MO3351 Doing and Practicing Transnational and Global History

In Syracuse, the tyrant Hieron bribed Astylos, a successful Olympic athlete, to compete in the 480 and 484 BC Olympic Games under the national banner of Syracuse. Astylos accepted this offer and the bribe. In Croton (where Astylos was from), the city was outraged that Astylos would desert them for Syracuse, and so the people of Croton elected to expel him from the city state and also demolished the statue in honour of him there. The people of Hieron went further by turning his house into a prison as a sign of their disrespect for him and his family even renounced him.

Now, an interesting question that I want to raise from all this is whether we should see Astylos as being a state actor because he went from competing for Croton to then competing for Syracuse? Or, alternatively, should we see Astylos as a transnational free agent? In other words, he was an individual competitor who had no loyalty to a single city state and wanted to compete by his own individual initiative. This raises a broader question which I wish to investigate in this blog post, namely to what extent were the Olympic Games in the Ancient world a transnational occasion? Can we even talk about transnationalism in the Ancient period? These questions have been debated by historians.

On the one hand, historians who argue the state-centric approach believe that the ancient Olympics were used by individual Greek city states for their own personal prestige. City states such as Athens, Sparta and Croton used sports in order to train their own soldiers for warfare, and sport was something that was almost entirely directed by the city states. Indeed, states wanted to promote training for sport and the Olympics because it was a way in which they could gain prestige over other city states. They offered large financial incentives for their athletes who brought victory to the city states. Much like today, victory in the Olympic Games was a matter of national pride!

The second interpretation I wish to offer is a transnational perspective. According to this approach, athletes were free to enter the Olympic Games on their own accord and athletes did not have to go through a rigorous process in order to apply for the Olympics. Moreover, the main purpose of the state was just to attend to the ritual sacrifices at the Games and not to compete with other city states. For us historians interested in transnational history, let me present the case for this second interpretation.

The spectators for the Olympics travelled to the Games without the encouragement of the state. There was no transport organized by the state and spectators had to organize their own transport and find their own accommodation nearby. Interestingly, it seems that a lot of Greeks went to see the Games because it was part of an ideal aesthetic that they had for it. Solon believed that the spectators went to the Games in order to see ‘manly perfection, physical beauty, wonderful condition, mighty skill, irresistible strength, daring, rivalry’ (Anacharsis 12 Loeb). Similarly, Isocrates praised the athletes and festivals of the Games because they brought people together from across Greece in a single place (Panegyricus 43-4). By having such a magnificent spectacle, it meant that spectators were attracted to the Olympics every four years and it created a form of travel that was stateless, borderless and transnational. The reason why the spectators travelled to the Games was because they wanted to see the spectacle of the games and not because they felt any national pride.

If we take poets, artists and philosophers, we can see that the reason why they travelled to the Games was so that they could display their talent. For example, Herodotus tells us that he presented himself to an Olympic crowd of important men who were interested in his work (Lucian, Herodotus, 1-7). Moreover, we know of Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes, Isocrates and Thucydides also attending for a similar purpose, in order to present their work to people from across city states in a single location. This was a truly transnational moment because these intellectuals came from across the Greek world and displayed their works to spectators who came from all kinds of city states.

Moving onto the athletes themselves, the point I wish to emphasize is that the city state (or polis) took very little interest in the athletes themselves, until they were actually successful in the games. Moreover, the city states did not require a rigorous selection procedure to be admitted into the games, as we have in the modern Olympics, but rather athletes tended to enter themselves without the direct support of the city state. At home, the city states tended to have facilities such as gymnasiums and other athletic capital that was available for the athletes. The states generally provided these facilities so that soldiers could train and be ready for warfare when needed, but athletes also used them to train themselves for the Olympics too. Thus, we can now see how the agency lies with the athlete to train and enter himself into the Games and not with the state.

The state only took an interest in the athlete when he gained a victory because then the state wanted to use the athlete as a source of national pride. When Eleans of Dispontium won the quadriga (four-horsed chariot race) in 672, his home city made a big deal of this both immediately after the Games and also at the next Olympics. These bragging rights were important in Greece at the time because the city states were extremely competitive with each other.

At times, the city state would back the athlete with extreme force, as in the case when Kallippos of Athens was removed from the Games due to bribery (much like match-fixing nowadays, though that is a conversation for another time!). In this instance, Athens threatened to boycott the Games unless Kallippos was to be acquitted from this accusation. In addition, states would also greatly reward successful athletes and the athletes would sometimes be bribed by another city state to bring glory to them in the next Olympic Games. This merely made the athlete a ‘free agent’ who competed across national borders and paid little attention to the city state he was competing for. Even when city states tried to assert national pride through the Olympics, it seems that spectators, intellectuals and athletes cared very little for this.

In recent weeks, I’ve been doing some research into China’s 1911 revolution, led by Sun-Yat Sen. The revolution started in Wuhan in the Hubei Province with an army mutiny and a battle between rebels and Qing loyalists. The Qing dynasty, run by the Manchus, had been in trouble for a while. By supporting the Boxers (during the Boxer Rebellion) in 1900, the Manchus had made a desperate, failed attempt to expel foreigners from China, causing further military and political humiliation. Serious repercussions, such as a 333 million USD indemnity was added to the government’s fiscal issues. These were, of course, not the only issues, but I would argue that China’s inability to look west for inspiration was what led to a decline in their administration, while Japan was truly able to prosper through their Meiji Reformation, making them one of the most powerful Asian countries till World War 2. 

