Transmedia HistoryTelling: rethinking methods and communicative practices in the field of legal history
Completed Research Project
Transmedia HistoryTelling (2021–2026) was a research project that explored new ways of doing and communicating legal history. By adapting the concept of transmedia storytelling to academic research, the project examined how different media formats can reshape historical inquiry and foster stronger connections between academia and society.
The project developed along three interconnected lines:
- Expanding formats for communicating legal-historical research
- Reflecting on the relationship between media and scholarly practice
- Strengthening dialogue between academia and broader publics
Key Outputs
1. Transmedia Legal HistoryTelling
A video series in which doctoral researchers and faculty members presented their projects in accessible formats across digital platforms. The series promoted multimodal dissemination of legal-historical knowledge and reached audiences beyond traditional academic settings.
2. Transmedia HistoryTelling Live
The initiative created a space for methodological reflection and interdisciplinary dialogue. It brought together scholars working with diverse narrative formats – digital platforms, comics, virtual reality, graphic history, and other media – to discuss how the use of diverse media influence research design and historical interpretation.
Conversations were initially conducted with Spanish-speaking scholars, primarily from Latin America, and later (from 2023 onward) expanded to include interviews in English, German and Portuguese, broadening the project’s international scope.
A YouTube micro-series based on Karla Escobar´s doctoral research on Indigenous legal practices in Cauca (Colombia), 1880–1938. The series translated specialized research into an accessible audiovisual narrative format. The dissertation will be published in 2026 in the collection Global Perpectives on Legal History.
4. Collaborative Research Outputs
Collaborative and participatory research practices formed a central component of the project.
The graphic history Camino y ruptura: una historia gráfica de las prácticas jurídicas indígenas en el Cauca, published by Ediciones Uniandes, was developed in collaboration with Colombian artists.
This publication was accompanied by the Quintinada Muralista, a series of reading and art workshops held in universities and Indigenous communities in Colombia. These activities created spaces for dialogue between academic research and community-based knowledge production.
The video A Video by Many Hands: Memory, Law, and Nationhood was conceived as a collective reflection on the toppling of statues carried out in the name of Derecho Mayor. The video provided a space for shared analysis of a contemporary moment. The reflections that emerged from this collaborative process later informed the scholarly article Indigenous Law and Social Mobilization: A History of the Concept of Derecho Mayor in Cauca (Colombia).
In its final phase, the project expanded into the videocast Chispa, opening a new channel for sustained reflection on the methods of legal history grounded in researchers’ experiences.
Impact and Legacy
Over its five-year duration (2021–2026), the project fostered participatory research methods, interdisciplinary collaboration, and innovative forms of historical narration. It contributed to a rethinking of the social role of legal history and strengthened connections between academic research and contemporary social concerns.
All materials produced during the project – including videos, interviews, publications, and pedagogical resources – remain available on the website Otra historia ya existe.
Although the project formally concluded in 2026, Chispa continues as an independent videocast, and Transmedia HistoryTelling remains active as an autonomous platform for research and experimentation.