MO3351 Doing and Practicing Transnational and Global History

Conrad’s three chapters for this week shed light onto a fascinating concept that I personally had never considered. As someone typically only exposed to more mainstream historiographical methodologies, it had never occurred to me that the cultural character of a country and their signifying cultural stereotypes could have originated from shared opinions and policies created as a result of growing global interconnectedness, as Conrad points out. Not only did he explain this concept in thorough detail, but he also exemplified how it can be applied by exploring various case studies related to German labour policies and the origins behind the conception of the stereotyped German work ethic. He dispels the assumption, which lies within the term itself, that this idea originated from nationally bounded causes instead of belonging inherently to a part of a more global process; something that becomes almost obvious when considering how conscious individuals were at the turn of the century of global mobility and general globalization processes that were occurring, as Conrad highlights.

Following discovering this particular way of applying transnational historical approaches, it occurred to me how the cultural aspect of the Cold War could be entirely rethought as well. I researched the most renowned transnational historians of the Cold War and came across Odd Arne Westad who has numerous publications about just this idea. Reading the abstract for his article ‘Rethinking Revolutions: The Cold War in the Third World’, it essentially summarized his exploration into how the Soviet-American conflict in this period increased the potential for revolution in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. This has sparked some ideas I have for both my short and long essay. 

It could be helpful to use my short essay to deepen my understanding of theories of revolution during the Cold War era. Eric Hobsbawm would likely be the most obvious and useful option as someone to use as a framework for theorizing the origins of revolutions that occurred globally during the Cold War period and how the Soviet-American conflict drove and impacted these revolutions. This would hopefully provide a strong theoretical foundation for my long essay.

My long essay might look at the impact of these revolutions during and after they occurred and how they influenced ideologies within and across countries that experienced communist and socialist revolutions. Additionally, I could also observe to what extent the collapse of the Soviet Union affected political and social attitudes toward their countries’ revolutions, thus employing more of a transnational historical approach instead of a global historical approach (according to my understanding of their differences). 

Readings this week illustrate the benefits of adopting a transnational lens to scrutinise national pasts. One could argue that approaching history by dividing it into compartmentalised nations can lead to two crucial omissions: first, that of the exogenous formation and shaping of nations; second, that of the complexity underlying the seemingly monolithic “historical reputation” of nations.

As Conrad has elucidated, nationalisation and globalisation, while traditionally having been thought of as being two stages of a linear historical development, are actually concurrent and interlinked. That nations are not only made on their own, but also shaped by (or against) a host of exogenous contexts. The globalising context did not blunt the edge of nationalistic  instead, it has given further impetus to the assertion and celebration of the nation as it confronted external influences. Using the case of the Deutsche Arbeit conception, Conrad showed that even the quintessentially national was defined with respect to both the within and the without. This attention to globalisation’s shaping of the German nation, in a way, echoes other exogenous approaches to nationalism I have seen elsewhere — one apt example would be Linda Colley’s Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837 (I happen to be doing my MO3264 review on the work). Here, Colley identified the core question in the making of the British nation on top of existing English, Scottish, and Welsh identities as being not “what we are in common”, but rather “what we emphatically are not”. Hence, it was a host of negative identifications, namely the deep anti-Catholicism and Francophobia enshrined in a series of European warfare, that served to truly bind the disparate populations of the British Isles. Such an emphasis on the exogenous shaping of nations is surely not without its critics, but it does address a crucial dynamic in the shaping of nations that is not necessarily available when adopting a strictly national scope. The transnational approach, therefore, is able to elucidate the factors in the nation-making that lie beyond the confines of the national border. 