The Meiji Restoration: Unlike China’s desire to stay eastward and not focus on the west, Japan’s administration made a blatant effort to look at countries like Germany and Britain. Their goal for modernisation was to absorb both Western and traditional learning, which culminated in the Iwakura Mission. In this journey, students were sent abroad to study, and came back to Japan, thus assimilating Western traditions into those of China. After a while, western-style clothing grew mandatory, western-style barber shops were opened. Beef that was previously denied by Buddhist ideologies suddenly became not only acceptable, but fashionable. The Rokumeikan became a symbol of Westernisation in the 19th century. It was designed in a western style, entertained foreign missionaries with balls, tea parties, dances, waltzes (and other western dances). This was primarily to suggest that Japan was a modern country. The libration of women was also taken up in the 1870s by a number of Japanese intellectuals, influenced by Western writers. A number of female activists publicly took part in politics, but these movements did wane in the 1880s. All women were allowed to be educated. There was an introduction of a telegraph service in 1869, a postal service in 1871 to improve communications with the West. As a result of such modernity, Japan was able to secure a victory over China in the Sino-Japanese War in the 1890s despite their barbarian status (in China) and were able to gain a strong political foothold in Asia. 

The Qing Dynasty: The Qing dynasty went through numerous reforms. China wanted to remain closed to the Western powers for a lot of their history. China’s loss in the Opium Wars primarily came from their ignorance of Western military power, leading to significant consequences in the Treaty of Nanjing of 1842. It was due to these humiliating treaties that the Chinese people developed a mistrust of the West.  Until the late 1800s, large areas of China remained free from Western contact and influence. As a result of this, China went through reform programs such as the Self-Strengthening Movement, the Late Qing Reforms, and more. For the purpose of this blog post, we can compare the Self-Strengthening Movement to the Meiji Restoration.

China was unwilling to modernise due to Confucian and Traditionalist beliefs. Fengshui made them believe that coalmines and railways were disruptions to the spirit of ancestors. China and Britain were seen as so radically different from the other that each country believed that the other was a barbarian. Japan, on the other hand, was more accepting of change. Japan was able to learn from the mistakes of China. As China had, Japan did not want to suffer from the unequal treaties, and they viewed the foreigners as superior. Japan sent people abroad, and people such as Ito Hirobumi came back with a vast knowledge of the west. Japan believed in “wakon yosai”, which referred to Japanese spirit, western techniques”. Looking at all the evidence presented above, it can be suggested that China’s inability to look Westward, and Japan’s desire to take inspiration from countries such as Britain and Germany directly led to the failures and successes of their respective reformation programs. It is important to consider the fact that Japan’s reformation came from their desire to be transnationally powerful, to mingle with the West and grow into a significant power, while China was unwilling to look at change until the 1911 revolution by Sun-Yat Sen.

For Asians (and expats in Asia), this has caused decades of arguments as to which is a better place to live, to work, and to play. Apart from the obvious – that Hong Kong is clearly better – a transnational history of these two ‘autonomous’ city-states might provide an ideal platform to definitively answer this age-old debate. In fact, I believe that if you analyze the importance of these two cities by their histories as nodes of transportation and, thus, communication (specifically during the period of a British-dominated Indian Ocean) you will discover the primacy of Hong Kong over Singapore as transnational centres in SE Asia.

Of course, this could be an essay topic in of itself so to attempt to answer this question in this blog post would be simply too much. However, what has become clear to me, through readings on the 1915 Singapore Mutiny and case-study analyses on 20th century Hong Kong government (under British rule), is that these two city-states are microcosms of the transnational world that they engage with and interact with through inter-regional networks. So, the essential backbone of my argument will be the progression of the two centres of transnational trade and movements from their 19th century usage by the British to the late-20th century. Additionally, a focus on the two centres in relation to the British Empire (and their actual importance to the British economy and rule – both in contemporaries’ and modern historians’ views) would be the second major point of analysis. Admittedly, the second point of this pro-HK argument will be more difficult to prove than the first. As such, I won’t even attempt to explain how I would go about proving this point; yet, I will note of the increasing importance being placed by historians on the British Empire’s usage of Singapore as a node of migration networks. Likewise, I would refer to Hong Kong’s rapid development from fishing village to centre of administration for British officials during their colonial-style domination of Chinese society and economy.

Relating back to the grander narrater of my argument – that is, the overall development of Singapore and Hong Kong within a set time frame (longue durée in a similar fashion to Hoerder) – I believe that focusing from the 1830s, which was more or less the decade of British colonisation for both city-states, it will be possible to denote the comparative importance that HK and Singapore held in the modern, globalised world. Initially, it would appear that Singapore was the more significant node of communication and trade, with the island becoming a global centre for rubber trade. However, as my argument evolves, I would highlight the reversal of roles in the global economy that occurred at the turn of the century. During the 1900s, the British saw a gradual rise in the use of Hong Kong as a global port and cosmopolitan city-state economy. Following the Second World War, Hong Kong became the definitive centre of British administration in the SE Asian region. It is not just that Hong Kong was the first of the Four Asian Tiger Economies to undergo rapid industrialisation; it is also the fact that control over Singapore weakened as British consolidation of power was threatened by natives and non-Singaporeans. Perhaps, Hong Kong can thank a more secure form of administration for its hyper-paced economical growth. Or perhaps, I have merely distorted facts to support my own conclusion – IT wouldn’t be surprising given the fact that I think Hong Kong is the greatest city [really a country :)] in the world.

