Production Of Historical Knowledge Research Articles

History and the Development of Historical Scholarship in Africa

Abstract How has historical scholarship fared in Africa? What is the state of decolonization and deconstruction historiography in the production of historical knowledge on the continent? What role does the state play in aiding or undermining historians’ access to official historical data and the production of historical knowledge in postcolonial Africa? This article engages these questions. It harps on the reconstruction of African intellectual history as a daunting postcolonial challenge, and argues that historians on Africa need to engage with and reexamine the development of the discipline of history in Africa in relation to the debates on decolonization and the enterprise of history-writing in the production of historical knowledge and historical scholarship across the continent. This illuminates the understanding of the history of contemporary Africa. It also throws fresh light on the continent’s remote past as a way of establishing its connections with the present. Complementary to the problems of writing the history of contemporary Africa, this work argues that to appreciate and understand the problems of history-writing on Africa, we need to focus on the development and limitations of the discipline across the institutional sites of the universities in postcolonial Africa.

A CHALLENGING TASK FOR JOURNALISM HISTORIANS: THE CULTURAL TURN AND THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE OTTOMAN/TURKISH PRESS

This article critically evaluates the historiography of the Ottoman/Turkish press and seeks to shed light on the debates in journalism history triggered by James Carey's call for a “cultural history of journalism.” It argues that participating in these debates is crucial at a time when the history of journalism is on the cusp of a ‘digital turn’. For the first time since the early 20th century, the development of digital archives and the technologies that support them has significantly increased global interest in the history of journalism. The widespread use of digital archives will gradually transform the narrative of scarcity into one of abundance. Nonetheless, transforming this interest into a productive process of historical knowledge production requires researchers to rethink their epistemic relationship with the Ottoman press. This article argues that the ‘digital turn’ offers a crucial opportunity to add new pieces to the history of Ottoman journalism. However, for these pieces to coalesce, journalism historians must take the previously neglected path of the ‘cultural turn’.

The Past in Question: History as Past and Present Problem-Spaces

Abstract This article underscores the role that questions play in the production of historical knowledge. It stresses two points: (1) the questions arising from the demands of the present are the means by which historians elicit evidence from sources; (2) the questions that arose from the demands of the past are the ‘real past’ in which agents acted in search of answers. Further, by examining David Scott’s application of R.G. Collingwood’s logic of question and answer, the article points to the socio-political dangers of realist aspirations to offer definitive accounts of the past. The example indicates that the political present has much to gain from a critical historical practice attuned to the demands of past and present problem-spaces alike.

Critical Archival Encounters and the Evolving Historiography of the Dismissal of the Whitlam Government

Gough Whitlam was deeply committed to the preservation of history, and keenly attuned to the importance of the documentary record in the writing of it. For Whitlam, the written record — the contemporaneous documentary record of government activity — was central to the production of historical knowledge and the “verification” of history. As he reflected on the release of his government's 1975 Cabinet papers, “the publication of these records confirms my belief in the contemporary document as the primary source for writing and understanding history”. This paper takes us through the shifting historiography of the dismissal of the Whitlam government by Governor‐General Sir John Kerr. In doing so, it is a reflection also on the role of archives in the writing of history, recognising as Peters does, that the construction of an archival record is “a deeply political act”. This is particularly so for contested, polarised, episodes — of which the dismissal is surely the exemplar — for which archival records have been transformative. In this process of historical correction, revelations from Kerr's papers in the National Archives of Australia have been pivotal. Kerr's papers were also central to my successful legal action against the Archives securing the release of the “Palace letters” between Kerr and the Queen regarding the dismissal. This paper explores some critical “archival encounters” during that research journey — revelations, obstructions, missing archives, and even burnt archives. From the destruction of Whitlam's security file, missing Government House guestbooks, the denial of access to records, to royal letters of support for Kerr's dismissal of Whitlam “accidentally burnt” in the Yarralumla incinerator, these encounters illuminate the critical relationship between archives, access, and history which continue to shape our understanding of the dismissal of the Whitlam government.

