Comments on: Anna Ananieva and Rolf Haaser

By: K. M. Lawson

K. M. Lawson — Sun, 08 Jun 2014 14:16:27 +0000

It is wonderful to see the conversation start here on these issues. I think they suggest a really good area of common interest for the discussion on Tuesday morning. In particular, I’d be interested in hear about the challenge, that Tom also hints in at the “qualitative change,” of assessing relationships in networks that offer differ significantly in nature, intensity and influence.

By: Ananieva & Haaser

Ananieva & Haaser — Tue, 03 Jun 2014 17:53:35 +0000

Dear Bernhard,
thanks for your response to the issue of changes of objects and individuals through spatial movements, raised by Tom in his comment on our abstract. In my response to Tom I have already implicitly reacted on your statement. At the moment I can only agree. Anna and I probably will take up the subject after a conference in Greifswald, which will keep us occupied till Friday this week.
Rolf

By: Ananieva & Haaser

Ananieva & Haaser — Tue, 03 Jun 2014 17:49:25 +0000

Dear Alexander,
thank you for your comment. Concerning the question of non-elite actors we are not so far away from each other, as it seems in the first place. Actually, we work with the concept of the so-called elegant world. This is not a sociological term in the sense of a definite social class. It rather includes all those individuals which are interested in the ideas and values disseminated by a press that addresses itself to the elegant world. This media concept functions to a great deal as a mere unrealistic (or imagined) optative [Wunschform] for a great part of the readership of the respective periodicals. Furthermore, the readership of entertainment journals are very often confronted with background informations on the products they are supposed to consume. Very often articles like these deal with the history and geographical origins of the products, as well as with special techniques and new inventions facilitating the producing process. We describe this profile of articles as encyclopaedic.
It seems obvious that the transnational circulation concerning the knowledge of products lies strongly in our research interest. The vast field of advertising in the side issues of journals and magazines (e.g. Intelligenzblaetter) convey a great deal of information on certain products and the cultural practices in which they are important. (Though, unfortunately we haven’t come across Gundi tobacco by now.)

By: Anna Ananieva

Anna Ananieva — Tue, 03 Jun 2014 17:35:07 +0000

Dear Tom,
thanks for your comment. I must admit that we have not given much thought on the question of qualitative change of objects during transfer movements yet. Changes in the quality of media news in the flow from one country to another are much easier to trace.
Some thoughts after having read your abstract: Autobiographical sketches and travel accounts are very frequent in the journals and magazines we concentrate on in our Tuebingen project. I’m afraid we have not yet come to a convincing solution of how to visualize and/or map this sector of our research field. It looks as if we had an overlapping interest in this respect?
Rolf

By: Stefan Nygard

Stefan Nygard — Tue, 03 Jun 2014 11:18:11 +0000

Excellent idea. Perhaps we could also comparatively discuss the different logics of networks in different social fields (political, cultural or economic elites for example), the different motives behind networking in the first place in each of these fields, and variations in the way these networks were represented by the actors themselves. A basic example on the latter question from my own research on 19th century intellectuals: networks were important for both nationalist and cosmopolitan intellectuals, but for obvious reasons the latter were more keen on emphasising the role of these networks and international dependencies in general.

By: Berhard Strück

Berhard Strück — Tue, 03 Jun 2014 09:05:35 +0000

My sense is that this is definitely a question to discuss. As important as I see the question of space (along with visualisation and mapping) coming into transnational and global histories, the kind of maps I can imagine lend themselves towards a “fixed”, “stable” objects or individuals that move through space – whereas they are not stable. As you rightly point out, Tom, this needs to be addressed that this is precisely what transnational history seeks to do: show not only the spatial variations BUT what these spatial variations do to objects and individuals that are changes and shaped through space, spatial movements and settings. This is something we should try to discuss if we seek to bring in space that, on the one hand, enhances our histories, while, on the other, must not simply them.

By: Alexander van Wickeren

Alexander van Wickeren — Mon, 02 Jun 2014 19:01:17 +0000

Dear Anna, Rolf and Tom! Thanks a lot for your proposals. I really like your idea for the custom sessions, because it really touches issues that I am working on in my PhD. However, I would suggest to broaden the concept a little bit and not just to focus on “networks of elites”, but to include also non-elite actors. I give an example: Though my abstract rather focuses on scientific agricultural experts, I am aware that this agronomists were highly dependent not just on the practical knowledge of ‘simple’ farmers, but also on the trade networks that enabled tobacco farmers to exchange seeds and tobacco species f.e. in the french-german border area. Such exchanges and circulation can obviously not be framed by looking just to elites… Furthermore, I would take up and support Tom’s remark on the problem of “qualitative change” of things, actors etc. that we are investigating. I find this question really important and I think that it is also particularly fascinating to ask for possibilities to visualize such changes. All best, Alex

By: Tom Cunningham

Tom Cunningham — Mon, 02 Jun 2014 14:43:12 +0000

Anna and Rolf, I like your idea for the discussion in the custom session. Of course, my project moves more in the direction of mapping an individual’s movements (rather than social networks or objects per se) but there is clear overlap. A question is: As we trace the ‘transfer ‘ or movement of an object, or knowledge, or a human body, how is it possible to capture the qualitative change of that object, knowledge or body? It is a variation of the question how to capture the nature and character of social relationships in visual images… One to discuss perhaps.