 View of Suzdal’ from the Kamenka River, 1912

For once I am not sitting down to write about the Spanish flu. This week, while working on another essay (this one on Russia) I started thinking about one of my favorite photographers, and one who I consider to be a transnational actor: Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky.

Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky, born in Russia in 1863, spent his life photographing the people of the Russian Empire (mostly in color). Perhaps his most easily-recognizable work is that of that of the great novelist Leo Tolstoy, but what I think is far more interesting is the lengthy series of color photographs he took, on assignment from Tsar Nicholas II, of the various peoples of the late Russian Empire.

The photographs are all beautiful and the rich colors make the people in them seem far more real than any woodcut or grainy daguerreotype we are used to seeing in books. The real reason I want to discuss them, however, is because they address something which we have touched upon in our readings and seminars: empire and transnational history. Some of the literature we’ve read argues that imperial history cannot be considered transnational (Jurgen Osterhammel, for example, claims that ‘imperial history in a transnational perspective tends to dissolve into forms of global history’), and other scholars fall along similar lines.

Late imperial Russia, while an empire, cannot be stripped of its transnationality (at least not in my opinion). In the twilight of the Romanovs’ reign, Russia possessed over 150 million inhabitants, of only roughly half of which were ethnically Russian. The 1897 census, commissioned by Nicholas II, shows over eighty different ethnic groups, of which only a minority actually spoke Russian. If we take these ethnic groups as ‘nations,’ then Gorsky’s travels would indeed be considered transnational. If we were to view ‘transnational history’ as only applicable when physical borders are put into place, then this implies that the Russian annexation of Manchuria in 1900, for example, negates the distinct national consciousness of the Chinese people living there.

It is difficult, in fact, when viewing even a limited number of Gorsky’s vast collection of photographs, not to see strong elements of distinct national identities amongst the peoples of the Russian empire:

I realize that this may appear to be just an excuse for me to post a selection of photos that I find interesting. This is partly true. But I legitimately do think Gorsky’s work serves two very real purposes today. The first is a reminder of how important I think photographs can be in studying history. Especially in a society like late imperial Russia – in which a majority of the wider population was illiterate and in which representative government was in its early, stilted stages – it can be very difficult to perceive how the individual peoples of the empire would have in turn perceived themselves. These photos show how the people of the Russian empire dressed, what they did for a living, the roles of women, etc, in a society that might not otherwise record such details.

More importantly, I think, Gorsky’s photos prove what I would argue is his ability to be deemed a transnational actor. Despite the fact that he did in fact stay within Imperial Russia’s physical borders, Gorsky’s photos show an extremely diverse collection of societies and peoples. Scholars of nationalism usually name a shared culture as one of the most significant qualities of a nation. Without analyzing data, language, or even the specific geographic locations of the subjects of these photos, it can still be logically assumed that that the cultures of the respective people shown differ by significant degrees. They thus illustrate the transnational aspect to the late Russian empire. 

N.b. Another very interesting collection of photographs to view is banker Albert Kahn’s project Les Archives de la Planète, in which Kahn sent photographers around the globe from 1909 to 1922 to capture human societies: https://www.afar.com/magazine/a-trip-through-time

Since I’ve been lacking in motivation as to what to write for my blog post, and did not want to delve into yet another piece on my long project, I decided to think about the transnationalism of a topic that’s interested me for numerous years: Disney.

Disney has produced and created so many timeless movies, movies that children and adults love and cherish. However, I couldn’t help but think about how, over the last sixty or seventy years, the company has grown ever-more transnational in its approach. This blog post will consider what the development of Disney as a transnational corporation, and the benefits transnational cinema from different parts of the world could have on a person, especially children who tend to watch these films. Of course, I’m not thinking of Marvel or considering our favourite Wakandan king, partly because that would lead to an 8000 word dissertation. 

In the older days of Disney, movies such as Snow White [a German classic based on a story by the Grimm Brothers] didn’t seem to be based in a particular location. These movies were rather ambiguous in nature, and appeared to take part in an almost make-believe universe. Most Disney movies have been based off old stories and folklore from around the world. The Lion King is based off Hamlet by William Shakespeare (but is based in Kenya), while The Sleeping Beauty is based off a French classic by Charles Perrault in 1697. The Jungle Book is based in India, written in a novel by Rudyard Kipling, while Mulan came from an old ballad from the Song Dynasty titled ‘An Ode to Mulan’. What truly makes this corporation transnational is the implementation of classics and stories from all around the world in a set of movies that have grown vitally universal over the past few decades. I would suggest that the diversity of such Disney films explains an ultimate increase in transnationalism through its popularity and ability to appeal to people of all ages around the world.

