The readings from this week really helped clarify to me the meaning of transnational history approaches in practice. Particularly, what that means for the role of the individual lived experience. Generally, using personal accounts in history can accent the narrative with detail and perspective otherwise missed on a grander scale. Both Boga and Conrad refer to individuals or use quotations from them in their respective chapters.
Using the individual as a rhetoric device or research tool is very effective in understanding the lived experience as opposed to a far-removed sometimes spectator-ish recounts of flows of migration and economic commerce. Boga uses personal examples from people who themselves migrated with the trade flows that he analyses. By beginning each of his sections with a personal account from an individual, it made his spatial division of the Indian Ocean arena both more valid and easy to follow. Not to say that it otherwise would not have been valid, but rather that it made it more apparent why Boga was approaching them as three different systems of commerce with overlapping features rather than one grand narrative.
Boga comments on this himself, and the necessity of a balancing act between the personal accounts and the global data/approach to inform or depict transnational history. To overbalance one is to lose valuable and interesting insight. In his own writing, the balance was a mixture of first-hand accounts illustrating social and cultural elements following Indian migration with commerce, supported by statistical data of ownership and financial records. Whilst personally I find the financial statistics somewhat cumbersome, I would agree that it acted nicely as the thread to follow in a cohesive manner and added invaluable information of transnational trade routes that developed and how they were interlinked.
Conrad in his telling, used the individuals (and quotes from them) and what party they participated in to illustrate predominant attitudes towards Poles and Germanisation. For example, he quoted Alfred Hugenberg, who was a member of the Pan-German League, to show the attitude of political figure to illustrate the divisions and ethnic tensions that were prevalent. This was very effective, and to me a very interesting and colourful way of exploring transnational history without getting too involved in the details of the individual’s life.
Personally, I found these readings and the image of the individual in transnational history as a tool of rhetoric and as resource to be highly useful. Both in expanding my understanding of what transnational and global history is, and in different approaches to telling it and what I found most engaging. It has definitely clarified to me that my interests are in social and intellectual history, as I really enjoyed Boga’s insight into the tensions working Indian migrants faced in different regions, as well as the use of individual information by Conrad to illustrate the cultural/ethnic tensions rising around Prussian and Polish nationalism.
I also liked that the nation state became not the focus, but not removed either. I understand the desire to move away from the hegemony they hold over narratives in history and spatial borders imposed by that, however the role of national sentiments and the impact of those tensions is of critical interest to the flow of information, people and ideas in later centuries. Not to the detriment of other factors, but I feel it would be a mistake to avoid discussing a nation to the extent to pretend national identity sentiments and compulsions did not exist.