In our first class, one of the things that struck me was how transnational history is arguably not all that new. In the early twentieth century historians sought to analyze history outside strict national borders.[1] Last year, I studied a bit of Fernand Braudel’s The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, for instance, which examined the long term history of the Mediterranean as a whole and paid little attention to political boundaries. However, it would be anachronistic to say that these historians wrote with the intention of writing a transnational history. The difference with transnational historians today is that they set out to intentionally analyze history using this framework. It would be helpful to have a working definition of what transnational history is, in order to understand the lens transnational historians use in their research.
Broadly speaking, transnational history can be defined as how people, institutions and ideas flow across borders and political boundaries. This definition is very broad, yet what it shows is that historians have moved away from studying history within national borders to now thinking of these borders as being more loosely defined. Patricia Clavin gives a more imaginative definition of transnational history where she likens it to a ‘honeycomb’ in which people, goods and organisations move within a large framework. Similarly, a ‘honeycomb’ contains spaces where these groups can enter or be replaced over time, allowing new groups to fill these spaces.
Such a straightforward definition as this can be helpful for people (such as myself) who wish to get to grips with what exactly a transnational history is. But, as Clavin identifies, part of the reason for studying transnational history is its flexibility and if you apply rigid definitions to it, then you can end up restricting your research [p.433]. As I try and develop my own research interests in transnational history over the course of the semester, I will probably find that I will begin to lose touch with such rigid and limiting definitions of what transnational history is. Though right now, it is a helpful guide for me because it helps me to understand in black and white terms what we generally think of as being ‘transnational’ when looking for topics for my research essay.
I also found the article particularly helpful when trying to understand some related theoretical concepts such as the distinction between ‘world history’ and ‘global history’ [p.436]. The article also struck me with the idea of how transnational history does not actually seek to ignore national boundaries. For instance, Clavin makes a really interesting point when she identifies that cultural historians try and show how groups of people often still interact with each other even when they are either in the same or in different territorial boundaries [p.436]. This challenged my perception that we should rethink the idea of a statist world with national borders. Instead, it seems as if it is important to understand the role of states and to still include them when writing a transnational history.
In Clavin’s other article on ‘Time, Manner, Place’, she again mentions about how transnational history can in fact rescue the nation state from being ignored in historical analysis. For example, international histories of Ireland sometimes argue that it was mostly subject to British imperial policy and had no foreign policy of its own. However, a transnational perspective gives Ireland back its agency. Such a perspective allows us to trace Irish migrants to the Americas and Irish missionary activities to Africa to show that Ireland had a foreign policy outside of state actions. A transnational perspective that moves towards non-state actors across national borders enables a clearer national history of Ireland to be drawn. Once again, my view that national and transnational history are contradictory topics was again challenged.
[1] Bernhard Struck, Kate Ferris and Jacques Revel, ‘Introduction: Space and Scale in Transnational History’, The International History Review 33 (2011), p. 575.