While the more modern Disney (after the death of Walt Disney) did still combat issues of orientalism and cultural misappropriation (particularly with Aladdin’s portrayal of the Middle East and Pocahantas’ relationship with John Smith), the corporation grew increasingly more transnational with the introduction of their first African American Princess in the Princess and the Frog, and with Moana from Polynesia. What Disney has truly managed to succeed in through all these years is use an increasing level of globalisation to make way for new actors and networks. Walt Disney himself was known to be xenophobic. After his death, there were numerous movies (particularly during the 90s), where movies based in Asian and African countries were released (The Lion King and Mulan being the most famed). This brings me back to Bayly’s arguments who focused on the sense of global history which came about during an era of globalisation in the 90s, in the AHR Conversation. This suggests that Disney was able to use the globalising environment of the 1990s to benefit their own company, only growing more popular as time went on.

Disney was able to use a change in markets and ideologies to create newer movies that were more popular from the last. They also managed to use the transnationalism of their corporation to evoke a strong emotional response in their children, thus helping to create a huge part of their identity as they grew up. This sums it up perfectly: “Although Disney cartoons can seem mushy and rather superficial for adults, there is a strong case for arguing that they create forceful memorial emotions for their first spectators, children. As an example, one of the interviewees mentions that his son ‘cries every time Simba’s father dies in the Lion King.’ On this point, several children-oriented studies confirm the identification and adoption processes at work through Disney activities.”

While Disney has attempted to create a universal make-shift world with numerous movies, particularly the older ones, the newer movies such as Moana or Mulan not only display the strength of their female characters, but also spend a lot more time explaining the cultural atmosphere in each region at the time, thus educating children as well as keeping them engaged in a fantasy, animated world.  Of course, Disney has now proceeded to acquire Marvel, another very transnational company, but that’s a story for a different day.

Given that most of you have already written blog posts on your end of year projects already, I thought I would share a little bit about how mine is progressing so far.

For those of you who do not know (or have forgotten!) what my project is about, I am going to research the global anti-Communist organization called the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF). The CCF was set up in West Berlin in 1950 with the intention of promoting Western ‘democratic’ culture at the expense of authoritarian Communist culture. Moreover, it was primarily intellectuals who wrote the publications for the CCF, ran the conferences and undertook much of the work.

Importantly, much of the funding for the CCF came undercover from the CIA to subsidize the publication of various journals such as the British cultural magazine Encounter (see the picture below). However, in 1966-7 the funding from the CIA was exposed and the CCF was renamed and no longer received funding from the CIA. There was still some continuity after 1967 as some of the magazines (e.g. Australian Quadrant, China Quarterly and Soviet Survey) and personnel continued their work even after the connection with the CIA ended.

So for my project, I want to investigate the extent to which we can call the CCF a transnational organization. On the one hand, it could be viewed as a national attempt by America to promote its ideological interests onto Europe in order to prevent the spread of Communism. This perspective argues that America used European intellectuals for its own ends. Historians such as Volker Berghahn and Frances Stonor Saunders argue for this view.[1]

Michael Josselson: supposed to direct encounter, but the publishers did not listen to him much.

But on the other hand, the impression I get so far is that the different intellectuals within the CCF acted independently of American involvement. Indeed, I will examine the transnational background of the various actors and show how their views were shaped by their experiences and not by American indoctrination. The CIA provided the funding, and not much more. Even when the CIA funding ceased in 1967, various CCF intellectuals still continued publishing in much the same way and the same journals persisted.

You may be thinking by now about how I actually intend to tackle these ambitions. So far, my intention is to focus on a couple of transnational networks within the CCF as a way of demonstrating how the actors within these networks acted independently of CIA involvement. I will then use the QGIS mapping software to produce two or more maps to track these actors in order to understand the transnational movements within the network a bit better. As we discussed in class, I intend to use the maps for more than just illustrative purposes but to more use it to help me form conclusions about the effects of the transnational movement of these actors. In addition, the networks that I will examine will be based mostly around the various journals of the CCF and the actors associated with them.

Without going into too much detail, I will look into the actors surrounding two CCF magazines: Encounter and Soviet Survey. The first of these, Encounter, was a British publication which promoted a European-wide ‘modernist’ idea which argued that Western life was superior. The authors were part of a European-wide community whose views were shaped by ‘modernism’ and not by the CIA because Michael Josselson (see picture above) was mostly ignored by Encounter’s editors.

The second is Soviet Survey which was published as a way of criticizing the countries of the Soviet Union for their totalitarian nature. This was based on a pre-existing network of transnational actors, such as Walter Laqueur, Leo Labedz and Richard Krygier who then formed the journal by taking advantage of available CIA funding. Laqueur even set up a journal before Soviet Survey, so his intentions predated the CIA involvement and was more based on his negative experiences with Communism which he experienced firsthand whilst in Eastern Europe.

Much of this research will involve looking firsthand at the journals published by these actors and then trying to determine how influenced they were shaped by the CIA’s intentions, or alternatively from their own experiences. This is just one way to broadly reinterpret the idea of the Cold War being, say, America vs Russia. Rather, these networks show that anti-Communism was far more transnational and far less statist than this.

[1] Frances Stonor Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War (London, 1999), p. 5; Volker Berghahn, America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe: Shepard Stone between Philanthropy, Academy and Diplomacy (Princeton, 2001), pp. 108-115.

