Microhistory Approach Research Articles

The Japanese American incarceration and the origins of penology in California: A microhistory

AbstractThe history of academic criminology has been written at a macro‐scale from national and international perspectives. These histories rely on abstract concepts that overlook external events in the formation of criminology. Using a microhistory approach, this article explores the origins of the penology programme established at the Police School of San José State University. Willard Schmidt started the programme in 1946 based on his experience as director of security police at Tule Lake prison camp, a site for incarceration of Japanese Americans during the Second World War. The discussion examines August Vollmer's role in founding the Police School and his opposition to the incarceration, Schmidt's activities at Tule Lake, and how this shaped the first penology programme in California.

Media Framing of Refugees in Switzerland: Taking a Microhistory Approach

Media Framing of Refugees in Switzerland: Taking a Microhistory Approach

The ‘silver thread’: Hazel Hunkins-Hallinan (1890–1982), the Six Point Group, and new understandings of intergenerational female activism in England, 1960s to 1980

ABSTRACT Focussing on the life-long activism of former suffragette and feminist Hazel Hunkins-Hallinan this article presents an innovative re-appraisal of histories of the women’s movement in England during the 1960s and 1970s. Adopting a micro-history approach the article uses Hunkins-Hallinan’s experience of feminist activism to make two connected arguments. The first is to challenge the suggestion that post-suffrage feminist societies such as the Six Point Group lost their ability to participate in and influence campaigns for gender equality into the second half of the twentieth century. The second is to ensure that the contributions made by older women to the women’s movement during the 1960s and 1970s are no longer obscured by the emergence of the Women’s Liberation Movement. Drawing on both arguments the article reveals the previously hidden co-operation and intersection between older and younger generations of women campaigning for women’s rights during these two pivotal decades.

The Pivotal Significance of Sociocultural Demarcations in Shaping and Upholding the Ethnic Identity of the Deported Meskhetians (Exemplified in the Context of South Georgia)

The article delves into an intricate exploration of the function, significance, and intrinsic characteristics defining social, cultural, and ethnic demarcations, pivotal in shaping the self-perception of the deported Meskhetians. Despite the prevailing consensus emphasizing the pivotal role of historical memory, territorial associations, interconnected emotions, and collective trauma in shaping the identity of the deported Meskhetians, empirical studies underscore the substantial role played by social and cultural boundaries. These boundaries stand as equally significant mechanisms, fostering the preservation of the identity of this community vis-à-vis other ethnic or social groups. A consensus prevails regarding the manifestation of these boundaries, often characterized by unique markers, symbolic representations, specific attributes, or momentous events. The existence of such resemblant boundaries exerts a profound influence on the attitudes, interrelations, and mutual understandings between individuals and discrete groups, thereby exerting a substantial impact on self-perception. The empirical foundation supporting precise assertions and deductions emanates from comprehensive field studies carried out among the deported Meskhetians domiciled in South Georgia. The inquiry into the identity quandary of repatriates is approached from diverse angles, employing a spectrum of methodologies such as the micro-history approach, biographical-narrative interviews, in-depth interviews, and life history analysis. A comparative method was instrumental in juxtaposing and analyzing data sourced from distinct target groups, enabling the correlation of discerned disparities with varying experiences and historical recollections. Specifically, 44 participants spanning various ages and diverse life experiences underwent interviews. The amassed information was meticulously sifted through, considering parameters such as the respondent's age, ethnic background, gender, direct or tangential association with memories linked to the deportation episode. The primary trends influencing the trajectory of identity establishment or preservation, as delineated within the empirical data, were methodically extracted and isolated. The scrutiny of the acquired data revealed striking disparities in how interviewees perceive their own ethnic identity. Equally apparent were discrepancies in the local community's attitudes towards them and their interpretation of the interviewees' ethnicity. Notably, confirmation emerged regarding the existence of specific social and cultural boundaries within the internal dynamics of the deported Meskhetian community. Yet, as expected, conspicuous cultural and social distinctions surfaced between the deported Meskhetians and the local population, emphasizing unequivocal separations. The contention is posited that the distinctiveness of these boundaries is shaped by several factors. Specifically, the respondent's stance concerning ethnic heritage within their internal group, the diverse traditions prevalent within the Georgian ethnic group, anticipation of potential risks inherent in the Armenian ethnic group, and the accrued experiences from intergroup relations collectively contribute to this delineation. The overarching outcomes of the research are deliberated within the realm of prevailing theories pertaining to identity. The assertion is made that the pivotal determinants shaping the self-perception of the deported Meskhetians primarily align within the constructivist theory framework.

