ABSTRACT
Debates about the nature of knowledge have arisen from a variety of critical and cultural perspectives. Poststructuralist thought has influenced our conception of the very nature of 'history' itself, such as the assumption that the historical endeavour coheres around the retrieval of 'facts' which are, in themselves, 'true'. The postmodern attitude to the role of the 'author' has given rise to a questioning of the role of the historian, who is now seen not as neutral recorder of events but as active creator of them. Discourse theories have exposed how knowledge is constituted not by limited logocentric modes of engagement with the world but by a vast variety of influences; this calls into question the reliance
on written sources as privileged evidence for recreating the past. Cultural studies impacted on traditional thinking about the hierarchy of knowledge in which certain events are deemed more significant than others. Similarly, attacks on hisstory came from feminist writers who exposed the gendered nature of historical construction. In all, the gaps and silences in historical records have been exposed not as 'empty' or unworthy of research but as a product of culturally constructed, hierarchical perspectives on the 'what', 'who', 'when' and 'how' of the past.