I have been merrily researching the Spanish flu for several weeks now. My flatmates have been regaled with interesting facts about cytokines and death tolls. While discussing politics with my visiting family over spring break, I informed everyone at the table that Donald Trump’s grandfather had died of Spanish flu. When tackling this past week’s readings – on transnational actors and networks – I was therefore, unsurprisingly, already thinking of my own research. I plan to examine how modernisation contributed to the deadliness and scope of the Spanish flu in 1918-1919, and a large part of this examination involves the development of transportation networks.  How convenient, I thought, as I began the readings. Transnational networks and actors are exactly what I should be exploring.

However, the more I read the more I began to notice a pattern that did not exactly align with what I had planned to focus on in my project, at least in terms of actors and networks. The networks described in Shaping the Transnational Sphere, for example, are constructed in spaces and enforced by humans making repeated connections – they are framed through tangible things such as conferences, journals, and letters but are not tangible themselves. Pierre-Yves Saunier, for example, defines a transnational network as a ‘[configuration] of individual and collective actors investing time, energy and social…resources in the establishment, maintenance and use of connections.’ Ulrike Lindner’s networks, involving the movement of workers between the colonies of the British Cape Colony and German South West Africa. Lindner discusses a physical movement of people, specifically the migration of ‘Capeboys’ and domestic workers following the simultaneous economic depression in the Cape Colony and diamond boom in German South West Africa. Still, what Lindner focuses on in regards to this network is social in nature. A key factor in her exploration of this transnational network is the identity of the workers in question – something I found particularly fascinating, for example, was her explanation of how workers of mixed-race, upon arriving in German South West Africa, had to write back to their former employers in the Cape Colony to request proof of their ‘whiteness.’ Again, here ‘networks’ are examined largely in a social or cultural sense. In fact – to cut straight to the point – actor-network theory and in fact the transnational approach to networks (or network approach to transnational history – I’m confusing myself at this point) appears to be centred around constructed networks.

I have nothing to criticise about this – the problem is that when I look at networks in relation to the Spanish flu, or disease in general, I am looking at physically substantive networks: railroads, shipping routes, and roads. The transnational networks in our readings and in class discussion revolve around cultural or scientific exchanges. The key aspect of this communication is the exchange of thoughts and ideas.

Can I still, therefore, label what I am focusing on in regards to the Spanish flu as studying ‘networks’? Or do physical transportation networks fall somewhere else? I realize that railroads can also facilitate the spread of ideas and the movement of actors. The actor that I am really interested in, however, is the flu virus itself, which of course has no ideas or sense of identity. I’m not interested in ideas; I’m interested in death tolls, morbid as that may sound. Andy’s blog post on ANT argues that nonhuman actors can still have agency, which would imply that I could still apply ANT to the flu. But this still doesn’t really help me: ANT seems to place an emphasis on actors affecting networks. What about how the network affects the actor, and what if the actor is something that is neither an abstract concept nor an actual human being?

This week’s reading has opened up a number of questions regarding the way in which knowledge is transferred, and the actors and networks that are established to communicate this information.

Lux has highlighted the importance of ‘weak links’ and the influence it has in transferring knowledge between different historical agents. For example, Lux uses the example of the Calvinist minister Hermann Buschoff and the links which consequently became established between Indonesia, the Netherlands and England. Just as we have previously seen with the OXO cube, Buschoff treatment of gout by the ‘Indian Doctress’ created a series of transnational networks which led to improvements in medical uses of what we would now call Amoxicillin. Buschoff was, by all accounts, unwillingly persuaded by his wife to seek treatment from a local woman to relieve the pain caused by gout in his feet. The local woman used a number of herbal remedies which eased his pain, and resultantly Buschoff relayed the information to his son still in the Netherlands. A domino effect, regarding the transfer of this medical knowledge, was established through a series of weak interpersonal relationships. The case of Buschoff, the treaties published back in the Netherlands, and the consequent spread of medical Moxi throughout Europe came as the result of what Lux terms ‘weak ties’. The transfer of information in this way is characteristic of the early modern period, and serves to demonstrate the impetus that reputation had on the validity of knowledge. This is perhaps why early scientific knowledge was confined to the elite social circles of men, with science experiments being conducted behind closed doors, and the relaying of information done by the few men in the closed circles who witnessed such experiments. Today, the transfer of knowledge done in this way would seem absurd, but it was characteristic of the early modern period. Reputation was closely associated to the gravitas of scientific information. Furthermore, correspondence between men interested in furthering knowledge was usually conducted by a mutual intermediary. Lux further uses the example of Henry Oldenburg, whose correspondence was almost entirely done through a middle man. However, such a way of conducting business meant that information slowly proliferated outwards, and penetrated other small social circles establishing weak intellectual networks. Today, it is far easier to read an academic journal online and directly contact the author, typically through a quick google search, and establish a form of correspondence. A mutual contact is unnecessary, especially in the academic world and the pursuit of knowledge. However, during the early modern period, it was not only the social norm to have a middle man of mutual understanding, but also it ensured that ones work could be vouched for and strengthened in validity.