What Racism? Race and Racism in Recent Canadian Historiography: A Critical Perspective on the Francophone Literature

Taking the societal climate surrounding issues of race and racism in the study of the past as my point of departure, I propose to examine how it translates into the practice of French-language historiography of Canadian and Quebecois societies. Do disciplinary institutions publish on issues of race and racism? This study also responds to historian Geneviève Dorais’ arguments in the Bulletin d’histoire politique in 2020 about anti-Black racism in Quebec historiography, and to the call by historians Crystal Gail Fraser and Allyson Stevenson for a critical perspective on our discipline in the post-Truth and Reconciliation Commission era. This paper consists of four sections. I first sketch out some definitions related to the concepts of race, racism, and ignorance. I then turn to the relationship these questions have with historical epistemology and the role that the discipline of history has played in the history of racism. In the third section, I present the results of my research on francophone-Canadian historical knowledge production in the past few years, which asked the following questions: Is the concept of race present in this disciplinary field? In what way is it used? Finally, I conclude by returning to the results of this study and reflect on what a better understanding of the critical concept of race in historical studies can contribute to our understanding of Quebec and Canada’s past.

“All the world at the palm of the hand”: imagining history through the life of an early Afghan saint

AbstractIn this article I explore hagiographical narratives about Khwāja Yaḥyā Kabīr (d. 1430), among the earliest of the Sufi masters to be identified as Afghan. The social memory of Yaḥyā Kabīr's life exemplifies the function of hagiography as a key arena for the production of historical knowledge, generating a vivid and specific imaginary of the past for devotees. My goal here is to present a reading of the hagiography, but first I will situate it within the discursive nexus of Persian historical writing, which often essentialized Afghans as innately barbarous while peripheralizing Afghan homelands (identified with the Sulaiman Mountains). Yaḥyā Kabīr's hagiography is both reflective of Indo-Afghan anxieties about social hierarchies and a device by which marginalizing traditions could be subverted through a highly textured portrayal of the past. As such, it exemplifies how saints’ lives can index not only the hierarchies of imperial life, but also the techniques by which to escape them.

Asian Canadian History and the Politics of Historical Knowledge Production

Asian Canadian History and the Politics of Historical Knowledge Production

Exploring the Issue of Historical Knowledge Production Regarding the Caucasus Periphery of the Russian Empire (Based on the Research Practices of A. P. Berge)

This article conducts an analysis of the activities of the Russian Caucasus scholar A. P. Berge (1828‑1886) with the aim of investigating the process of shaping historical knowledge about the Caucasian periphery of the Russian Empire during the late imperial period. In the public consciousness of that time, the Caucasus was firmly associated with the “East,” allowing for the identification of certain aspects of the impact of the phenomenon of orientalism on the Russian soil. Based on discussions within the academic community regarding orientalism as a colonial discourse, the author, using the specific example of the researcher, demonstrates the influence of state power on the activities of scholars.
 A. P. Berge's research practices were adjusted in accordance with the demands of his time, and their outcomes aligned with the spirit of the era. Arriving in the Caucasus as a scholar of the East, with the intention of studying the local culture, he was compelled by political authority to reconsider his scholarly interests and engage in the process of shaping historical knowledge aimed at solving practical challenges faced by the local administration.
 Berge, a talented researcher and organizer of Caucasian history studies, recognized the significant role of science in the cultural integration of the Caucasian periphery of the Russian Empire and conscientiously fulfilled the tasks assigned to him by the authorities. His approach to the history of the Caucasus joining Russia was not idealized, and he maintained a pragmatic stance towards the unfolding events. It is noteworthy to highlight his positive contribution to the formation of the source base of Caucasian studies, as well as his genuine interest and sympathy for the region, alongside with the absence of overt imperialistic ambitions. A prevailing theme in his works is the notion of Russia's civilizing mission in the Caucasus, and the scholarly projects he pursued contributed to establishing the foundation for constructing a shared history, aiming at the internal consolidation of the Caucasian territories and their representation as an integral part of the Russian Empire.