Valerio’s work, especially its introduction, also suggests how transnational history can supplement the insufficiencies of national approaches. At times, the lack of scrutiny of transnational interactions in a nation’s history leads us to think of national pasts in monolithic and simplifying manners. When we take such essentialising terms as the “German Empire” and “occupied/Prussian Poland” for granted, we are tricked into thinking that the imperialist enterprise was solely carried out by the Germans for the Germans, while the Poles are consigned to the margins as either passive onlookers or perpetual victims. However, Valerio quite rightly redirected our attention to the subtle interconnection between Poland and Germany, not least by pointing to Polish colonial endeavours (often taking advantage of imperial networks) and engagement in German political, scientific, and intellectual discourse. Crucially, this puts into question the powerful Polish historical self-image as the leading brother among the oppressed, shedding new light on the subject of national memories. In many ways, permeating both intellectual space and public discourse, such matters as national amnesia or difficulty to speak of certain episodes of history (such that would disrupt the grander national self-image) are far more common occurrences than we think — Ireland’s historical victimhood (also that of Scotland perhaps) versus its imperial participation and Great War contributions; France’s celebrated cosmopolitanism versus its infamous “Vichy syndrome” as well as “Algerian syndrome”; furthermore, from my observations, the rhetoric of the “historically peace-loving, non-colonial Chinese people” is also gaining increasing subscribers in contemporary China (not least to boast of some sense of moral superiority over the West), while everyone conveniently forgets how China went from small tribes near the Huanghe to the giant rooster that it now is on the world map over the centuries. Indeed, neither were national approaches the sole perpetuator, nor transnational history the sole corrective to these historical misconceptions. Nevertheless, transnational history — benefiting hugely from its affinity with microhistory — with its attention to hitherto concealed or unnoticed cross-border interaction can help to enrich the picture we currently have of national histories, which can be quite susceptible to unwarranted compartmentalisation and arbitrary essentialisations. 

Growing up competing in geography bees, the boundaries of nations are practically embedded into my brain. Pierre-Yves Saunier, in his book Transnational History: Theory and History, prompts a reevaluation of the sheer durability and the supremacy of nations as ‘units’ of historical analysis and encourages historians to adjust their perspective. In his introduction, Saunier explains the agenda, timeframe, geography, and scope of transnational history. He contrasts Transnational History to Comparative History by metaphorically referring to ‘comparison’ as a ‘tool’. In comparative history, comparison is used by historians to analyze and evaluate historical courses; whereas, in transnational history, comparison is used by historical actors themselves, and the use of this tool in history is what transnational historians seek to study. ‘Comparison’ is a topic of study in and of itself, rather than a tool for studying topics. Saunier’s second chapter, ‘Connections’, extensively references cases and examples to illustrate the multitudinous connectors, connections, and avenues of connection that satisfy the appetite of the transnational historian. The sheer number of examples he lists demonstrates the malleability of a transnational approach. Transnational history, rather than its own history, is the adjustment of one’s perspective, enhancing the capacity of historiography to see between and across national borders. It is similar to examining a topographical map instead of a political map. One shows the color-coded polygons of various states and territories, and the other, though still displaying the titles of these areas, gives precedent to other features of the land – mountain ranges, rivers, basins. It applies a different lens and thus expands one’s understanding of a region. Transnational history gives historians access to a myriad of different lenses. Sometimes a topographical map is not useful. Likewise, sometimes a political map is not useful. Each helps us to see different things. Recently, a friend of mine prompted me to revisit an essay by David Foster Wallace, This is Water. In the essay, Wallace encourages the adoption of an attentive, critical, conscious perspective. Now this perspective is one which views life, not history. But his description of its use resonated with what I read in Saunier’s excerpts. Wallace acknowledges the likelihood that the perspective will not always be suitable to adopt in every situation, but that it has potential to be useful in every situation. In a similar vein, the transnational approach will not always be useful or applicable to each topic but will always have the potential to be so.

While my understanding of the applications and benefits of transnational history has been expanded by the readings this week. I primarily found myself thinking back to previous historical work I’ve encountered and its place in this debate. 

I found the AHR Conversation on the subject of transnational history, or ‘history in a transnational perspective’ as Saunier clarifies, particularly enlightening in its comparisons between the transnational approach versus global, and world histories. 

