History from Below Research Papers (original) (raw)

Powerful historical artefacts vitalize their potential agencies in specific historical moments and cause fractures in our perspectives. In this thesis, I argue that objects' power can be examined by looking at their supernatural,... more

Powerful historical artefacts vitalize their potential agencies in specific historical moments and cause fractures in our perspectives. In this thesis, I argue that objects' power can be examined by looking at their supernatural, political, cultural, practical, and economic agencies. The thesis is based on a case study of looting in Turkey and archival research on nineteenth-century travelogues of Asia Minor. Rituals of looting attest to the supernatural agency. Rituals challenge the common perception of time and space. The contradictions between European travelers' approach to and the Ottoman locals' interpretations of historical artefacts signify objects' cultural agency. Locals' multitemporal framing of antiquities and travelers' perception of time as linear has resulted in an epistemic antinomy that defined the Ottoman experience of modernity from below. Such encounters in the Mediterranean conjuncture often necessitated the Ottoman state to fill in the power gap. I argue that this involvement sutured the antiquities' political agency in designing the Ottoman's modern statecraft and perception of cultural heritage. Besides these three agencies, antiquities have a practical agency that locals attached to their everyday lives. The economic agency of antiquities is relevant in the global market of the illicit antiquities trade. In the sphere of the antiquities market, the exchange value subsumes the antiquities' other agencies. Through in-depth case studies from Laodicea in Turkey to Heraklion in Crete, the thesis demonstrates how artefacts' times have undergone singularization. As their historical and social context unfolded, the shared sense of space within eclectic temporality has come to a halt. I contend that attempts to singularize the past narrow the culturally effective possibilities of conviviality between diverse social groups. The thesis argues that archaeologists, heritage scholars, and policymakers can contribute to the culturally viable and socially equitable ways to organize cultural heritage, should a holistic analysis, involving all the five types of agencies, be applied to the cases of looting of antiquities.

Türkiye, her iki dünya savaşı ertesi köklü dönüşümler geçirdi. İlki 600 yıllık Osmanlı hanedanına son verdi. İkincisi ise Tek Parti döneminin sonu oldu; Türkiye’de siyasi demokrasinin yolunu açtı. İkinci Dünya Savaşı’nda Türkiye tarafsız... more

Türkiye, her iki dünya savaşı ertesi köklü dönüşümler geçirdi. İlki 600 yıllık Osmanlı hanedanına son verdi. İkincisi ise Tek Parti döneminin sonu oldu; Türkiye’de siyasi demokrasinin yolunu açtı. İkinci Dünya Savaşı’nda Türkiye tarafsız kaldı. Ancak, savaşın tüm olumsuzluklarını bilfiil yaşadı. Tek Parti döneminin toplumsal dengeleri büyük ölçüde hasar gördü. Milli Korunma Kanunu, Varlık Vergisi, Toprak Mahsulleri
Vergisi, İş Mükellefiyeti gibi uygulamalar toplumsal katmanları iktidara karşı tavır almaya sevk etti. Devletin savaş içinde kararlarını hayata geçirme konusundaki zaafları belirginleşirken; kitlelerin gündelik yaşamda tepki ve direnişleri de çığ gibi arttı. Gerek çok partili sisteme geçişte, gerekse 1940’ların ikinci yarısında gündeme gelen sosyal politika alanındaki reformlarda toplum tabanında gözlenen yılgınlık ve
tepkiler önemli bir rol oynadı.
Murat Metinsoy’un kitabı işte bu zor yılların toplumsal öyküsünü gündeme getiriyor. Olaylar dizinini tabandan irdeleyerek; kitlelerin yaşam deneyimlerini, serzenişlerini, gündelik yaşamdaki direnişlerini vurgulayarak… Otoriter dönemlerde bile toplumun
gündelik mücadelelerinin ve taleplerinin siyasete etki edebileceğini
ortaya koyarak…
Zafer Toprak, Boğaziçi Üniversitesi

The present volume focuses on the relationship between office-holders and local communities in premodern Europe. It aims to further our understanding of popular political participation in practices of controlling officers by shifting the... more

