Historicités du 20e siècle: Quelques jalons sur une notion // [Historicities of the 20th Century: Some markers on a concept]

Abstract
This text analyzes the definitions of the notion "historicities", explores how the social sciences in general and history in particular uses or could use it and considers what has been called "presentism". While the definition is not at all fixed, historicity can be understood as how the players of a society or a community fit their present into a history, how they think it as situated in a time that is not neutral but signifying, by the conception they have of it, the interpretations they give and the accounts they make of it. Historicity implies a moving and changing consciousness of the past and the future, shaped by the present. It is thus important to emphasize the plurality of types of historicities and thus of their coexistence. The forms of dominant historicities and the resistance that can be brought to bear on them must also be considered.