Academics and a clear definition are like oil and water. They don’t mix.
This week’s blog post was a real challenge for me. Trying to articulate my thoughts on transnational history across the three readings proved difficult, mainly because I found it nearly impossible to identify what ‘transnational history’ was!
Perhaps my recent reading on unenumerated legal rights has been messing with my brain, but I kept trying to look for some subtext within the academic language that would perhaps unlock the mysteries of transnational history for me, lighting a clear path towards a universal understanding of what transnational history is, is not, and is for. Suffice to say, I didn’t find it.
What I did find, however, was a curious association of ‘cultural’ studies with transnational methodologies. Whilst Isabel Hofmeyr argued tenaciously for this association, Sven Beckert and Matthew Connelly implied that such an association could (in some situations) lack nuance. They posited that a broader ‘practical’ application of transnational history to the interconnections of diplomacy, violence and politics was needed. Notably, the arguments of Beckert and Connelly were articulated in a way that framed ‘cultural studies’ as the dominant (fashionable) paradigm in transnational history. Four years after the AHR conference, Jan Rüger articulated a similar ‘practical’ argument in European History Quarterly, suggesting that this debate was ongoing.
I find myself in strong agreement with Beckert, Connelly and Rüger on the importance of incorporating national, military and economic history into a transnational framework, though my reasoning for this differs slightly from their assertion that it leads to a ‘more complete’ understanding of historical events. Instead, I believe engaging with such topics is essential for historians to re-assert their authority over popular historical narratives.
Connelly resonated with me when he lamented the US (and increasingly international) dominance of Samuel Huntington’s simple political science models (and controversial if not outright suspect usage of history) in ‘The Clash of Civilisations’ and ‘The Soldier and the State’. To me, the role of historians, especially those who consider themselves activists, is not just to challenge such works, but also produce credible alternatives for a popular audience. A pre-requisite to challenging problematic paradigms on national, military and economic history is to understand and work within those fields. To me, transnational methods provide an opportunity to issue a popular corrective to Huntington’s unitary and divided ‘civilisations’, not just by showing cultural interconnection, but also politico-military fluidity in the modern and post-cold war eras.
However, it is notable that in the decade since these articles were penned, Huntington has remained a goliath in policymaking and academia. And whilst transnational history has grown exponentially, none of its adherents enjoy the same popular clout. Despite this, I retain the hope that the growth of transnationalism as a ‘way of seeing’ will increasingly manifest in popular imaginations, leading to new and challenging narratives emerging.
I hope that despite the messiness of the topics I explored in these ramblings I was able to articulate a few vaguely interesting thoughts. I look forward to discussing some of them with you all in the coming weeks!