The present volume focuses on the relationship between office-holders and local communities in premodern Europe. It aims to further our understanding of popular political participation in practices of controlling officers by shifting the emphasis from bureaucratic expansion and state-building to the agency of the people. The underlying assumption is that communities played a central role in holding office-holders to account and thereby contributed fundamentally to shaping premodern rule and authority.
The essays in the volume address different mechanisms of accountability in various geographical and chronological contexts. Yet none offers a traditional study of office-holders using institutional and prosopographical approaches. Instead, they all focus on the people in their various communities and their interactions with representatives of central authority taking a bottom-up perspective and highlighting these communities as key actors who exerted tangible and visible control over the officers’ behaviour, their self-image, and their individual scope for action. This article serves as an introductory essay to the historiographical context in which the volume operates, before developing its methodological and thematic approach. A last section will introduce the individual contributions connecting them to the themes and the main questions of the volume.

This volume focuses on the relationship between officers and local communities in premodern Europe. Its starting point is that communities played a central role in holding officers to account and thereby contributed fundamentally to... more

This volume focuses on the relationship between officers and local communities in premodern Europe. Its starting point is that communities played a central role in holding officers to account and thereby contributed fundamentally to shaping premodern rule and authority. The volume's main aims are to further our understanding of popular political participation in premodern practices of officers' accountability, and to shift the emphasis in the study of premodern bureaucracy to the agency of the people. The essays in the volume address different mechanisms of accountability in various geographical and chronological contexts, bridging the traditional gap between medieval and early modern studies. Yet none offers a traditional study of officers using institutional and prosopographical approaches. Instead they all shift the focus to the people in their various communities and their interactions with representatives of central authority. Taking a bottom-up perspective, the essays thus highlight the role of the people as key actors who exerted tangible and visible control over the officers' behaviour, their self-image, and individual scope for action. Ultimately, therefore, the volume contributes to the debate about state-formation from below.
More info at https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-officer-and-the-people-9780192848383?q=the%20officer%20and%20the%20people&lang=en&cc=gb#

La «historia desde abajo», promovida por intelectuales como E.P. Thompson y Christopher Hill, modificó el modo de entender la historia desde una perspectiva de izquierda. La historiografía asumió rigurosidad y compromiso político, a la... more

La «historia desde abajo», promovida por intelectuales como E.P. Thompson y Christopher Hill, modificó el modo de entender la historia desde una perspectiva de izquierda. La historiografía asumió rigurosidad y compromiso político, a la vez que evidenció que ciertas visiones «desde arriba» omitían a actores populares trascendentales para comprender el pasado y el presente. Los cambios globales en el mundo del trabajo y los desplazamientos ideológicos podrían haber horadado este modo de pensar la historia. Sin embargo, sus actualizaciones han mantenido viva a esta corriente que hace historia «al ras del suelo».

The central contention of this article is that early nineteenth-century Irish landlords were constrained in their ability to control their estates by the prospect of peasant resistance. The apex of that resistance took the form of what... more

The central contention of this article is that early nineteenth-century Irish landlords were constrained in their ability to control their estates by the prospect of peasant resistance. The apex of that resistance took the form of what are generically known as whiteboy movements, and this article examines the impact of one particular such movement, the Whitefeet, active in the East Midlands and SouthEast in the early 1830s. The article argues that two forms of landlord versus tenant conflicts can be identified: an absolute form, in which landlords (or subletting rentiers called middlemen) behaved as if they had absolute rights over their properties and were the victims of retaliatory violence; and a negotiated form, in which landlords (or their agents) proceeded in a more restrained, and piecemeal fashion, and compromised in the face of opposition. The fact that the magistracy, at least in some instances, condemned the practitioners of absolute conflict would suggest that more measured approaches were the socially accepted norm, precisely because of the potential for retaliatory violence. The article will conclude with a discussion framing the foregoing in terms of moral economy. It will be argued that the balance between landlord power and tenant resistance created a grudging acceptance of respective rights.

Transitional justice is concerned with the legal and social processes established to deal with the legacy of violence in post-authoritarian and post-conflict contexts. The interview — in different guises, contexts and settings — is at the... more

Transitional justice is concerned with the legal and social processes established to deal with the legacy of violence in post-authoritarian and post-conflict contexts. The interview — in different guises, contexts and settings — is at the heart of most transitional justice processes. Prosecutorial mechanisms, truth recovery commissions, assessments for reparations, applications for amnesty — all of these and more are fueled by the art of one human being interviewing another and then presenting or “re-presenting” the material recorded, to make it “fit” with the broader transitional goals of a particular institution. Most transitional justice institutions are, in the final analysis, “creatures of law.” They are typically established by statute, their work is molded and shaped by lawyers, and their outcomes are benchmarked against what is or is not acceptable under domestic and international law. In such a context, it is little wonder that some transitional scholars have expressed conc...

