Use and misuse, manipulation and compilation of photographic images in History: methodological stalemate, accountability of researchers and master’s questioning

The use of photographic images in research work in the social sciences in general and history in particular shows epistemological and technical shortcomings in their manipulation and presentation. This general observation is made in the eleven departments of history that includes all public universities in Cameroon. Thus, the obsolescence and the lack of epistemological uniformity of the different methodologies developed in these departments of historical studies pose the problem of how to evaluate the relevance of photographic images in research work. This anxiety only has an effect on the young researcher. Having no formal well-groomed base to grip on, they make use of all the facilities, digital and innovative facilities for processing and manipulating images to meet the ideal requirement of potential evaluators. By the use of the hypothetic-deductive method, it turns out that, in the absence of professional methodological standards updated and adapted to new technologies, this situation makes the young researcher the sole copyright master of the images he proposes in the works. This hinders somewhat epistemological ideology of Cameroonian historiography. Hence the interest of the perspective of accountability, reflexivity, objectivity and honesty, defining features of young researchers in history in Cameroon.