Black lives and the ‘archival pulse’: the murder of Neil “Tommy” Marsh and other stories

ABSTRACT 16-year-old Neil ‘Tommy’ Marsh was murdered in the Birmingham Pub Bombings. A recent immigrant from Jamaica, Tommy came to Britain to join his family in Handsworth. Now he is the only 1 of the 21 pub bombing victims for whom there is not a single photograph. When pictures of the other victims are displayed, Tommy is represented by a silhouette, or by an image of his mother in mourning at his grave. The absence of material to document Tommy Marsh’s life in Britain speaks to a deeper lacuna of Black British lives within government records, mainstream public accounts and even public histories. Where records of Black lives exist, they are frequently built from foundations of Black people’s encounters with the state, perpetuating structural racism through white recordings of Black lived experiences. This article will use Tommy Marsh’s case to question how the fragmented documentary and community archives of Black life in Britain offer methodological insights into history as/and recovery. It will discuss the extent to which it is possible to construct historical narratives of Black life that acknowledge and speak from that for which government and public records fail to provide an account. Drawing from the work of scholars including Michel Rolph-Trouillout, Saidiya Hartman and Ann Laura Stoler, we will interrogate the processes of archival production and offer a critical examination of archives produced in the aftermath of injury, violence and death. We question the potentials and limitations of the spaces that can be mined by historians, and how appropriate they are for the production of historical knowledge. In doing so, we probe the extent to which alternative archives curated at the individual, family and community level may potentially support the recovery of the histories of Black British communities and individuals.

A right to research?

A right to research?

『한국사』 교과서 속 ‘인권’ 개념의 서술 양상 분석과 수업 방안

This paper attempts to understand the relationship between the right to resistance and democracy through the debate on human rights and citizenship (national rights), which has been discussed for a long time in academia. In the 2015 revised high school『 Korean History』 textbook, the part dealing with the democratization movement from the April 19 Revolution to the June Democratic Uprising was analyzed as the subject of analysis, and it was used in integrated society textbooks such as ‘human rights’ and ‘basic rights’ of the people. From the point of view of human rights, we would like to examine how the May 18th democratization movement can be reconstructed in class. So, based on the concept of human rights learned in the integrated society textbook, we will understand the historical context and understand human rights and basic rights of the people. Through the process of critically thinking and judging historical facts through controversial concepts, students can participate in the production of historical knowledge. The concept of human rights, which is an issue, allows students to critically think and judge the history of Democracy in Korea.

Writings of Borobudur: Making sense of an Early Modern Javanese manuscript within the production of archaeological knowledge in Indonesia

As a heritage site today, Borobudur is arguably constructed from stories of ancient grandeur, regrettable loss, and colonial rescue, infused with lingering aesthetics of colonial construction. This paper discusses the historical deconstruction of the process of historical knowledge production of Borobudur by analysing the Babad Tanah Jawi manuscript produced from the late 18th century to the early 19th century by Javanese courts. The result shows that during the Early Modern Java, Borobudur held significant spiritual quality for the local communities, unlike the previous interpretation by the colonial authorities.

Images of displaced memories: documentation, intervention, and the ethics and aesthetics of seeing