The shop at ‘the head of the Town-Dock, at the Corner of Wing’s Lane’: commercial space in Colonial Boston, 1758–1769

ABSTRACT Nearly thirty years ago, Richard Bushman argued that ‘somewhere in their makeup, even small shops bore the seeds of mighty changes.’ In the three decades since Bushman’s claim, historians and material culture scholars have demonstrated that Anglo-American colonists were thoroughly enmeshed in the so-called ‘consumer revolution’ and the importance of consumer spaces to that process. However, because few colonial shops survive, the ‘makeup’ of eighteenth-century retail spaces – their layout and design, and the influence of these on consumer practices – has not been fully understood, particularly for pre-Revolutionary Boston. Weaving together textual fragments and surviving material objects, this article re-materializes and re-populates the shop where the middling merchant-shopkeeper Samuel Abbot worked between 1758 and 1769 and contextualizes it in reference to both colonial and metropolitan British spaces. Taking a micro-history approach, this article contributes to the literature on the physical spaces in which goods changed hands in colonial North America by adding Boston to studies of colonial retail spaces.

קיבוץ ניצנים במלחמת העצמאות: ההיבט האנושי

In this study, I examine new aspects regarding the state of Kibbutz Nitzanim during the First Arab-Israeli War. Based on a microhistory approach of bottom-up and inside-out research, this article sheds light on the day-to-day reality in the Kibbutz, which included enthusiastic work and anxiety; feelings of discrimination and pride; bitterness and elation; all woven together to reflect people's natural – and occasionally touching – reactions. Most surviving documents of that time, such as official letters, journals, telegrams, and personal memoires, can be found at the Massuah Archive, the IDF and Defense Establishment Archives, and the Kibbutz Archive, and these have been the basis of my study. This archival material, as well as the nature of the connections that kibbutz members had with each other and themselves, shed light on the relations they formed with the enforcements, the regional brigade (Givati), and the political-security establishment. These relations deeply affected the spirit of Nitzanim residents during the siege and played a big part in determining the results of the battle over the position. Over the years, many profound discussions were held over the 1948 battle of Nitzanim. Thus far, this dispute over the reasons for the fall of Nitzanim and who was to blame for it, has left out a description of the 'simple people's' daily lives in the kibbutz. In this article, I aim to mend this. According to my findings, ordinary life (during this emergency) was highly influential and affected the endurance of soldiers there. For example, we can find descriptions of shows of leadership and solidarity alongside disciplinary infractions and despair. This polarity would eventually be conducive to the downfall of Kibbutz Nitzanim, which was captured on June 7th, 1948.

The Experience of a Frontier Man Who Weaves into His Historical Literary Production

This paper examines the parallels between two books: Il male viene dal Nord and Quando Dio uscì di chiesa by Fulvio Tomizza. Although the books appear quite distinct at first glance, one being a historical novel and the other prompting discussions among researchers regarding its literary genre, both share a common theme—the experiences of frontier individuals. These works portray Istrian Lutherans from the 16th century and are linked through the character of Koper’s bishop Vergerio. Vergeri’s life mirrors the plight of twentiethcentury Istrians who faced exile. The persecution, imprisonment, and forced exodus endured by Istrian Lutherans echo the trials faced by individuals like the narrator’s father in the 20th century, following the Second World War. Set in the Istrian peninsula, a place marked by conflicts between Latins, Slavs, and Germans according to Živko Nižić, the story captures the struggles of these groups. Tomizza, through his micro-history approach, pays homage to minority populations residing in border regions, illustrating the violence they endured across history. As a frontier man himself, Tomizza profoundly comprehends their suffering, skillfully weaving this experience into a tapestry of high-quality literature that has earned international acclaim.

