Voices, images and writings that recall the past: Methodology for the recovery of the indigenous historical memory of western Panama

Abstract

This paper will present the methodological experience developed at the National University of Costa Rica, with the purpose of contributing to the recovery of part of the historical memory of western Panama, specifically about the guaymi indigenous population in the period from 1880 to 1925. As it will be presented throughout these pages, the reconstruction of facts, subjects, ideas and processes has been conducted through a polyphony of voices, visions and sources that allowed us to approach this forgotten and blurred sector in the national history of Panama, but also of Costa Rica. This period of research is of great importance, as it proposed the foundations for the relationship that these sectors of the population will have with the Panamanian State and, later, with the Costa Rican State throughout the twentieth century.