I find it interesting to think of the emerging field of transnational history, and why it might have gained popularity in the first place. Like Hofmeyr suggested, it’s been interesting to compare the “biography of ‘transnational’ to the career of the rubric ‘postcolonial’”(1444). I found myself thinking about the subfield of postcolonial studies, ‘new imperial’ history. I was introduced to this term by new imperial historian Matthew Stanard in his work on colonial culture during the interwar period (I recognize the irony of me talking about a ‘period’ when the readings this week discussed the dissolving of periodization through transnational history but bear with me). Stanard defines new imperial history as studying the effects of the empire on the metripoles. Instead of simply studying how the colonized were affected by the empire, new imperial historians ask how the colonizers were in turn affected. In his article he employs comparative methods to study how seven different countries throughout Europe developed similar colonial cultures.

It has now been several months since I read this article but it has been interesting to revisit in light of this week’s readings. Stanard was clearly heavily influenced by the emerging term ‘transnational history’, arguing against the use of individual nation states as sufficient categories of study, and trying to find a throughline in colonial culture throughout diverse countries in Europe. 

Going back to the readings from this past week, Hofmeyr suggests that because so many fields of history, including studies of the African diaspora, area studies, postcolonial theory, and others, already employ ‘transnational methods’, the term ‘transnational history’ may prove unnecessary. I found this interesting to consider but ultimately disagreed with her line of thought. While yes, there are many fields that already do the work transnational history seeks to do, I believe that applied as a lens through which history can be studied, its continued development can be an aid in study and not a distraction. 

At the risk of ending on an unrelated note, the point made in the readings this week that I found most helpful to understanding the goals and aims of transnational history was from Saunier’s introduction. They stated that whether ‘transnational’ history is investigated on a ‘global’, ‘world’, or ‘translocal’ scale is secondary to the primary purpose of investigating the connection between communities, polities, and societies.

As I read through this article and chapter, I became simultaneously clear yet more confused about what transnational history is; and maybe that’s a good thing, or not. The debates concerning transnational history seem to encourage a flexibility of methodologies and focus that I found both liberating and a bit overwhelming. Both readings seemed to suggest that rather than being a rigid sub-discipline, transnational history is really a “way of seeing” or a relational approach that emphasizes what works “between and through” collective units rather than just looking at what happens inside them as if they were isolated monads.

Hofmeyr’s fluid description of this history as one that looks at movements and how they flow and circulate over tame and space particularly spoke to me. This worked well with Saunier’s discussion about the spatiality of this discipline. Within the introduction, he advocates for a subnational and supranational approach to history, to follow migrants, groups, and individuals rather than abstract states. It’s fascinating how he argues that a transnational perspective actually “brings to the surface subnational histories,” showing that migrants don’t just “start” from a country but from a specific village or kin group. At the same time, it opens these huge supranational formations like oceanic basins (like the “Black Atlantic”) or forgotten zones like the Sahara that traditional “area studies” maps usually miss. It was when reading this I wished I had given myself more time to delve into more of Saunier’s book, especially since he views it more as a “vade mecum”, a guidebook to arouse curiosity rather than a strict set of rules.

The “when” of it all is also where it gets a little tricky for me to understand. Saunier and others like Kiran Patel suggest we should probably stick to the last 200 to 250 years, what they call the “age of territoriality,” because that’s when the nation-state really formed as a bounded unit. However, someone like Patricia Seed argues that the rubric is still useful for earlier stuff, like following mobile populations (like the Sephardim after 1492) across different kingdoms and sultanates. As I am hoping to do my student project in this module on indigenous populations and their relationship with their environment and colonisers. Could this be through their displacement, forced migration? Furthermore, Hofmeryre once again caught my interest, talking about how historians can track how “publics” came to be by tracking and studying the cultural movements across time can allow s to better understand how “publics” came to be and allow us to better understand transnational history. Overall, these readings opened so many new questions for me concerning the methodologies, scope and focus of translational history. Giving me a lot of hope and excitement about the rest of this module.

