Haptic history in Southeast Asia – archiving the past in bodies and landscapes

Abstract

Michel de Certeau (1988) argued that history as an academic practice is entangled with colonialism: Western powers write their own history while un-writing embodied traditions of Indigenous people they want to control. This contribution to indigenous global history and uses of history is an exploration of embodied history, drawing on lessons taught by indigenous experts in the Indonesian island Alor, a place where history is very present but not as written text. It draws also on observations from academic fields ranging from architecture to neuroscience. I suggest the concept ‘haptic history’ as a way to understand how history can be both internalised and externalised when contained in body and landscape. In this context, ‘haptic’ refers to the tactile senses that are active as we move through the physical environment. It is a way of orienting oneself in which touch overrides visual impressions. Haptic history is an experiential totality that comes with living in landscapes impregnated with stories from the past. We share this history-space with our predecessors, the ancestors who in the case of Alor are active agents in the present. Such ancestral presences contribute to a perception of time that in certain instances is collapsed into an ‘everywhen’, found also in Australian Aboriginal thought in Dreaming.