Secord’s work focuses on the limits of disciplinary boundaries within the spread of scientific knowledge and the history of science. He notes that it was not until 1988 that the first conference was held between British and North American academics to discuss the history of science. It was the first time that a conference was held to further understanding, and understand the history of science through a number of different approaches. Conferences, such as the one held in Manchester in 1988 help to strengthen histories place in the transnational sphere. With historians from different backgrounds/specialties, and more importantly (in this case) different nations, a more in depth understanding of the discipline can be explored. It allows for open discussion, which is not so easily achieved through the publication of literature, historians can debate opposing interpretations in a more informal setting of a conference. The importance of discussion should not be disregarded over the publication of books and journals. Instead, conferences such as that held in 1988 are extremely important to the transfer of knowledge and the growth of historical understanding.

Having just written my short essay on Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and given that in our next class we will be discussing actors and networks, I thought it would be useful for us all if I wrote guide on some of the basics of ANT.

Firstly, what even is ANT? Its intended purpose is to look at the connections between different actor nodes and explain how the actions of one actor is the result of all the other actors connected to it. In other words, every event is in some way caused by connections between actors.

Now, it is important to note that an actor can be literally anything! Both humans and nonhumans are actors. Moreover, the reason why ANT classes anything as an actor has to do with its redefinition of ‘agency’. For ANT, agency does not mean that an actor has the ability to act out of free-will as we are accustomed to thinking. Rather, it means that an actor simply has an effect on another actor.[1]

Let me give you an example of why it is helpful to understand nonhumans as possessing agency in networks. Say Bernhard wakes up one morning in a bad mood. He is in such a bad mood that when he gets in the car to drive to St Katherine’s Lodge for work that he does not want to fasten his seatbelt in the car. As he starts the car and then begins driving, the seatbelt alarm sounds. For the first minute or so, he does carries on driving with the alarm sounding. But then, after a little while he starts getting so annoyed by the alarm that he pulls over to fasten his seatbelt and carry on driving in peace. Thus, the seatbelt alarm exercised agency that influenced Bernhard (our actor) to obey the law. What is important to note here is that if a human actor (say a policeman) pulled Bernhard over to tell him to put his seatbelt on, the result would have been exactly the same as our nonhuman seatbelt alarm. This means that both humans and nonhumans exercise very similar agency.[2]

Now, if you think back to our class on micro and macro history, you will remember how we discussed that the two do not need to be separate. Micro history is intertwined with macro history. Well, ANT provides a more advanced framework for understanding this idea. If we think of everything existing in terms of networks of actors (see the right hand diagram below), then ideas of scale do not matter. Even if ‘actor a’ is more ‘macro’ than ‘actor b’, there is no reason why ‘actor b’ can have just as much effect on the network as ‘actor a’. Therefore, ANT does away with the diagram on the left where ‘micro’ and ‘macro’ are viewed as having to be studies separately as they are unconnected.

[3]

Another important aspect of ANT is that it removes the distinction between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’. This is along the lines of what we have already discussed this semester, namely that networks of actors can transcend national boundaries, thus enabling us to conduct a transnational history. This involves thinking in terms of the right hand diagram below and not the left hand diagram. National history writes history in terms of everything inside the nation being important and everything outside the nation being almost irrelevant. Both transnational history argues more that what is important is the networks of individuals that go beyond the national borders.

[4]

ANT takes this one step further by showing that everything that exists is found within networks, and that anything outside of the networks does not exist at all from the perspective of the network. Thus, in order for an actor to be important, it must be connected to the network itself. Actor-Network theorists (Ants) such as Bruno Latour and John Law take this perspective to its extreme by adopting a postmodernist view to this. For example, Latour argues that before Galileo discovered the phases of Venus, they did not actually exist at all![5] Galileo’s understanding of Venus from his (relativist) perspective was the result of connections between actors and cannot be said to resemble ‘truth’. Thus, everything that we see around us is the result of connections of actors and cannot be said to actually be objectively ‘true’.

Now, I appreciate that the last paragraph may have been quite complex, so let me slow things down a bit by giving us some more basic terminology.

One important concept to understand is that of ‘black-boxing’. Basically, this just means that networks should be kept simple. There are so many different actors and so much complexity within actors that it would simply be impossible to understand everything and come up with a comprehensive network analysis. Because of this, Ants ‘black box’ this complexity. If we go back to our seatbelt example and wanted to construct the network, it would take hours to explain all the connections within the seatbelt technology and how all the electronics and mechanics of it works. Instead, it is much easier to assume that the technology works and ‘black box’ all this complexity so we can get on with understanding the most important connections within the network.[6]

You also need to know a little bit about the concept of ‘translation’ too. Let me illustrate this with an example, as this will make it easier to understand. The reason why we are all here doing this transnational history module is because Bernhard thought up of the idea a few years ago. In this sense, he is a more important actor than us because he is responsible for assembling all other actors such as students into the network. In other words, Bernhard as ‘translated’ us all into the ‘transnational history at St Andrews’ network because he is the actor with which this network revolves around. The same goes for the nonhuman actors in this network. In week 6 when we gave presentations, we as students, ‘translated’ other nonhuman actors into the network, for example the faulty projector became an important actor in the network, as did Microsoft PowerPoint. Simply put, ‘translation’ means that one actor brings other actors into a network through their agency.

I hope to have made some of the concepts of ANT a bit clearer, though there is far more complexity to this. Hopefully this will help some of you out with the reading for next class!

[1] Bruno Latour, ‘Where Are the Missing Masses? The Sociology of a Few Mundane Artifacts’ in Wiebe E. Bijker and John Law (eds), Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change (Cambridge, 1992), p. 151.