Immune cells (leukocytes or white blood cells) move actively and sensitively based on body conditions. Despite their important role as protectors inside the body, it is difficult to directly observe the spatiotemporal momentum of... more

Immune cells (leukocytes or white blood cells) move actively and sensitively based on body conditions. Despite their important role as protectors inside the body, it is difficult to directly observe the spatiotemporal momentum of leukocytes. With advances in imaging technology, the introduction of two-photon microscopy has enabled researchers to look deeper inside tissues in a three-dimensional manner. In observations of immune cell movement along the blood vessel, vascular permeability and innate immune cell movements remain unclear. Here, we describe the neutrophil extravasation cascade, which were observed using a two-photon intravital imaging technique. We also provide evidence for novel mechanisms such as neutrophil body extension and microparticle formation as well as their biological roles during migration.

This themed section of 'Nations and Nationalism' contains the following articles: Jon E. Fox and Maarten Van Ginderachter, Introduction: Everyday nationalism's evidence problem / Tim Edensor and Shanti Sumartojo, Geographies of everyday... more

This themed section of 'Nations and Nationalism' contains the following articles:
Jon E. Fox and Maarten Van Ginderachter, Introduction: Everyday nationalism's evidence problem /
Tim Edensor and Shanti Sumartojo, Geographies of everyday nationhood: experiencing multiculturalism in Melbourne /
Maarten Van Ginderachter, How to gauge banal nationalism and national indifference in the past: proletarian tweets in Belgium’s belle époque /
Michael Skey, ‘There are times when I feel like a bit of an alien’: Middling migrants and the national order of things /
Jonathan Hearn and Marco Antonsich, Theoretical and methodological considerations for the study of banal and everyday nationalism

Con la finalidad de aproximarse al estudio de las sociabilidades de clase y su movilización social, esta comunicación pretende analizar los cambios y las continuidades en la sociabilidad de las clases populares durante el primer tercio... more

Con la finalidad de aproximarse al estudio de las sociabilidades de clase y su movilización social, esta comunicación pretende analizar los cambios y las continuidades en la sociabilidad de las clases populares durante el primer tercio del siglo XX en las comarcas de la provincia de Tarragona. La entrada del capitalismo en el agro catalán provocó que las sociabilidades tradicionales alrededor de espacios recreativos, controlados por las elites locales, terminaran quedando obsoletas para satisfacer las demandas del campesinado y las clases populares en general, quienes verían cómo sus intereses discreparían con las clases dirigentes con las que hasta el momento habían compartido espacios de sociabilidad. El paternalismo que había caracterizado la etapa anterior ya no sería de utilidad y una muestra de ello sería el crecimiento de diversas entidades recreativas, alternativas a las creadas a mediados del siglo XIX, y sindicatos de clase en detrimento de las sociedades de socorros mutuos, dando paso a una amplia red asociativa de base, forjando unas culturas políticas concretas y unas identidades de clase dispares.

Évfolyam: 13. évfolyam (2013) 1. szám Létrehozás ideje: 2013.03.06 Szerző: Huhák Heléna

The publication of this special issue of the Journal of Egyptian History intends to explore the place and role of Egyptology in Global History, as well as its potential contributions to this burgeoning field of research. In order to... more

