I really enjoyed this week’s readings and appreciated the critical approach they took to the field of transnational history. I had previously been in a bit of a self-made bubble, completely unaware of possible limitations and downsides to transnational history as it has been practiced.
First, considering Nancy L. Green’s The Trials of Transnationalism, I found her analysis of what someone living a ‘transnational life’ actually looked like interesting and thought provoking. I hadn’t previously considered that transnationalism wasn’t just a lens, but an experience that real people lived. And while I was initially skeptical of Green’s critiques, finding them too micro, within the contexts of the other readings I realized that Green’s point wasn’t that these people’s lives need to dictate the rest of the field, but rather that by understanding the struggles, the transnational field can begin to move away from a glorifying narrative. As Green points out, there are hardships both practically and emotionally that can come with people living transnational lives, and while the potential for cultural, social, and intellectual exchange transnational lives bring to the world, historians should not neglect one for the other.
Moving on to the other two articles by Adelman and the EUI Global History Seminar Group, the shortcomings they articulated about transnational history I think are important to consider as we as a class continue to engage in transnational studies. Though the ideals of global history and transnational history are very promising, Adelman’s critique of global history creating language hierarchies, and the EUI’s seminar group pointing out the continuous recreations of Wallerstein’s world systems model, the field of global and transnational history still has a long ways to go as it continues to develop and grow.
I think that many of the critiques made however are applicable to the discipline of history as a whole. The EUI seminar group discussed the inaccessibility of articles put behind paywalls or institutions. Adelman’s urge for historians to listen to ‘the other half of the globe’, I think are things that should be talked about in other classes as well as this one.