Turning towards transnational and global history emerged from dissatisfaction with the nation-state as a primary unit of explanation for historical events. The readings from the first and second weeks all push the idea that national frameworks obscure the processes that actually drive historical change. Bayly defines transactional history different than others. Bayly describes it as the focus of the movement of people, goods, and ideas across borders rather than the assumption that societies develop in isolation. Similarly, Calvin believes that European history should be re-situated within wider global processes. With these readings in mind, transnational and global history is therefore something of a corrective approach that reveals hidden connections overshadowed by methodological nationalism. 

Bayly was able to link the rise in transnational history to contemporary globalization, migration, and postcolonial critique while Calvin believes its traces stem from postcolonial studies, feminist history, and subaltern studies. Therefore this shift is not across the board a neutral one as it reflects present day concerns about various elements (inequality, mobility, and global interdependence). 

Both Clavin and Rüger express transnational, global, and international history as something that should not be seen as mutually exclusive. International history focuses on states, transnational history foregrounds networks and transfers, and global history is something that oftentimes seeks to decenter Europe, at least from my understanding of the texts. Here is where some comparison arises. Their relationship is complimentary rather than competitive yet while comparative history highlights national difference, transnational history focuses on interactions which produce such differences and similarities. 

Rüger’s OXO case study shows the strengths and limits of transnational analysis. It reveals how commodities are not created from national innovation but through global independence, additionally how nationalism and war are still factors too. Transnational connections not dissolving conflict but rather being reshaped by it. Furthermore, this study shows how the integration of state power and political struggles into transnational narratives is fundamentally important. 

Transnational history requires us to change our understanding of empires through the emphasis on circulation and negotiation as well as sustained attention to power.

The readings argue that transnational and global history should not replace national history but rather reframe it. Europe should not appear as a self-contained state but something that is shaped by wider global processes (and Europe shapes other global processes too). There needs to be a retained focus on conflict, hierarchy, and human agency while integrating national, comparative, and transnational processes. 

This week’s readings provided extensive depth into not only how to come to terms with and define (to an extent) transnational history and similar historical approaches, but also how they came about and under what contexts and reception.

The AHR Conversation was a particularly insightful text as one was able to generate their own conclusions based on a plethora of opinions from scholars all interested and engaged in transnational history. Primarily, I deduced the importance of transnational history for studying people and following people throughout late modern history. The dismissal of traditional data in favour of foregrounding lived experience and entangling human experiences struck out as an important aspect of what this historical approach can bring to the table on historical phenomena that may appear entirely thought out or studied comprehensively on the surface. At this point, I began comparing this idea to previous essays and bodies of text I have written as a part of my degree.

My Honours Project last semester explored how anti-Communist rhetoric and societal perceptions of Communism delayed the Black Freedom Movement in the United States between 1920 and 1960. As I researched, I found that up until the 1980s (and in the 1970s but to a far lesser extent) American historians tended to focus on anti-Communism and the negative impact of Communism both nationally and internationally when looking at the period of American social history between 1920 and 1960. To a large extent, only ‘Communist’ or left-wing historians, who also were typically not American and were at best on the margins of mainstream history, were more objective in their approach to Communism and its impact, specifically the impact of anti-Communist rhetoric on social behaviour and political leanings. This favouring of anti-Communist bias in American historical texts indicates what Pierre Yves Saunier’s text points out; the prevalence of ‘exceptionalism’ in American historical approaches.

As I finished Chapter One of Saunier’s book, it occurred to me that this has the potential to once again change how transnational history is defined, or what constitutes falling under that category. If, as Saunier and scholars at the AHR Conversation consistently point out, transnational history was born from a need for decentering national and territorial boundaries from historical inquiry and instead focusing on groups of people and their connected experiences and movements (I am still struggling to define the term articulately), then how can this sort of ‘transnational’ approach in American history that is under a framework of American ‘exceptionalism’, which is ultimately a national idea, be considered transnational?