Şeyhülislamlık Arşivi Evrakı ve Binalarının Serencâmı

The Ottoman Empire made the Shaykh al-Islam an institution, inherited from the previous Islamic states. The institution, which had existed since the foundation of the state, was moved to a fixed and detached place with the abolition of the Janissary Corps in 1826. With its transfer to the Aga Gate in 1827, the fatwa service was also carried out in this place, and in 1836 it was moved to the Bab al-Meshihat, where the kazasker (military judge) and the Istanbul Qadi (judge) Fatwahana (fatwa office) were located. This institution, which formed the Ottoman Ilmiye class and the religious bureaucracy, in the historical process it has been called by various names such as "Shaykh al-Islam," "Bab al-Mashihat," "Bab al-Fatwa," "Ilmiye Department," "Mashihat," "Mashihat Department," Mashihat Office,” “Mashihat al-Islamiyyah,” “Fatwahana” and “Fatwahana al-Ali.” After the Tanzimat, the Shaykh al-Islam Institution, along with others, took its place in the bureaucratic structure of the state and was organized systematically. The institution, which had been operating with its religious, legal, and educational units in the historical process, had carried out the duties of the Presidency of Religious Affairs, the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of National Education. Then it transferred some of its obligations, authorities, and responsibilities to the newly established ministries due to the changes in the state structure in 1900-1924. The Meshihat Archive, which contains the scientific heritage of Shayk al-Islam Institution, is the most valuable resource that carries the bureaucratic structure, organizational system, and official correspondence, namely the diplomacy of the institution. The architectural structure of the institutional buildings, the bureaucratic structure of the institution, and its functioning have survived to the present thanks to these documents. In this study, the spatial adventure witnessed by the Bab al-Meshihat during the transition from Shayk al-Islam to the Istanbul Mufti and the fate of 5,454 registers and over one million documents in the Shayk al-Islam Archive were discussed in detail. Methodologically, the study was based on the microhistory approach. With the microhistory approach, which means clarifying the lived events based on the details, the journey of the Meshihat Authority and the archive documents to the present has been revealed, particularly the records of the Shayk al-Islam archive. As a result, it has been determined that the archive registers and documents have not reached the present due to the fire, repair, renovation, and restorations of the Meshihat Authority, which had a vast organizational structure, including committee of fatwas, religious edicts, the council of juridical investigations, office of student affairs and student welfare council, council for the examination of manuscripts and religious texts, the council of religious scholars, correspondence department, academic affairs department, orphan funds, and treasury directorate, personnel directorate, civil registry directorate, archives directorate, supreme medical bureau for issuing fatwas, sharia courts, various committees, and madrasahs. Additionally, it has been explained that most of the archive resources were destroyed due to the overthrow of some of the Shayk al-Islam buildings and the burning of some after 1924.

‘They Died from Misadventure and Accident’: Learning from our Missing Ancestral Failures

White ethnics have fashioned a valorizing narrative of hard-working ancestors playing by the rules and ‘making it.’ This narrative distinguishes between ‘us’ and parasitic ‘them’ (today’s marginalized non-white migrants) in a highly selective fashion. What if we interrogate the universality of the Ellis Island saga? Recovering stories of forgotten people, immigrant ‘failures,’ by applying Carlo Ginzburg’s microhistory approach, reveals many victims in early 1900s America. This paper interrogates these gaps in my maternal grandpa’s family, the Albaneses of Newark. My grandpa had an older sister (born in Italy) only everyone swears there was no Maria, even though there she is in the 1910 census, 19-year-old lamp-factory worker. Then I discovered in November 1910, there was a horrible Aetna Lamp Factory fire, two blocks from their home. This fire resulted in 27 deaths, three months before the better-known Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Was this why Maria disappeared? Another sister fled an abusive husband, only to be threatened with prosecution under the Mann Act for crossing state lines for ‘immoral purposes.’ Then there was brother Ben, riding freight cars for years before ending up in an L.A. flophouse. Other invisible immigrants appear in brief newspaper notices, as of a 19-year-old striker shot in the back by Pinkertons, or runaway men whose photos called out from the ‘gallery of missing husbands.’ Revealing industrial-age microhistories of loss and trauma can (potentially) resurrect empathy toward today’s migrants or remind us of the hefty blood price capitalism exacted from workers, in 1910 no less than 2023.

