Happy Birthday IFPH Explorers: Five Years of Public History and Learning
Author: Jimena Perry, PhD. Assistant Professor, Iona University. Project Manager IFPH Explorers.
I would like to begin this reflection by expressing my deepest gratitude to everyone who has made the journey of IFPH Explorers possible. Since taking on the coordination of this initiative in 2018, my goal has been to build an open, inclusive, and collaborative space for rethinking and practicing public history from different corners of the world. When I started, IFPH Explorers was little more than a digital newsletter compiling public history updates. I could never have imagined that, five years later, it would evolve into an international platform with over 90 events—44 of them focused on Latin American experiences.
The first major shift came in 2020, when we began hosting monthly virtual gatherings. That same September, we held our inaugural session in partnership with colleagues from Ecuador, marking the beginning of a new chapter. Since then, the project has expanded in both reach and depth, fostering networks and forging collaborations that have allowed us to connect a wide range of public history practices grounded in critical, committed, and context-sensitive approaches.
A significant milestone was the three-day virtual conference we organized in May 2021, dedicated to digital communities, museums, and public history in Latin America. Scholars and practitioners from nine countries participated, and that collective effort led to the open-access publication Comunidades digitales, museos e historia pública in 2023.

We organized a dynamic three-day international, in-person conference in Cuenca, Ecuador, with the generous support of the University of Cuenca and the Max Planck Institute’s Transmedia HistoryTelling initiative. Participants from Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico came together for the event, titled Perspectivas de Historia Pública desde el Sur Global: Retos y Problemáticas de América Latina (Public History Perspectives from the Global South: Challenges and Issues in Latin America). Held from June 25 to 28 and enriched by a series of hands-on workshops, the gathering provided a space to reflect critically on the current state of public history across the region. Hosting the conference in Ecuador also held special meaning, as it marked a return to the country where the very first IFPH Explorers event was launched.

Over the years, we have also established meaningful partnerships with various organizations and networks, including the Max Planck Institute, Transmedia HistoryTelling, the Colombian Network for Urban History, Histories at Risk, and the History Communication Institute, which have enriched our work. In addition, Explorers is working on two thematic series: one on the history of right-wing movements in Latin America—with contributions from Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and Colombia—and another, developed with Transmedia HistoryTelling, featuring interviews with members of the Latin American Network for Public History (RedLAHP), founded in 2022.

Naturally, we have faced considerable challenges along the way. The most pressing has been the lack of financial resources. IFPH Explorers, like the Federation itself, operates without institutional funding. Everything we have achieved has been thanks to the voluntary commitment of those who believe in the project. I fully understand why many potential contributors have not been able to participate—especially those outside academia or based in underfunded contexts. Living in the United States, I have seen firsthand how many initiatives centered on diversity, memory, and justice are being defunded or excluded from grant opportunities. Still, I remain determined to seek solutions.
I believe wholeheartedly that history must be public. A historical narrative that does not engage with society, politics, or community is, to me, incomplete. At a time when right-wing ideologies are growing aggressively not only in Latin America but the whole world, and wars continue to claim lives globally, affirming the public dimension of historical practice is not only essential—it is urgent. Public history enables us to confront the present, reject neutrality as a form of avoidance, and amplify marginalized voices—women, racialized communities, rural populations, Indigenous peoples, and LGBTQAI+ individuals, among others.
Yet, the diversity we strive to uplift is also under attack. We are witnessing a surge in rhetoric that denies the value of difference and promotes authoritarian views of the past. How can we engage with those who hold radically opposing perspectives? It’s not about persuading or imposing a single truth, but about crafting languages that invite dialogue. Rather than trying to convert others, we aim to foster spaces for listening, accompaniment, and collective meaning-making. When public history becomes a vehicle for dogma, it risks replicating the very power structures it seeks to dismantle.
In this context, the Latin American Network for Public History has become an invaluable ally. This regional platform brings together individuals working across multiple settings—museums, classrooms, public spaces, and communities. It promotes critical, collaborative, and intersectional methodologies that challenge dominant narratives and bring historically overlooked experiences to the forefront. The network defends a grounded, participatory, and justice-oriented approach to historical practice.
Looking ahead, one of our key goals is to expand IFPH Explorers’ reach into regions where we have had limited engagement so far, such as Africa and Asia. We are also committed to strengthening our series on right-wing histories, extending it to broader global contexts. Just as importantly, we want to continue recognizing and including public history practitioners who operate outside academic institutions. History does not only live within universities, and we want to make that visible.
Another essential area of focus is the intersection of public history, technology, and education. Digital humanities and artificial intelligence, when used with ethical awareness and imagination, can transform how we share and engage with the past. Of the 90 events we have organized, only eight have touched on these tools—which shows how much more we need to explore. This interest is closely tied to one of our biggest questions: how do we teach history, and with what purpose? Teaching, for me, is one of the most powerful spaces for social transformation.
While I am proud of what we have achieved in these five years, I see this as just the beginning. Our ambition is to strengthen the foundation we have built, expand our networks, welcome diverse perspectives, and continue weaving a collective field of public history that is plural, ethical, engaged, and hopeful. We move forward with patience, knowing that real change takes time—but also with confidence that this work matters. And I truly hope that, five years from now, we will be able to look back and celebrate new milestones together.
Thank you for walking this path with us.

OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Bridging Editor (August 7, 2025). Happy Birthday IFPH Explorers: Five Years of Public History and Learning. IFPH-FIHP. Retrieved January 15, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/14guz