I was intrigued by the discussion of the similarities and differences between transnational history and other approaches that emphasize an outlook beyond the nation-state, which both the AHR conversation article and Saunier’s introductory chapter discuss. Admittedly, I often struggle to differentiate between these approaches, and the arguments in these readings helped me gain clarity. As the AHR moderator stated, these approaches (comparative, international, world, and global history) are characterized by a breakaway from the singular nation-state as the primary focus of history and this longer legacy of ethnocentrism.

Global or world history, according to the participants of the AHR conversation and Saunier, focuses on the history of globalization and international-level processes and changes. It is broad in its timeframe as it includes history before modern-day nation-states were formed, and has a history of focusing on the nation as the most significant unit for understanding societies, processes, and polities. 

I find distinguishing Comparative history from Transnational history more complicated because both heavily focus on regional comparisons and connections. Saunier argues that the difference between the two approaches lies in the way comparative history was developed, as it was used as a tool to trace differences within national trajectories. Like Global/World history, it still assumes the nation-state to be the main setting. 

Saunier’s second chapter on connections developed my understanding of transnational history. From my understanding, Transnational history follows the threads and lines of connections despite and in accordance with the nation-state. It acknowledges that the nation-state is an important unit for the study of history and the general organization of societies; however, it does not limit its study to these distinctions. It studies how the nation-state as a unit formed and destroyed connections, but it is comfortable stepping outside the nation to observe both regional/local and international webs. For example, the conversation about how high-technology infrastructure connected and disconnected parts of Europe truly conveys the broad scope of transnational history. Studying how power lines and grids created international connections and integrated markets while simultaneously strengthening the nation-state’s borders and power was a fascinating example of the complexities of the nation-state as a unit of study. It also showcased how transnational history can compare more than a couple of nations to historicize globalization more in depth.

Both Saunier and Christopher et al. agree in broad strokes that ‘transnational history’ is an as-yet unfixed and somewhat fluid methodology, and is better described as a point of view, or method of relational history, that can then be applied to almost any historical context. 

Saunier, by virtue of being the only author of the work, provides a far more compact and programmatic definition of transnational history as a concept. He defines it in three ‘big issues’: historicising contacts between communities, polities, and societies; assessing how ‘foreign’ groups contribute to ‘domestic’ features, and vice versa; and recovering actors and processes that operate between, across, and through self-contained entities. However, he repeatedly makes it clear that the landscape around transnational history is in constant flux, meaning his definition is not be all end all, and may itself be subject to revision. Similar to global history, he centres transnational history in the ‘age of territoriality,’ defined by Charles Maier as beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, though Saunier generally has the last 200–250 years in view. 

The AHR ’roundtable’ meanwhile is comparatively ‘messy’ but provides a far deeper insight into how different historians may emphasise certain aspects of transnational history (diaspora, ethnic-rights movements, migration, etc.). Several contributors also argue that transnational history is closely connected to fields such as postcolonial studies, feminism, and human-rights scholarship, suggesting that a focus on circulation and networks can avoid some of the pitfalls of ‘global’ approaches that risk greatly simplifying on-the-ground differences between societies. 

Most of Saunier’s writing focuses on distinguishing transnational history from global history, with world history receiving less attention. However, he does provide a simple differentiation between the three based primarily on the time scale they focus on and their ambition. He argues that world history generally spans around 5,000 years and is the ‘most ambitious’ for this reason; global history focuses on the last 500 years and on how the planet integrated and began to merge over that period; and transnational history has the shortest range of the last 200–250 years, resting on Maier’s age of territoriality. He also groups world history alongside a multitude of other ‘relational’ methods of analysing history under the same broad umbrella, arguing that all place a ‘common emphasis’ on how relations impact history. 