“A Holy Experiment”: Medical Mission Sisters or how Women Religious within the Catholic Church became Doctors*

Drawing on archival sources and adopting a microhistory approach that pays attention to “hidden transcripts,” this article aims to fill a gap in the scholarship on Catholic women and medical missions by analysing the largely overlooked contribution of two women doctors, Agnes McLaren and Anna Dengel, in professionalising the healing ministry of the Catholic Church. In 1925, Dengel founded an international religious congregation, the Society of Catholic Medical Missionaries, with the goal of providing professional health care to women in British India at a time when Church law still forbade Sisters to practise the full scope of medicine. Focusing on the years leading up to the Society's foundation and its early days in India, I highlight the multilayered context of their “holy experiment,” the various hierarchies and discourses within which they operated, and the ways in which as European Catholic women religious they negotiated with the Church patriarchy. Focusing on and advancing a nuanced approach to female religious agency, I demonstrate how their complex marginal positionality vis‐à‐vis both Church hierarchy and British colonial establishment made them paradoxical players whose very terms of subordination gave them possibilities for agency and self‐determination. My analysis of their motivations, ideas, and self‐understanding challenges the standard postcolonial critique of medical missions.

Stigma, shame and family secrets as consequences of mental illness in previous generations: A micro-history approach.

In this article we evaluate micro-history as a method for investigating the meaning of stigma, shame and family secrets through generations. We present micro-histories of two Australian soldiers who developed mental illness years after serving in World War 1 and were committed to a psychiatric hospital where they died. Data were drawn from publicly available records and interviews with family members. The contrasting stories held by the families of each man illustrate the transmission of stigma and secrets through families. We explore possible reasons for the differences between the families related to the wider literature on stigma and mental health and show why the family stories people present should be considered social constructions rather than facts. We also address ethical issues that arose during the research, and which have relevance for researchers investigating sensitive or potentially stigmatising topics.

From POW to Cold War DP: A Global Microhistory of Former Yugoslav Soldiers in Occupied Germany, 1946–48

AbstractThere are still many historical blind spots in research on Europe's displaced persons (DPs) after the Second World War. In particular, there are relatively few studies that link microhistorical perspectives on repatriation and resettlement with global contexts. This essay addresses this gap, in empirical as well as methodological terms, by focusing on a group of DPs that hitherto has received little attention from scholars: former members of the Royal Yugoslav Army, whom the Nazis had taken to Germany as prisoners of war (POWs). Classified as DPs after 1945, they lived in camps administered by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) and the International Refugee Organization (IRO). Under the circumstances, they continued to maintain military-like routines and fiercely refused repatriation. This was partly an expression of loyalty to the exiled Yugoslav king, Peter II. But it also mirrored the fears of DPs about—and resistance to the idea of—being returned to their homeland in the context of the early Cold War. Using the example of a DP camp in Bad Aibling (Upper Bavaria), this article connects Yugoslav DPs, Allied DP politics, and the interests of Tito's government, as well as the interventions of international relief agencies. It shows how some DPs adroitly subverted the international logic of DP self-governance as promoted by UNRRA. A global microhistory approach thus reveals how local actors and sites are shaped by, but also foundationally constitutive of, global regimes of migrational self-governance.

Theorizing with Microhistory

Management and organization studies have long been interested in the social contexts and enduring consequences of individual and collective action. Yet empirically observing both the situated nature of actions and their ultimate consequences remains challenging. In this paper, we describe microhistory as a complementary approach to grounded and longitudinal studies that reconciles situated action in time with its broader consequences over time. Microhistorical research involves the reflexive use of dual temporal frames: a microtemporal frame suited for an empirically grounded study of individuals in time and a macrotemporal frame accounting for processes of continuity and change in social structures over time. We describe the epistemology, method, and form inherent in theorizing with microhistory and consider its potential for management researchers. Microhistory's approach, we recognize, is well-suited to several phenomena that remain elusive to contemporaneous and longitudinal studies. For example, exceptional normal actions, unintended consequences, non-linear and emergent processes, contingent process, and unobserved or inconceivable processes. Finally, we consider how microhistory's reflexive temporality offers management scholars opportunities to situate ourselves and our own theorizing in time and to account for their evolving consequences over time.

