Listing the key terms of\ntransnational history in class helped me to visualise the vast array of\ncomponents involved in its historiography. From \u201cnodal points\u201d to \u201cNGOs\u201d it seemed\ndaunting to pin down a small number of categories that could encompass the\nentirety of transnational history. Looking at that board and attempting to fit\neach component into a coherent, comprehensive yet well organised book seemed to\nbe the equivalent of finding a solution to an unsolvable equation. Amongst our\ngroup, questions abounded. What themes\/categories can encompass everything we\u2019ve\nlisted on the board? How do we organise the book in a manner that would make\nsense to students like us who are relatively new to the historiographical approach\nof transnational history? Finally, how do we incorporate transnational history\u2019s\nmost important literature while also making note of the recent debates between\nscholars regarding transnational history as an emerging and prevalent\nhistoriographical approach? We weren\u2019t able to come up with well-formulated\nanswers for these questions but we began to attempt to answer them by taking\nthe components and categorising them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our rough layout of the\ntransnational history reader consisted of (if I remember correctly) four broad categories\nthat most \u2013 if not all \u2013 the components could fit under as well as a section\ndedicated to the challenges and historiographical debates associated with\ntransnational history. The first category would be themes or key ideas, the\nsecond networks, the third actors and the fourth nodal points and confluence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Themes\n<\/em>[ italic font makes the ideas seem more legitimate], the first section of\nour hypothetical book, involves the grand topics, key ideas and terms often\ndiscussed in transnational history. We would highlight the terms sub-altern,\ntranslocal, transcultural, globalisation, and internationalism. Each of these\nterms would be defined and set in the context of their relevance to transnationalism.\nSub-altern studies, while related to nationalism and de-colonisation, helped to\ncreate a diaspora of anti-colonialism across the globe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The section Networks<\/em> entails a discussion of the bridges that breakdown\nnational barriers. Commercial ties, language, religion, ethnicity and political\nphilosophies all fit into this category. Transnational networks are based up\nsome form of commonality or common interest and therefore necessary in any\ndiscussion of transnational history. The common connections in transnational\nnetworks could be as seemingly insignificant as the meat essence OXO, which Jan\nRuger addressed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Actors<\/em>\nis arguably the most straightforward section. The aim of Actors<\/em> would be to discuss the most important actors and agents in\ntransnational history. The great empires of the late modern period were chief sources\nfor cross-cultural interaction from the 17th<\/sup> century until the years\nfollowing World War II. Supranational\norganisations such as the League of Nations, the United Nations and the\nEuropean Union are the most prominent modern examples of transnational actors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Nodal\nPoints and Confluence <\/em>comprises of physical points of connection. Ironically\nthe most obvious point of confluence are national borders themselves, particularly\nwhen they are tenuous and not enforced by some physical or man-made barrier.\nOther, modern examples of nodal points or areas of confluence are social media\nplatforms like twitter or Facebook. Entertainment events like the Olympics, World\nCup, or Cannes Film Festival could be considered transnational nodal points. In\nmy project research, I am finding that port cities like Canton, Calcutta and\nIstanbul were hotbeds of commercial transnational interaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I realise\nthat I have simply created categories for topics that transnational history encompasses\nand there is a considerable amount I have left out that is essential to\ntransnational history as a field of study. Methodological strategies are crucial\nto any historiographical approach and certainly should be included in any\ntransnational history handbook. The limits of transnational history, while\nstill speculated upon by historians, would be another important area of\ndiscussion. As an exercise, this forced me to think about what was fundamentally\nimportant to studying transnational history. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Listing the key terms of transnational history in class helped me to visualise the vast array of components involved in its historiography. From \u201cnodal points\u201d to \u201cNGOs\u201d it seemed daunting to pin down a small number of categories that could<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5wNtZ-n0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1426"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1427,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426\/revisions\/1427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}