The AHR roundtable provides the best, or at least the most, perspectives on the delineation between transnational history, global history, and world history. In broad strokes, the contributors argue that transnational history involves an emphasis on the ‘movement,’ ‘circulation,’ or ‘interpenetration’ of everything from people and goods to more immaterial things such as institutions and ideas. Several of them even suggest that these three methodologies are best seen as overlapping frames for approaching history, rather than rival paradigms, and that they should be chosen pragmatically rather than applied as blanket interpretive frameworks. 

With this in mind, it is useful to employ Saunier and the AHR roundtable to answer two different questions on the topic of transnational history: 

Saunier, to answer ‘what is transnational history?’ 

The AHR roundtable to answer how a transnational lens differs from other pre-existing world-history surveys and globalisation-focused history. 

I have been interested in transnational and global history after taking a class last year on Middle Eastern History. I used one of the essays in this class to look at the spread of radicalism in 19^th century Egypt and the Levant. Clavin highlights that one of the key motivations of transnational history is to allow for historical study at “sub or supra-state level”. I think this is a fascinating lens through which we can examine events and ideas. The history we teach in the UK revolves around great events and state boundaries. This means that much of what we are taught ends up seeming like isolated events which occur in a vacuum. We often neglect the impact events and ideas have across the world. This links to the idea that history is Eurocentric, which Clavin highlights by citing Chakrabarty’s famous call to ‘provincialise Europe’. I am very interested in postcolonialism and believe, as many scholars do, that a transnational approach is the best way to address the impact of colonialism. Europe not only drew the borders of the world but also set out the way we study history. The best way to truly understand the world is to approach it with a transnational lens to see beyond arbitrary borders.

Jan Rugers’ piece was particularly illuminating. The OXO cube is a brilliant example to use to show how even the most mundane of items can help us show how interconnected global history is. I found the political distortion of the OXO cube (its use as propaganda) very interesting. This illustration also importantly illustrated how the sources we use as historians can be distorted by those we are studying.

Finally, something which intrigued me in both the seminar and the readings is how individualistic transnational history is. When encountering terms like transnational and global, one instantly thinks that historians in this area focus on large-scale trends and global phenomena. What struck me about the use of transnational history is how concerned it is with the individual. It seems to restore the historical agency of many of those it studies. Especially those who have been historically marginalised or forgotten because their actions did not sit neatly within national boundaries. I am very much looking forward to getting to know much more about transnational history and beginning my project.

I found these initial readings for the module very compelling. Patricia Clavin’s definitions of various terms including transnational history, global history, and international history, provide the reader with an excellent foundation for further understanding these terms and how to recognize them and grapple with their purpose in various fields of historical research. The problem of periodization that Clavin highlighted is one that I have been exposed to in my earlier time as a history student and am thus somewhat familiar with. However, it was interesting to hear how the problem of periodization is also something that transnational historians are involved in. The idea that, for example, the recognized marker for the beginning of World War I can be argued is euro-centric and ignoring relevant phenomena outside of Europe is one that has stuck with me since reading Clavin’s text. I entirely agree that, in light of this point, much of the West’s periodization can be found to be euro-centric and guilty of perpetuating a damaging tendency towards euro-centrism generally in historical approaches. On this spectrum, I have been considering Jan Ruger’s text and how it pinpoints certain weaknesses or potential weaknesses in transnational history; one being that it perhaps ignores traditional methodologies that work or that it dismiss national boundaries in historical questions when in fact, these boundaries are fundamental to the questions or issues at hand. My takeaway, which Ruger ultimately concluded with as well, is that transnational history is an important historical approach for widening our scope of historical phenomena. However, if used just for the sake of it and without careful consideration as to what one is applying it to, the approach has the potential to discard important factors of the area of history it is looking at and thus the approach loses its purpose and value. Therefore, returning to Clavin’s point, it seems beneficial that historiographical problems such as periodization are put under a transnational light in order to move away from unnecessary national boundaries and euro-centric narratives. In this sense, it appears vital to apply transnational history to historiographical instances where traditional methodologies are clearly not working. The question then becomes, however, to counter Ruger’s argument, what are ‘traditional’ questions or narratives and when can we say that they are not working within a ‘traditional’ historiographical framework? I look forward to exploring this question further as the module develops and my knowledge of transnational history, and global history, grows.

