Microhistory, and [Neglected] Histories?

The following blogpost will consider two aspects of our readings for Tuesday. First, I’ll be talking about utilising microhistory, and its many benefits in historical analysis. Second, I’ll consider the reading regarding the Singapore Mutiny of 1915, and will consider why certain histories are not studied in as much detail as others.

Microhistory in second-year Historiography was possibly one of the best units that came out of the module. We looked at differences between microhistory and historical fiction, and studying small individual cases (such as that of Martin Guerre) was absolutely riveting. As a result, I was rather excited to dive into the readings for this week. 

In “A Chinese Farmer, Two African Boys and A Warlord: Towards a Global Microhistory”, Andrade makes an extremely interesting point. He notes that the story of the mentioned Chinese farmer was absolutely insignificant to history- he wasn’t rich, powerful, and his actions were of no consequence to history in the long run. However, the author notes that the stories of such individuals is vital in our study of history. He claims that as historians, we should use these stories in a wider, more global perspective. Naturally, by looking at this through a slightly transnational lens, the microhistory that was being referred to in the article was especially interesting in its explanation of relationships over time. Before the war, Andrade writes, the Dutch and Chinese lived as friends. Taiwan was able to import goods from around the world (ivory from Africa, cotton from India, pepper from Palembang, etc.). It’s interesting to note that the story of this one individual, reserved for 350 years, was able to tell us so much about the social history of not only Taiwan, but of the Chinese migrants in Taiwan at the time.

In a way, microhistory lies at the very heart of history, as a concept. Micro-historians tend to look at individual stories, cases and small, often seemingly insignificant moments, and broaden the themes that are considered. Through this one article that was focused on one Chinese farmer, we learnt a lot of Dutch-Chinese relations at the time, the African slave trade, Dutch prisoners, and trade with the rest of the world. As a result, we can see that such  a small tale was retold in a manner where readers were able to learn a lot more about the society, politics and cultures surrounding the Chinese man’s story.

In “The Local Was Global: The Singapore Mutiny of 1915”, by Heather Streets-Salter, the author admits that the story- unlike that of the Chinese farmer- was documented well, and “has all the elements of a gripping human story, including intrigue, betrayal, passion, murder, racism, tragedy and panic (542).” The story was rather personal to me, as I’m from Singapore, but was a history that I had never read before. The author addresses the lack of attention, too, writing that it was not seen as crucial, when the event was considered against the world crises that were taking place at the time, during the First World War. I’m not sure if it’s fair to consider this history ‘neglected’, as I mentioned in my title (which was why I bracketed the word), but it definitely wasn’t studied in great detail as compared to the events of the First World War. Even schools in Singapore study international history, without delving into their own (relatively short) past as much. Our own school, for example, covered Hitler and Mao, but taught us nothing about Singapore during the wars. Of all the readings for this week, I found that this one was quite possibly my favourite. The author does not simply consider the causes of the mutiny in general, but she looks at international responses, spanning from British responses, to Russian and Dutch responses. Looking at it from a rather transnational perspective, this is particularly intriguing, to consider how news of the mutiny travelled across the world, and was received in different countries.