The War at the Workplace: Calcutta's Dockworkers and Changing Labour Regime, 1939–1945

AbstractThe upheavals of World War II prepared a new labour regime in twentieth-century India, in employers’ chambers, government offices, and in the newly established Labour Department, but as crucially, at the workplace and on the shop floor. This article studies the case of Calcutta port, an important military port in Southeast Asia after the fall of Singapore and Rangoon, where the complex historical processes resulting from the war generated an unprecedented impetus for the transformation of the labour regime. It examines the powerful impact and dynamics of the war at two levels: at the level of long-run changes in the work organization, and, through a microhistory approach, at the level of workers’ everyday wartime experiences. Under wartime exigencies, the employers introduced ad hoc, piecemeal, but significant reforms – food rations, bonuses, higher wages, housing provisions, and regularization of employment – that were more extensive than originally conceived of and proved to be irreversible, and, ultimately, cracked open a labour regime based on casual labour. The focus on workers’ experiences shows us how the measures designed for stabilization and efficiency proved to be profoundly unsettling in the context of dramatic events that pervaded the workplace. In the shadows of the war, workers and employers experienced a balance of forces in flux. Labour relations were marked by anticipations, hostility, tensions, and, increasingly, sharpness of conflict. The article argues that, by the end of the 1940s, the employers and the state had overcome an industrial relations crisis through nothing less than a restructuring of port labour relations, creating a highly regulated “formal sector” with significant welfare provisions.

Социально-культурный и политический облик волостных сообществ в 1917-1918 гг. На материалах Шенкурского уезда Архангельской губернии

The article attempts to reconstruct socio-cultural and political image of a particular local community formed in a specific life environment, which influenced the behavior patterns of the population in the period of radical transformation. Analysis of the problem promotes a profound understanding of diverse revolutionary processes of 1917. The paper draws heavily upon microhistory approach with its interrelations of cultural and social contexts. According to the approach, the historic events on both individual and local levels become subjects of research. The study draws on materials of parish communities of the Shenkursk uezd of the Arkhangelsk gubernia, reflecting social, economic, cultural, and mental features of the typical northern periphery and also traditional agricultural region of Central Russia. In the days of the Civil War, the Shenkursk uezd was the epicenter of armed struggles between Bolsheviks and anti-Bolsheviks. The source base consists of published and unpublished materials. The archival sources are retrieved from the fonds of the Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the Communes Union of the Northern Region (Central State Archive of St. Petersburg) and from the fonds of the Shenkursk Uezd Executive Committee of Workers’ and Peasants’ Deputies (State Archive of the Arkhangelsk region).The authors conclude that multiple factors influenced the perception of the ongoing revolutionary processes and choosing of the behavior patterns during the Revolution and the Civil War: economic activities, social status, age, educational background, political beliefs. Yet, pragmatic approach to life, inherent to their outlook, forced peasants to adapt their behavior to the rapidly changing environment. The research indicates that the rural population of the Shenkursk uezd, boasting high socio-cultural characteristics, was notable for their political involvement in the revolutionary processes of 1917–18. Political preferences of the population were multifaceted; they changed throughout the time, thus revealing the whole complexity of objective and subjective factors of the revolutionary process in Russia.

Centro Acadêmico da Escola de Enfermagem de Ribeirão Preto: 1953-1954

Abstract Objective to analyze the beginning of the student movement, through the creation of the Academic Center of the School of Nursing of Ribeirão Preto, a representative body of the student segment, and the actions developed during the first board. Method study from a historical perspective, with a Micro-History approach and documental analysis to treat the sources, with a temporal delimitation from 1953 to 1954. Results documentary sources were found in paper support and interviews carried out with graduates of the course. The creation was founded on December 17, 1953. During the period investigated, the entity promoted leisure and sports activities, actions to recruit and improve the school's visibility, communicated with other student organizations, financial management, and exposed concern for the political, student, and social issues. Final considerations and implications for practice triangulation of sources and literature corroborate several issues documented in the minutes of the first administration and contribute to revealing part of the history of the student movement in the 1950s and of Ribeirão Preto School of Nursing itself.

Sexual assault and fatal violence against women during the Irish War of Independence, 1919–1921: Kate Maher’s murder in context

At the height of the Irish War of Independence, 1919–1921, 45-year-old Kate Maher was brutally raped. She subsequently died of terrible wounds, almost certainly inflicted by drunken British soldiers. This...