Major takeaways from this week’s reading have all been pertinent upon the conceptualisation of transnationalism as a historiographical approach. Transnational history emphasises upon the porous boundaries between nations — namely the interactions, connections and flows that transcend national borders. However, it is crucial to note that this is not so much as a reaction but as a supplement to the conventional methodological nationalism in history. The historiographical salience of the nations, instead of being repudiated, was further enriched and nuanced by historians’ turning towards their interconnection, no longer treating them as compartmentalised monads (both in determining the scope of research and in conducting historical analysis). This leads to the crucial caveat that in transnationalism, the national and the transnational are not diametrically opposed. As Saunier proposed in his discussion on “middle grounds” as sites of transnational connection, the growth of nation-states, while traditionally seen as stifling these liminal situations, could also bolster their vibrance as nationalist enterprises breed new cross-border connections and intermediaries. This was given a more specific elaboration on Kreuder-Sonnen case study on Poland where the transnational engagements of Polish medics were closely bound with the Polish national cause, both before and after Poland was restored to her statehood. Therefore, it is crucial to note that there was not a dichotomy between the national and transnational approaches in terms of the historical importance of nation.

That said, as with all discussions on the nation have to ponder, the acceptance of nation (and inter-nation connection) as subjects of analysis does not mean that the concept is taken for granted. In Saunier’s point of view, the temporal applicability of transnational history is largely confined to the past 200-250 years before which nations and nation-states had barely come to predominate — Bayly was even stricter in saying that applying transnational history to the pre-1914 era would be problematic. Such caution was surely shared by Kreuder-Sonnen when she specifically addressed that when referring to “Poland” and “Polish” in nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century contexts, there was no intention to assign or presume a certain national allegiance or identity at play. However, it is also questionable whether transnationalists are making a rod on their own back by being too obsessed with the qualification of nations. For Seed, despite transnationalism being essentially of present terms and conceptions (i.e. the nation) on to the past, this can still be done legitimately by focusing on the so-called analogous cases. As we can see in two empirical essays this week, there was neither a German nation-state nor a Polish one in the mid-eighteenth century, but this did not prevent Knotter and Kreuder-Sonnen to speak of German cigar-makers and Polish medics. Indeed, this should be proceeded with caution (as Kreuder-Sonnen has excellently done so in the beginning of her work). But more importantly, this might demonstrate to us that the transnational scope can be extended to historical scenarios further back in time that feature extensive cross-border connections (be they between subnational, national or supranational entities), so long as historians constantly guard themselves against certain arbitrary essentialisations pertinent upon the nation. There can never be too much caution with the thorny task of defining the nation, but the transnational historians might lose a great deal of inspiration by focusing solely on the nation and not interaction.

Lastly, one thing I noticed is that the AHR panel formed an interesting conversation with the Clavin essay from last week. For Clavin, the essence of applying a transnational scope to the modern European context is in the globalisation of European events, studying “how European history has been universalized into international agency”. This stands in interesting contrast, if not opposition to his previous statement on transnationalism’s commitment to fragmentation and diversity. Indeed, while Clavin’s suggestion does help to break down the compartmentalisation of European history vis-a-vis the rest of the world, the advocacy of its globalisation (without mentioning the influence the other way around) can be perpetuate Western-centrism by seeing the West as the sole unit that can boast of global significance. In the AHR panel, I would argue, the merits of transnationalism were better appreciated by the spokespeople who in particular warn against the essentialisation of the global experience, especially regarding modernisation and development which have often granted the West the privileged spot as the enlightening beacon. Instead, much more emphasis was laid on multisited modernity, multi-directional flow of ideas, and the instances of domestication and acculturation across localities. As Beckert said convincingly, “Modernity rests just as much on African slaves, Indian peasants, Chinese traders, and Arab mathematicians as on Lancashire mill workers, Scottish philosophers, German chemists, and American political theorists.” Transnational histories could therefore inform as well as benefit from more discussions on “which nations” as well as those on “what is a nation”.