[2] Ibid., pp. 151-152.

[3] Bruno Latour, ‘On actor-network theory. A few clarifications plus more than a few complications’, Soziale Welt 47 (1996), pp. 5-6.

[4] Ibid., pp. 6-7.

[5] Bruno Latour, Aramis: or the love of technology (Cambridge, 1996), p. 23.

[6] Jonathan Murdoch, ‘Inhuman/Nonhuman/Human: Actor-Network Theory and the Prospects for a Nondualistic and Symmetrical Perspective on Nature and Society’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 15 (1997), pp. 747-749.

Wow I haven’t written in a while now. It’s been a hectic few weeks with the end to this half of the semester, but I wanted to get a post in before Spring Break just to keep things ticking over.

Having just finished my short essay, I think I’m now becoming more certain than ever about the transnational nature of art. And within the context of that, I think there is scope for us to redefine what we consider a national culture.

On Romeo and Juliet

William Shakespeare, right. A national icon, quintessentially British. And Romeo and Juliet. One of his most famous plays, possibly the world’s most famous love story. Also quintessentially British. So what would you say if I told you that an Italian author called Luigi da Porto wrote a story called Romeo e Giulietta about fifty years before Shakespeare – and the storylines are pretty much the same. Shakespeare adds some embellishments, fleshes out a few of the characters (like Mercutio and Tybalt), but overall, it’s the same piece.

Interesting that. Other sources for the play include Masuccio Salernitano’s Mariotto e Ganozza and even the story of Pyramus and Thisbe from Ovid’s metamorphoses. All of a sudden, this quintessentially British play is looking a lot less British and a lot more Italian.

Stories and creativity are not tied down by national boundaries – they are fluid, and can easily move across these boundaries as and when. Of course, a piece of work can have national significance, but it is simply impossible to accredit it or to pin it down within the boundaries of any particular nation.

On National Culture

I think that this point is very important – when dissecting aspects of national culture, the importance of transnational influences immediately becomes very clear. Without the transnational influences that Shakespeare had access to, living in sixteenth century London, his cannon of work may have been very different (and dare I say, a lot more limited). Shakespeare’s works have been translated in to over 100 languages, and are performed worldwide, which means it’s probably fair to say that his work has global significance. It was influenced by transnational exchanges, and it instigates transnational exchanges as well.

In order to keep a national culture moving forward, it is important to encourage engagement with transnational influences, both for the good of the nation, and in some way for the good of the whole world.

With Brexiteers trumpeting the UK’s removal from planet earth, I think that the UK is falling in to a trap – a misunderstanding – that British culture is somewhat autarkical. That what makes Britain great comes from within, and that Britain doesn’t need external influences. People say ‘we are the nation of The Beatles, of Isaac Newton, of Shakespeare. These things all show the power of our amazing nation. We don’t need to be outward facing because we have these things within us.’

What we must always remember is the very reason that these things are within us – because we faced outwards.

Class on Tuesday reminded me that I had a blogpost to write for this week, but inspiration did not hit till Wednesday. I have to admit, working on QGIS yesterday proved more challenging than I thought it would be, coming from somebody who’s worked with Photoshop since Grade 7. However, this was partially because I hadn’t had a chance to toggle around with the application beforehand, and partially due to the fact that I hadn’t worked with the application before. Both my flatmates are geography students, and have constantly complained about the difficulties of working with the application, and although I understand their struggles now, I decided to take it up as a challenge.

This is not a conventional blogpost about the readings I’ve done for the week, but is more related to how I’ve been using the QGIS application and what I’ve learnt from it so far. 

Thinking about my own project for agricultural circulation under the East India Company, I would need to consider mapping of transportation routes in India. I toggled around on the application, trying to note how easy it would be to map a version of India for myself instead of working on the csv files we were provided with last class. I find it interesting that the GIS data for India includes information such as transport hubs, streetlights, train stations, etc. This would make it easier for me to conduct my research in the long run. Of course, I would have to take into account just how recent each transportation hub was, but there were train stations and railways that were implemented in India in the 1850s which are still very much active today. Examining at major agrarian regions in India on a map might also be a visual way to depict the importance of agriculture to India at the time of the East India Company, specifically. This would involve investigating tea estates in the South of India, specifically in regions in Tamil Nadu, through Coimbatore and up into the Nilgiris. I would hope to perhaps find the percentage of the population working on agriculture in each state, to make a point about how the EIC exploited the Indians for their resources. I could also consider at the production of opium (for Chinese exports) in my project, and could map regions where poppy was cultivated and used, and track the social consequences of getting villagers addicted to the drug.

There’s so much that can potentially be portrayed through this application, especially for my long project. I could simplify part of my essay by portraying the major agrarian farming areas in the country, investigate at communication networks, and even examine  ship routes away from India and to Britain, further considering re-export away from the UK and towards the rest of the world. I found that the QGIS application might therefore be elemental to my long project due at the end of the semester.