This article considers the works of Polish artist Łukasz Baksik and Israeli artist Simcha Shirman, both of whom used photographic practices to address memory and displacement through depicting graves and gravestones. Baksik's most prominent project, titled Macewy Codziennego Użytku [Matzevot for Everyday Use] (matzevot is Hebrew for ‘gravestones’) documents and brings home a socially and politically fraught phenomenon by which Jewish gravestones are plundered or misappropriated from cemeteries in Poland, and transformed into everyday uses such as building materials or working tools. From Shirman's wide-ranging oeuvre, I discuss a series of photographs depicting graves and gravestones, taken at Muslim cemeteries in Acre – a city where his parents, both Holocaust survivors, settled after World War II. It is argued that despite lacking visual or formal resemblances, both projects − through interventions in the sensible and memory − resonate in shared consciousness towards contemporary global issues such as diaspora, homeland, and nationality. Not only do both projects illuminate how contemporary art elaborates forms of memory, identity, and production of historical knowledge, but they also reveal a paradigmatic shift from the deconstruction of past narratives to imagining political and ideological alternatives, serving inter alia as a means of rectification and healing.

Социально-эпистемические арены познания истории

Introduction. The article is devoted to the study of the problem of the production of historical knowledge in the digital age. The author believes that historical science, existing in the paradigm of «Digital Humanities», has acquired a new object of cognition – collective memory, abandoning the study of the past as a non-existent reality in favor of the study of ideas about it. In the multi-channel communication process, the formation of socio-epistemic arenas brings historical knowledge and historical memory together. Theoretical analysis. Socio-epistemic arenas are communication platforms for the production of historical knowledge developed by professional scientists, «smart crowds» and digital technologies in collective work formats. Participants in socio-epistemic arenas carry out distributed cognition, which is associated with the social context and collective memory, as it involves the inclusion of all previous experience of understanding historical reality in new interpretations of the past. Conclusion. The participation of the masses of Internet users in the study of History, who appropriate the results of collective research work, leads to the leveling of the boundaries between historical knowledge and historical memory. The principles of the rhetorical arenas of the communication space and civil science determine the structure of socio-epistemic arenas, the functioning of which is subordinated to the logic of the media.

Matters of perspective; Local visual expertise and natural history drawings in Java, 1820-1850

This essay examines how local draughtsmen using their visual expertise shaped natural historical knowledge production in colonial Indonesia in the early nineteenth century. The persons at the core of this essay are Tsing Wang Ho and Pieter van Oort, both draughtsmen who worked for the Natuurkundige Commissie voor Nederlandsch-Indië (Committee of Natural History of the Netherlands Indies). By zooming in on the Committee’s fieldwork in Java in the 1830s, this essay highlights that producing scientific drawings of animals and plants was a challenging endeavour. Despite detailed instructions from Europe and the logistical support of the colonial government in Batavia, the success of the Committee’s fieldwork also depended on local visual and natural expertise. By shifting the analytical focus from European draughtsmen and naturalists to local visual and natural expertise, this essay offers readers glimpses on a cross-cultural learning process which, in the long run, reshaped the visual repertoire on which taxonomic and biodiversity research has since then built on.

Science and Really Existing Socialism in Maoist China

Science and Really Existing Socialism in Maoist China

Reflections on a Common Purpose in Expanding the Frontiers of Global African Scholarship

The enormous contributions of global African scholars to the academic fields of arts, social sciences, and humanities cannot be understated. This accomplishment has not received adequate recognition in a world dominated by Western scholarship. This domination is not unexpected because the production, distribution, and consumption of knowledge are historically charged, both politically and economically. It is not accidental that the domineering “international” publishers and journals in the global academy are based in the West. Knowledge production in the field of African studies has been affected by this reality. Hence, there is an urgent need to transcend current methodological and pedagogical approaches. Because knowledge is the bulwark of the survival of any group of people, global African scholars in the field of African studies have the mandate of heeding the warnings of the Senegalese historian Cheikh Anta Diop. Diop has argued that for African scholarship to attain the distinct recognition it deserves, scholars have the duty of uncovering the commonness and interconnectedness of global African peoples’ historical experiences. While it is correct that geography plays a great role in the production of historical knowledge, the direction of African studies can be aimed at creating a platform for a homogenized pan-African mandate. This paper charged that in achieving the mission of adequate knowledge production by African scholars for the use of global Africans and of the world, the African academy must necessarily be liberated from the dominance of Western scholarship. There will be a reliance on primary and secondary sources in making a case for an encompassing pan-African emancipatory scholarship.