A huge congratulations to everyone on some fantastic presentations. I watched quite a few of them, and I loved hearing about everyone’s different ideas. Everyone was so engaging and knowledgeable about her individual projects. I also want to say a huge thank you to everyone for our unconference hours, feedback on the short presentations, and of course a massive thank you to Bernhard and Milinda for the constant jokes and support. It has been a true joy partaking in your banter and learning from your intellect. Thank you for making my last semester here enjoyable and informative.

Marion

First of all, I could listen to you talk all day. Your accent is magnificent. Have you ever considered audiobooks?

Your topic is fascinating, and you did a wonderful job explaining it in a clear and concise manner. I was very appreciative of the different historiographical aspects of your presentation and how they each tie into each other. Have you researched the link between American national identity and the construction of wilderness? It is rooted in many of the same ideologies it seems you are drawing on in your long essay – man and nature as necessarily separate entities etc. If you have any interest in exploring this topic for your long essay, I have quite a few sources that could be very interesting to you!

Avery

Great presentation, Avery! It was super enjoyable to listen to and very informative. How have you found postcolonialism as a theoretical framework? Postcolonial feminism is an interesting theory, and clearly well suited for your research in Ireland and India. I was wondering if you have ever worked with decoloniality? Maria Lugones has some really interesting articles about decolonial feminism that might be helpful and interesting to your work. She explains that colonisation did not simply create the colonised but also forcibly introduced European understandings of gender relations, social patterns, and disrupted the cosmological understandings of invaded communities. This erased the pre-colonial conception of sex and gender and replaced it with European-produced-knowledge which separates ‘sex’ and ‘race’ on an axis. She argues that as ‘woman’ and ‘black’ are separable yet homogenous categories on the axis, their intersection “shows us the absence of black women rather than their presence”. Apologies if you have already read Lugones and I am mansplaining but I find her work really interesting and thought she might be helpful for your research! Goodluck with the rest of your paper and congratulations on an excellent presentation.

Kathleen

Hey, Kathleen! Great job on your presentation. In a funny turn of events, my essays have both taken a turn towards tourism and dictatorship, respectively. It was an interesting presentation to listen to because unlike some of the other topics I felt I had a bit more context given my prior research! The part about Intourist was particularly interesting. The aspect of your presentation about minority cultures “clinging to their past” reminded me of some research I have done about the concept of “conservation refugees”. I saw your comment on my “constructing culture” post and wanted to respond to it here as it pertains to your pres! You talked about the threat to biodiversity and general environmental degradation in national parks and other nature enclosures as a result of the tourism industry. I have worked with this topic but from an indigenous rights perspective that I thought I would share with you! This is a bit from an essay I wrote ages ago:

Indigenous dispossession through protected enclosures is an ongoing process that has severely impacted indigenous development across the country. According to Cultural Survival Quarterly (2004), in the last 150 years, 12 percent of the world’s surface has been protected in the form of 100,000 enclosures. Of those lands, 50% encompass traditionally indigenous lands… In America, this percentage rises to 80% (McKay and Caruso 2004). National parks and other protected areas have made “conservation refugees” (ibid.) out of millions of indigenous peoples; national parks are not a colonial act of the past but a pillar of the enduring settler colonial structure of oppression.

Also: The final statement from the indigenous delegates in the closing ceremony of the Fifth World Parks Congress meeting in 2003 read “first we were dispossessed in the name of king and emperors, later in the name of State development and now in the name of conservation.”

I thought this might be interesting food for thought for you to check out for your long essay or further reading!