While working on QGIS, I had one primary challenge. The first being creating a route for my map. Of course, the route was just made up, to see what I could come up with, but I noticed that the new update of QGIS does not include the Point2One plug-in. I did try to download it, but because QGIS 3.0 is so new, I don’t think a new download feature has arrived yet. For this purpose, I was unable to find a way to create the train route I had in mind, from the map above. But on that note, I came to the conclusion that QGIS is rather logical in its usage of layers, and mostly anything can be found on the Earth Natural Database. While my primary goal was to find out how to make a route, I came out of this with a better knowledge of QGIS and how to use the layers instead, which I definitely need for my long project, and craving an opportunity to spend hours on end on this application.

It should be noted that this blog post will not discuss the meaning of this title statement (or distinction); but rather its usages ….for me lol.

When I first approached the topic of control over information networks, I encountered a problem with the specific locations in which a cluster of communication exchanges intersected. To put it plainly, there was a noticeable issue with pin-pointing the particular centres of exchange of information in which agents of both ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ ties were formed and operated. David Lux’s foray into communication networks and their varying methods for enhancing or restricting the flow of information was particularly helpful in this regard. When he analyses the centres of communication exchange, he utilizes the distinction between ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ personal ties to explain the foundation of information controls and their respective aims.

‘Weak’ ties (acquaintances, associates; often from different social strata) and ‘strong’ ties (relatives, family friends) are the two components of information exchange networks. However, Lux elucidates that with careful examination of the ‘weak’ ties, which ultimately created and upheld long-distance networks of communication, it is possible to explain the areas in which governmental control (or control by a stately authority) was solely dependent on and at the mercy of ‘tacit’ alliances. This will be a significant focus of my essay on the nature and extent of authoritative control over information, either by transnational entities or nation-states. Moreover, my attempts to explain the Royal Society of London’s etc. reliance on ‘weak’ bonds between a multitude of social groups will be crucial in order to analyse the ‘real’ effect that government could have on communication networks. Committees erected by the Royal Society of London and their apparent efforts to find some form of control by formulating a report for travelling Britain’s to fill in.

In short, I will use the example of less policy-driven initiatives (those by RSoL committies) on the part of governments/state authorities to analyse the multitude of methods employed towards ‘policing’ (not sure if right word) transnational exchanges. Nevertheless, this explanation of the more ‘un-constructed’ controls utilized by state authorities is not the basis of my essay. Rather, in my attempt to explain that controls on communication were evident and distinguishable (instructed vs advised), I will use Lux’s distinction to explain that characterising the types of control is not as easy as merely establishing they existed (no duh). Though, the clarification between ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ is one separates easily-restricted information networks from those that operate with effectively no obstructions. In conjunction with Lux’s analysis, the ‘push’ and ‘pull’ distinction will also provide a point of comparison when studying the different reasons for the success of ‘weak’ ties and the failure of ‘strong’ ones. However, unlike ‘weak’ vs ‘strong’, push vs pull (obviously very different in terms of direction) has a particularly restrictive form of analysis. These distinctions warrant further cross-examination and, while it may produce further confusion, additional distinctions (strategic vs un-strategic) might well provide an interesting take – although I am not optimistic.

Essentially, ‘weak’ vs ‘strong’ ties will form the basis of analysis, which will be expanded upon by analysis of strong and weak ties amongst civilian agents and amongst stately entities. This is the real scope of my essay and I am hopeful that this analysis will prove essential to understanding the nature and extent of control exerted by varying actors in communication networks.

Scholarly work on transnational history has often focused on a Eurocentric standpoint, and looked at how and why Europe especially fits into the transnational mold. Europe has undergone a series of border realignment, and since the 18^th century there has been a constant undercurrent of nationalism. Therefore, Europe has experienced an inherently transnational past. The unification of Germany occurred in 1871, similarly, the unification of Italy which began in 1815, was completed in 1871. The rise of nationalism in Europe is a transnational force, as a political ideology it permeates frontiers, and culturally it passes through the links and flows of borderland regions. Furthermore, as Patel argues the development of the enlightenment, and the industrial revolution ‘has a strongly European accent and cannot be fully understood from a purely local or national perspective’. Events such as the enlightenment transcended national boundaries, and resultantly has to be studied transnationally in order to gain a full appreciation of the topic.

Another issue which become prevalent after studying Europe’s place in a transnational light, is the small problem of defining Europe. It has often been argued that Europe, and borders in general, are merely a social construct. As has been demonstrated, Europe’s history has changed dramatically over its lifetime, and what was once defined as ‘European’ may now be irrelevant. For example, is what constitutes as European simply a geographical boundary, or does it extend to political, cultural and economic too? In reality, most historians would suggest it to be an amalgamation of all these factors, however historically there has been some debate over the legitimacy of the United Kingdom and Iceland being in Europe because of the geographical exclusion. Patel, goes further to elaborate on the idea that Europe is a social construct, and suggests that because Europe was created by a series of unifications and treaties, it is an artificial boundary and thus has been constructed over time.

Further to Europe being viewed as transnational internally, it must not be forgotten that Europe has had a number of global influences over its lifetime. Mass migration to Europe has occurred in waves, with the most notable being that after the 1985 Schengen agreement. However, immigration dates back to the slave trade with millions of slaves being transported across the Atlantic and into Europe. The new demographic which came to settle in Europe has undoubtedly left their mark on what is European, and influenced culture, politics and art in their wake.

This blog post has not been written to advocate transnational history as a European phenomenon. Instead, it highlights Europe’s place within the transnational school and demonstrates that Europe has an inherently transnational past.