Knowledge Of Local History Research Articles

2013 Canadian Historical Association Presidential Address: On Local History and Local Historical Knowledge

This article considers two undervalued aspects of historical production — local history and local historical knowledge. It distinguishes between microhistory as carried out by professionals and local history as practised by vernacular historians, sometimes in collaboration with professionals. Relating his own experience with the genre of local history, the author highlights the importance of local historical knowledge as held and transmitted by community elders. His collaboration with the Elders of the Inuit community of Grise Fiord, Nunavut, is discussed as an illustration of its potential. The collaborative and dialogical character of local historical knowledge is further exemplified by folklorist Henry Glassie’s work with a small Northern Irish community. Noting current challenges of changing demographics, uprootedness and diaspora, the article considers how emerging communities and minorities are recreating new opportunities for local historical knowledge in Canada’s cities. Heeding the advice of senior Elders such as the late William Commanda of the Algonquin First Nation at Maniwaki, Quebec, the author asserts the importance of local historical knowledge to Canadians’ identities as members of communities with a common history, strengthening connections between people, past and present, and positioning us to better face the future.

Colonial Politics and Precolonial History: Everyday Knowledge, Genre, and Truth in a Yoruba Town

AbstractThis article suggests that colonial African historiography was shaped both by the textual forms and conventions associated with local historical knowledge and by the complex political interests which emerged under colonial rule. Based on a case study of two linked debates in the small Yoruba town of Ode Remo, the article argues that beyond narratives, local historical knowledge was also contained, sometimes opaquely, in a variety of other genres and practices. During the colonial period, traditionally segmented and distributed forms of knowledge were brought together in civic debates to constitute a more general history. But while historical accounts could be inflected under political pressure or even to reflect widespread local ambitions, the enduring presence of historical knowledge in textual forms used in everyday life meant that there nonetheless remained an overall sense of what was true within the community.

Neighbourhood maps: decentralized ranking in small‐world P2P networks

AbstractReputation in P2P networks is an important tool to encourage cooperation among peers. It is based on ranking of peers according to their past behaviour. In large‐scale real‐world networks, a global centralized knowledge about all nodes is neither affordable nor practical. For this reason, reputation ranking is often based on local history knowledge available on the evaluating node. This criterion is not optimal, since it ignores useful data about interactions with other peers. In our approach, evaluations of past history create recommendations between nodes, that will be used to form a network called web of trust. Under the assumption that the web of trust has the ubiquitous small‐world property, we propose a simple, scalable and decentralized method, called ‘neighbourhood maps’, which approximates rankings calculated using link‐analysis techniques, exploiting the short‐distance characteristics of small‐world networks. We test our algorithms using data from the OpenPGP web of trust, a real‐world network of trust relationships, and by developing a simple simulation of a file‐sharing network using an evolutive approach. Our results show that it is sufficient to have maps having size $O(\sqrt{n})$, where n is the size of the network, in order to have good results. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Tradisi lisan, naskah, dan sejarah Sebuah catatan politik kebudayaan

Tradition can be seen from two different perspectives, those of literacy (writing system) and of oral tradition. Recently, some intellectuals have shown interest in oral tradition as academic study in some universities. Oral tradition is not supposed to be seen merely as part of the past and a cultural entity of no importance. This paper describes the two traditions of oral literature and manuscript writing as a basis for local historical knowledge and records of cultural politics. The discussion will be more about the content of tradition that is related to the history of cultural politics than a historical observation.

ROY O. LINDSETH

Roy Lindseth has little regard for parochial thinking; it obscures the view — quite clear to him — of the world as one. That every part of it, every people, fascinate him is patent in his knowledge of local history, art, customs, and much more in places several jet‐lag hours away from home. Whether in London, Buenos Aires, or Beijing, Lindseth finds his bearings as assuredly as he does in Calgary. And even there, his daily routine mirrors his internationalism.

Disputes, their conduct and their settlement in the village communities of eastern Brittany in the ninth century

There were formal and informal means for the settlement of disputes within the village communities of ninth‐century eastern Brittany, although both depended essentially on local knowledge of local history and on confidence in the good faith of those with the knowledge. Reference was not made to written law, nor sets of customs, nor principles; the answer to all problems was seen to lie in the past, and all problems were assumed to have an answer. Where the procedure was formal and the meeting presided over by some official, presidents do not appear to have determined the outcome; judgment was made and due settlement assessed by panels of ‘suitable’ local men. Peasant communities sometimes became involved in the disputes of high politics, through the property interests of more substantial landowners. In these cases the means of arriving at a judgment and the procedure of expressing it often differed: though local knowledge might be cited, cases were usually heard by the ruler, who then both judged and dete...

Services éducatifs et enseignement élémentaire. La solution «archivobus » aux Archives de l'Orne

Educational services in archives and primary teaching : the " Archivobus " solution at the Archives of Orne, Alençon. For nearly 30 years, archives services in France have taken initiatives for the diffusion among schoolchildren of the documentary heritage in their keeping. As a rule, the pedagogical tools used by the Archives Educational Services — i.e. exhibitions, documentary publications, audio-visual productions — , are more adapted to the pupils of secondary schools, although the younger children in primary schools are, as soon as they begin to be able to read, a receptive public apt to assimilate thoroughly the notions they acquire. An original solution for an itinerant intervention has been experimented at the Archives of Orne, Alençon, in the form of an " Archivobus akin to the spirit of Bibliobuses and Museobuses. In a very rural area, where people suffer from a certain cultural isolation, the Archivobus permits to bring " at home " an animation based on the knowledge of local history.

Social Media and Community Involvement in Museums. A case study of a local history wiki community

The article focuses on a study of knowledge creation and organizing in a local history wiki. The background for this study was to understand how web 2.0 and social media might open new possibilities for museums to collaborate with communities and lay professionals in cultural heritage knowledge creation. Digital technologies provide tools that in many ways overcome challenges of physical collaboration between museums and amateurs. But technologies also bring in new aspects of ordering, categorizing and systematizing knowledge that illuminates the different institutional as well as professional frameworks that writing local historical knowledge into digital forms in fact represents.