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MAIRI COWAN: My name is Mairi Cowan, I'm an associate professor in the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Toronto Mississauga.

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I am a historian of the mediaeval and early modern world, with specialisations in the histories of Europe and early colonial North America. I have done research especially in later mediaeval Scotland,

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17th century New France, and my latest book called The Possession of Barbe Hallay: Diabolical Arts and Daily Life in Early Canada is a microhistory of a case of bewitchment in 17th century new

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France. Microhistory is an approach to the past that looks at something very small, but then asks big questions about it.

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So a historian doing a microhistorical investigation chooses a topic that at first seems quite small. And the historian uses as many sources as they can to explain this topic in as much detail as

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possible. But then the historian uses what they have learned to understand bigger historical forces. So for example, in the microhistorical book

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that I wrote, I was examining a case of suspected demonic possession that lasted for just a few years in a small town in North America. And as I was investigating this case,

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I was finding details about the people involved. Who was thought to be possessed? Why people thought she was possessed? Who was blamed for the possession?

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What their daily lives were like living through this event. As I was researching these details, I was also asking much bigger questions about the colonial project in North America.

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So, what I was really interested in a way was, how did this generation of French colonists in New France view themselves and their society as an earlier generation's ideals for the colony

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was receding from view? And they found themselves in a very precarious position. I use all kinds of primary sources in my research, pretty much whatever I can find and interpret to understand

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the subject of my study. I have used the records from the royal household in mediaeval Scotland to understand what the experiences of mediaeval children were like.

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I have used the chronicle of a major battle to understand people's devotions to saints. I have used poetry to understand people's fear of death. I have used embroideries from the 16th century

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to study national allegiances. I have used music from the 16th century to understand religious change over the reformation. I have used letters from a nun to try to discern what rumours

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were floating around in a small town. And I have used oral history from different perspectives to try to understand what people thought about the founding of Quebec.

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So I have used a lot of different kinds of primary sources. And when I'm using them in microhistory, I try to be very, very clear with my readers

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what sources I have, how I'm using them, what I don't yet understand, and what sources we might still be looking for. When I am locating sources, I am pretty much always relying on the help of others.

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Sometimes this help is direct. I might go to a library or an archive and talk to a librarian or archivist about the topic of my research and use their expertise

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to bring me to sources that will be useful to me. Or sometimes. I contact my colleagues at my institution or at another university, and discuss my topic with them

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and hope that they can point me toward useful sources. Sometimes the help is a little less direct. If I am beginning a project, I will find some other historian's books or articles on a related

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topic, and I check their notes and their bibliographies to see what sources they have used. Then I follow in these historians footsteps to find the sources for myself, and consult

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them to see if they will be helpful for my project. I find often, in fact, my research projects start with a single primary source. I come across a source on my own that for some reason really

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captures my curiosity. And I want to know more and more and more about the source, and then the source grows into its own research project. Every archive is different and each archive

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does things in its own way. So, before I go to an archive, I try to learn as much as I can about its own culture. Many archives, especially the small ones,

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are only open a few days a week or a few hours a day, and it might be important to reserve a spot ahead of time. Many archives require that special permission be sought and granted before getting access to the material,

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so that can take some time too. Once I'm in the archive, I'm careful to follow its own rules, which may include what I can and cannot bring into the reading room, and whether I'm allowed to take

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photographs of the documents. Regardless of the rules of the individual archive, I try to be really, really careful to take good notes, thorough notes.

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And also to note not only what I find in the sources, but also where the source itself is located within the archive. I need to know the code so I can cite it properly. I need to know--

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or I would like to know what else is in the archive, in case I want to find things I didn't know were there when I arrived. And I try to pay attention to what isn't in the archive.

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What the archive may not have preserved. Increasingly, archives are putting their collections online too, which is wonderful. It allows a much wider accessibility for researchers.

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We can look at their collection from our office, from our home, from wherever we are. But even if we are looking at the sources online, it's important that we follow the rules of the archive

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and that we keep careful note of what we find and where we find it. Using sources responsibly means fundamentally reading the source for what is actually there,

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rather than imposing our own expectations on it, and understanding as best we can, the context in which the source was created. We use sources as evidence in history.

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We use sources to build up an argument we want to make about how to understand the past. So, rather than have that argument in mind, and try to force it onto the sources, it's much better,

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it's much more honest to withhold your judgement until you've seen the sources. Try to see what the sources say and let the evidence build your argument.

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If you find evidence that seems to contradict the argument you are forming, the responsible thing to do is either to change your argument in light of the evidence, or explain

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why the evidence doesn't actually undermine your argument. That is much more honest. It's a much more--

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it's history with integrity to do it that way, rather than to pretend you haven't seen inconvenient evidence. So that's part of using sources responsibly.