Whose History is our History? Six Decades of the Production of Historical Knowledge in Tanzania

This paper examines the historical significance of the histories we research, publish, and teach in Tanzania in the past six decades of active historical scholarship. By using a qualitative approach, it looks at curriculums and education policy documents to see what patterns were emerging in the teaching of history, with a particular focus on secondary schools and university histories. The main argument is that little progress has been made to teach our history in Tanzania at all levels. Schools and universities place greater emphasis on the colonial content than on the pre- and post-colonial contents, and on general African issues at the expense of issues particular to Tanzania. History instruction would be more significant if it demonstrated African-centred history rather than European-centred history or the impersonal impact of western capitalism. If this is not done adequately, Hugh Trevor-Roper's observations in the 1950s that Africa had no history will still be valid today. As we consider the topics and methodologies of historical scholarship in Tanzania during the last six decades, the question of whose history is ‘our history’ becomes crucial. As pacesetters, rather than passive victims of global trends and actions, we should write and teach our own history.

Trianon in Popular History in Late-Socialist and Post-Transition Hungary: A Case Study

The main purpose of this article is to show how the changing dynamics of governmental memory politics and shifting institutional frameworks influenced the space for and type of discourses about Trianon in popular historiography in the decades spanning 1979 to 2010. I first introduce the way academic historiography addressed the issue of the peace treaty and its consequences. Second, I situate popular historical discussions about Trianon within the broader landscape of historical knowledge production. Analyzing publication patterns of História (1978) and Rubicon (1989), the two most widely read mainstream popular historical journals, complemented with a discussion of Trianoni Szemle, a journal established for the purpose of discussing this single topic, I reflect both on the journals’ (self-)positioning under changing currents and the intensity of governmental interest and control. As the centennial of the signing of the peace treaty draws near, such a case study provides an opportunity to observe symptomatic mechanisms of illiberal memory politics in juxtaposition to its authoritarian and democratic predecessors.

Into the archive of ubiquitous computing: the data perfect tense and the historicization of the present

PurposeThis paper theorizes ubiquitous computing as a novel configuration of the archive. Such a configuration is characterized by shifts in agency underlying archival mechanics and a pronounced rhythmic diminution of such mechanics in which the user's experiential present tense is rendered fundamentally historical. In doing so, this paper troubles the relationship between: archival mechanics such as appraisal, accession and access; the archive as a site of historical knowledge production and the pervasiveness of data-driven daily life.Design/methodology/approachBy employing conceptual analysis, I analyze a classic vision of ubiquitous computing to describe the historicization of the present tense in an increasingly computerized world. The conceptual analysis employed here draws on an interdisciplinary set of literature from library and information science, philosophy and computing fields such as human-computer interaction (HCI) and ubiquitous computing.FindingsI present the concept of the data perfect tense, which is derived from the future perfect tense: the “will have had” construction. It refers to a historicized, data-driven and fundamentally archival present tense characterizing the user's lived world in which the goal of action is to have had created data for future unspecified use. The data perfect reifies ubiquitous computing as an archive, or a site of historical knowledge production predicated on sets of potential statements derived from data generated, appraised, acquisitioned and made accessible through and by means of pervasive “smart” objects.Originality/valueThis paper provides foundational consideration of ubiquitous computing as a configuration of the archive through the analysis of its temporalities: a rhythmic diminution that renders users' experiential present tenses as fundamentally historical, constructed through the agency of smart devices. In doing so, it: contributes to ongoing work within HCI seeking to understand the relationship between HCI and history; introduces concepts relevant to the analysis of novel technological ecologies in terms of archival theory; and constitutes preliminary interdisciplinary steps towards highlighting the relevance of theories of the archive and archival mechanics for critiquing sociotechnical concerns such as surveillance capitalism.