia calls for increasingly open, connected, and source-sensitive approaches, RIHO aims to be a meeting place for disciplines that work with orality as a central source. History, Anthropology, Sociology, Linguistics, Social Psychology, Cultural Studies, Digital Humanities, Archival Studies, and Heritage Studies all find here a common framework for dialogue, reflection, and experimentation.

The journal therefore seeks to give renewed momentum to a field with a strong international tradition, but one that still needs to strengthen its articulation in the Iberian Peninsula. RIHO is launched with the aim of encouraging methodological debates, disseminating original research, making archives and oral source projects more visible, and promoting critical reflection on the academic, social, and public uses of testimony.

We hope that this new stage will help to consolidate a plural, rigorous, and interdisciplinary research community around oral history, memory, and oral sources.

Best wishes,