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Do your best to find all the evidence you can and be honest about what the evidence actually tells you. Be as faithful as you're able to be to the historical record. But that's not easy.

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And evidence can often be confusing. Often somebody wrote something in a source in the past that they may be expected someone in their own time to understand, but has become confusing to us

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because so much time has passed between their own period and ours. And this is why it's also important to understand the context in which the sources were created.

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For that, we can reach out for help. We can read books and articles by historians who are experts in the period who may be able to explain to us the context in which that source

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was created. Who wrote the source and why? What were they expecting readers of their time to get from it? We can also look for additions of sources that are reliable.

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Usually, or at least often, students are not looking at the original primary source in an archive themselves. They're looking at somebody's edition of the source.

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They're looking at a book or an online version that a historian has put together. Often with helpful notes, notes explaining what difficult words mean or what

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passages might be confusing. Perhaps, what is missing from the source. And a responsible editor may also have given us an introduction to help guide us

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into how to read the source in a way that the original creator of the source would have understood. So all of this is to say that using sources responsibly means, pay attention to what the source actually

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says, don't force it to conform to what you would like it to have said, and do the best you can to understand why and how the source was created in the first place.

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Some sources are created by people who have very strong opinions, for or against what they are writing about. Some sources definitely have a bias.

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If you detect a bias in the source, it does not mean that you can or should discard the source entirely. There are several things you can do if you think you see a bias.

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One thing is, you steer clear of that bias in the source. You try to determine where the source is biassed, but where it may not be biassed. Where it may be able to give you a more objective

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picture of what you are seeking to understand, so you can steer clear of the bias and still use the source. A second possibility is you study the bias itself. It is important for us to understand

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the bias of the past and the present, and so the source if it has a bias, is an excellent authority on that very bias. You can make the bias the focus of your study.

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The third and final possibility is, you acknowledge that your source has a bias, and then you find other sources to provide different perspectives.

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And through that, you may have a more balanced picture of the past. Usually, when we're reading sources for the first time, we're reading them with the grain,

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meaning we are reading them to try to understand what the creator of the source wanted us to understand. Sometimes though, we can read sources in a different way

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to get at what the original author may not have wanted us to see. We are reading against the grain. If we are reading against the grain,

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we are looking for contradictions, and assumptions, and silences in the source that may allow us to see something not intended by the first author.

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So for example, I have read a source against the grain in trying to understand the popular beliefs of people living in 12th century Glasgow. There was a visitor to 12th century Glasgow

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who walked around the streets and the lanes of the city to try to find out what people believed. And he was something of a hostile witness. He thought the people's beliefs were foolish and stupid.

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And I was not really interested in learning about foolish and stupid beliefs, I was trying to understand the deeper logic behind what people believed.

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So, I read the source against the grain. I looked at what this author was leaving unsaid, or what seemed contradictory in his presentation of the evidence.

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And I found that in spite of himself, he did transmit a pretty good account of what people believed. So when reading the source against the grain,

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I could reconstruct some of that belief. As another example, I was trying to understand how a group of nuns in 17th century Quebec were altering their traditions to make concessions

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to indigenous practises in the area. The sources left by the nuns were not announcing that they had done this, never mind why they had done this.

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So I had to read their sources against the grain. I had to look for what the nuns were not telling me in one source, although they may hint at it in another.

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And I had to look for inconsistencies, unexpected blips within the sources that I could then use to reconstruct the question I wanted to ask, rather than the question

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the source wanted to answer. Students and researchers working with sources produced in a colonial context need to remember that colonial context affects what gets recorded,

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how it gets recorded, and what survives. A colonial context is one in which many of our sources come from the colonisers, and they can write with a lot of authority about many of their own endeavours.

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But they often misunderstand, or even willfully misrepresent, what they see among the people they are trying to colonise. So we need to bear in mind that the sources generated by the colonisers, or by those favourable to the colonisers,

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are likely to be most interested in what favours colonisation. This does not mean we can't use the sources, but we should read them with some suspicion if we are trying to learn about the people or the land being

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colonised. The sources could be excellent sources for the motivations and the actions of colonisers, although even then, the sources may be very politically motivated to present only

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the best face of colonisation. So, when reading sources in a colonial context, we need to remember why certain things were being recorded and not others.

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Why certain records have survived and others were destroyed. And for the records that have survived, we have to remember why they might present history

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in a certain way. In a way favourable to colonisation, rather than neutral about colonisation. As with any sources, we need to be intelligent in how

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we interpret them.