{"id":494,"date":"2016-02-29T11:28:57","date_gmt":"2016-02-29T11:28:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/?p=494"},"modified":"2016-02-29T11:28:57","modified_gmt":"2016-02-29T11:28:57","slug":"reading-werner-and-zimmermann-in-conjunction-with-developing-a-project-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/2016\/02\/29\/reading-werner-and-zimmermann-in-conjunction-with-developing-a-project-idea\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading Werner and Zimmermann in Conjunction with developing a Project Idea"},"content":{"rendered":"

For this week’s blog post, I would like to give an update on my ideas for the Project with reference to Werner & Zimmermann’s article on histoire crois\u00e9e <\/i>(Title: ‘Beyond Comparison: Histoire<\/i> Crois\u00e9e <\/i>and the Challenge of Reflexivity,’ available on shared Google drive). <\/i>As I have come to think that transnational history is as much a ‘way of seeing’ as a methodology, it is useful to outline certain characteristics that make TH distinctive. A word of warning before we begin, however, as I am mindful of how at least some members of our class are strongly against jargon-loaded writing, because you’ll find Werner and Zimmermann’s article full of them.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

W & S’ article takes us back to our focus in the first few weeks to come up with a competent definition of TH, or at least its defining features. We know that it seeks to do away with the ‘nation-state’ as the basic unit of analysis (unlike the study of international relations), we also know that it is about crossing national boundaries. Yet, how can it differentiated from ‘comparative history’ or ‘transfer studies’? What are the similarities and differences? To begin with, the three genres already mentioned belong to the family of <\/span><\/span>‘relational’<\/b><\/span><\/span> approaches. What makes <\/span><\/span>histoire crois\u00e9e<\/i><\/span><\/span> special though, so W & S think, <\/span><\/span>is its ‘focus on empirical intercrossings consubstantial with the object of study, as well as on the operations by which researchers themselves cross scales, categories and viewpoints.’ To re-state it in a less mind-boggling or convoluted way, TH is about <\/span><\/span>being aware of the object of study, the position of the observer, and the relationship between the <\/i><\/span><\/span>two<\/i><\/span><\/span>. At least that’s how I understand it. A diagram may do a better job of conceptualising this:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"diagram\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A few interesting points:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

1. <\/span><\/span>A<\/span><\/span> possible way to differentiate between comparative history and transnational history is the idea of a ‘synchronic’ and ‘diachronic’ binary (I know, right?). Simply put, a synchronic approach <\/span><\/span>necessitates ‘a pause in the flow of time,’ a ‘cross-section’ perspective that makes comparing easier. Alternatively, transfer studies and TH, adopting a ‘diachronic’ approach, ‘presuppose a process that unfolds over time.’ Hence the imagery of the ‘honeycomb’ \u2013 suggesting a porous, revisable, interactive nature. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

2. What is the ‘reflexivity deficit’, a fancy term W & S use (this is more interesting than directly relevant)? The initial goal of transfers study was to show that <\/span><\/span>borders are permeable <\/b><\/span><\/span>and undermine the homogeneity of national units. Yet all transfer studies do is to ‘underline foreign contributions’ to the development of a national culture, not call it into question. So in a sense it ‘reinforces the prejudices that they seek to undermine.’<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

3. In a point that made me think of Konrad’s earlier post about from idea to sources or the other way round, W & S discuss the pendulum swing <\/span><\/span>between the historian and his\/her sources and object of study. What is emphasised here is the idea of a ‘dynamic’ and constantly modifying relation. After all, the <\/span><\/span>crois\u00e9e <\/i><\/span><\/span>or ‘trans’ element in TH does not only refer to the object of study. It also refers to the crossing, and changing of the <\/span><\/span>ways <\/b><\/span><\/span>with which historians interact with their sources, a metaphor being switching gears. Now how can this be actually put into practise is perhaps a more daunting question to answer, but the main idea is that TH demonstrates the possibility of ‘multiple possible viewpoints’, history as multi-layered, multi-perspectival rather than existing on a single plane.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

With all this in mind, when I have an initial idea of a topic, I will try to build in these transnational elements. <\/span><\/span>I will keep my eyes open for when a change in scale\/category\/viewpoint is in order, and modify my methodology as I trace some sort of a ‘process’.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

For example, I was reminded of that week in <\/span><\/span>MO3337 \u2013 China’s Revolutions<\/b><\/span><\/span> when we discussed the spread of Maoism across the developed and developing world. I was excited to find, for instance, that two leaders of the Black Panther Party \u2013 Elaine Brown and Huey Newton \u2013 visited China during the Cultural Revolution and wrote down how they were impressed by how the revolution improved livelihoods and the ‘sensation of freedom’. I became interested to find out more about why foreign revolutionaries visited <\/span><\/span>Mao’s <\/span><\/span>China, what they thought about their experience there, what inspirations did they take from it…etc. Another topic that I am also exploring has to do with the year 1989 in world history, if I can find certain transnational agents, preferably non-governmental, who travelled between East Germany before and after November, Eastern Europe, Iran and China. <\/span><\/span>What is interesting about 1989 is that on one hand you have people such as Francis Fukuyama who heralded the ‘end of history’ and the definitive, final triumph of western liberalism, but on the other hand you have a watershed moment in modern Chinese history, where calls for political reforms were brutally stifled by a regime that still holds power to this day.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For this week’s blog post, I would like to give an update on my ideas for the Project with reference to Werner & Zimmermann’s article on histoire crois\u00e9e (Title: ‘Beyond Comparison: Histoire Crois\u00e9e and the Challenge of Reflexivity,’ available on<\/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-494","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-7Y","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494","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=494"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":498,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494\/revisions\/498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}