Cultural learning process: lesson from microhistory

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the cultural learning process (namely, the development, practice and enhancement of cultural intelligence (CQ)) of a successful entrepreneur – Harold Bixby, a Pan American Airways expatriate, as reflected in the memoir of his experiences in China during 1933–1938.Design/methodology/approachThis study adopts a microhistory approach as a methodology for studying history and the past while ultimately requiring evaluations informed by the present. This paper first identifies the literature gap on CQ development and the need to study historical accounts of the past in assessing the CQ development process. This study then outlines the four key foci of microhistory as a heuristic for making sense of on-going and past accounts of selected phenomena.FindingsThis paper finds that specific personality traits (namely, openness to experience and self-efficacy), knowledge accumulation through deep cultural immersion (namely, extensive reading/study, visiting/observation and interacting/conversation), critical incident and metacognition all contributed to Bixby’s CQ development, which was a time-consuming process.Originality/valueThe study contributes to debates around cultural learning and historical organization studies by providing a rich, qualitative study of CQ assessment and CQ development through microhistory. This study highlights the importance of cognitive CQ and the function of extensive reading/studying in the process of knowledge accumulation. This paper draws attention to critical incidents as an underexplored way of learning tacit knowledge. Moreover, this study suggests metacognitive CQ can be enhanced through meditative and reflexive teaching and research practices. These findings have significant implications for cross-cultural training programs.

Middle Eastern Chronotope in the prose of S. S. Kondurushkin of the turn of the XIX-XX centuries: to articulation of the problem

The object of this research is the early prose of S. S. Kondurushkin (1874-1919), journalist and writer, who served five years as a teacher in the schools of the Middle East, an active participant in Russia’s literary-social life, an employee of the newspaper “Rech”, war correspondent, author of several compilations dedicated to the Middle East, Russian Volga Region, Novaya Zemlya, and Siberia. The subject of this research is the techniques and approaches of creating the Middle East in the essays and stories, which were published for the first time in the journals “Russian Wealth”, “Russian Thought”, and “History Herald”. Reference of the Russian writer to the problems of the Middle East at the turn of the XIX – XX centuries, development of artistic techniques, reconstruction of the flavor and the corresponding elements of the narrative require indicating the methodology used in the article. Along with the traditional for academic literary studies comparative-historical, historical-cultural, imageological and biographical methods, the author turns to the colonial/postcolonial, as well as imperial/post-imperial formats of research, micro-history approach, “deliberate” and "distant” reading, as well as holistic analysis. The article is first to examine the artistic peculiarities of the early prose of S. S. Kondurushkin in the context of his interest in problems of the Middle East. Special attention is given to analysis of the essay “Damascus” (1903) that demonstrates that everyday life of the religion serves for the writer as a part of the Middle Eastern chronotope, within the structure of which there are not only historical time with its transformations, not only historical space and its modern modifications, but also the current events. Such articulation of the problem defines the novelty of this research and outlines its  prospects in further examination of the Middle Eastern chronotope of Russian literature of the turn of the XIX – XX centuries, and academic pursuits dedicated to the creative path of S. S. Kondurushkin

The Guinea Fowl Survived, but a European Died that Afternoon: Confronting Colonial Hunting Policy in Zimbabwe, 1965–1966

ABSTRACT At midnight on Tuesday, 11 May 1965, in Chipinge, Zimbabwe, Basil Johnson, a European farmer who occupied Petronella farm, telephoned the British South Africa Police (BSAP) and reported that his brother, David Patrick Johnson, had gone missing that afternoon. The next morning, the BSAP-led search team assembled at the Johnson homestead and mounted an eight-hour ‘sweep search’ for the whereabouts of David, whose body was later located on a bushy hill some seven miles from the Johnson homestead. This was followed by a seven-day search for the person who killed David, and, upon his arrest and charge of murder, a nine-months legal battle that would finally be settled by the highest court of the land, the Appellant Division of the High Court of Rhodesia. Taking a microhistory approach, this article traces the story of an African hunting excursion that turned fatal to analyse contradictory Western and African game ownership and hunting philosophies. Simultaneously, this story is also a lens to view other facets of colonial encounters: race, class, justice, the meaning of colonial borders, and African agency.