The publication of this special issue of the Journal of Egyptian History intends to explore the place and role of Egyptology in Global History, as well as its potential contributions to this burgeoning field of research. In order to achieve this goal, the journal’s editors have considered it useful to invite scholars who are not Egyptologists, but whose expertise in topics and regions that are increasingly relevant for a better comprehension of ancient Egypt will certainly stimulate both interdisciplinary dialogue and a better integration of data from the land of the pharaohs into current debates in social sciences. Other articles intend to explore new paths of comparative research, for instance about concepts that helped define the political and social principles that guided the everyday exercise of political action in ancient societies, or the way in which the past was recorded and mobilized for practical reasons. Connectivity is also becoming a major focus of research in archaeology and ancient history, and it increasingly reveals the influence that particular cultural, technical, or economic phenomena exerted over major developments across vast spaces. So, the modalities of integration of ancient Egypt (a marginal actor or an unsuspected influence?) in these spheres of interaction is certain to gain momentum in the next decades. They may also help scholars to understand the nature of the relations or the type of the policies followed by Pharaohs and by other actors (traders, agents of the crown, etc.) toward neighbouring areas. In return, they may also shed light on major changes that occurred in Egypt and which share, nevertheless, common features with other regions of the ancient Near East. One final urgent question concerns the role Egyptology is called to play in a shifting cultural, educational, and intellectual landscape no longer centred on the cultural priorities and geopolitical goals of the West. The articles gathered in this special issue try to cast some light on these topics, and it is the editors’ hope that they will stimulate debates among Egyptologists as well as with specialists working on neighbouring disciplines and, more generally, on social sciences.

A tanulmány célja a magyarországi vészkorszak tárgyi reprezentációjának 1 a Holokauszt Emlékközpont gyűjteményén keresztül történő körüljárása. 2 A teljesség igénye nélkül a fontosabb szempontok alapján e tematikus kollekció muzeológiai... more

A tanulmány célja a magyarországi vészkorszak tárgyi reprezentációjának 1 a Holokauszt Emlékközpont gyűjteményén keresztül történő körüljárása. 2 A teljesség igénye nélkül a fontosabb szempontok alapján e tematikus kollekció muzeológiai jellegzetességeire szeretnék kitérni, felvillantva a tárgyi "életrajzok" állomásait a keletkezéstől a gyűjtésen át a múzeumi feldolgozásig. Igyekszem vázolni, a témában gyűjtő muzeológus milyen jellegzetes tárgytípusokra, esetenként ritkaságokra számíthat, ezek "megszólaltatása" milyen speciális nehézségeket rejt magában és hogyan ívelhetőek át a holokauszt, mint történeti jelenség muzealizálódásának töredezettségei, hiányosságai. 3 A holokauszt ún. nehéz örökség, "diffi cult heritage". 4 A téma érzékeny és összetett, megragadása problematikus, sok szempontot kell fi gyelembe venni ahhoz, hogy hiteles és pontos képet adjunk róla. A történeti hűség szükséges, de nem elégséges feltétele a megfelelő bemutatásnak. Ahogyan azt Toronyi Zsuzsanna részletesen kifejti, a holokauszttal foglalkozó kiállítások létrehozása, értelmezése során a kortárs muzeológia szinte valamennyi kérdése előkerül. 5 Továbbá mind a közzététel, mind 1 Tárgyi reprezentáció alatt ezúttal a dokumentumokat, fotókat is értem a szigorúan tárgyi emlékként értelmezhető háromdimenziós tételek mellett. 2 A kiragadott példák csupán a lentebb következő aspektusokat támasztják alá, bővebb válogatás található a gyűjtemény katalógusában: A Holokauszt Emlékközpont gyűjteményi katalógusa.

Suomen kielen ihmisyksilön henkistä kehittyneisyyttä ilmaisevan sivistys-käsitteen nykymerkitys jakautuu kahteen toisilleen vastakkaiseen muotoon. Käsitteellä voidaan tarkoittaa sivistystä, joka on aistinvaraisesti opittua esimerkiksi... more

Escondidas entre las medidas de control político, social, sexual y moral del régimen de Franco se encuentran las voces de mujeres anónimas de la posguerra zaragozana. Aunque buena parte de ellas fueron víctimas de la represión ejercida... more

Escondidas entre las medidas de control político, social, sexual y moral del régimen de Franco se encuentran las voces de mujeres anónimas de la posguerra zaragozana. Aunque buena parte de ellas fueron víctimas de la represión ejercida por la Ley de Responsabilidades Políticas, la justicia ordinaria, o la jurisdicción militar, sus voces no están arrasadas por ella. Al contrario, sus habilidades para defenderse, protestar, liderar procesos de duelo y reconstrucción de sus hogares, o para presentarse como sujetos de derechos y agenciarse los recursos para salir adelante, sugieren una lectura diferente. Este libro recupera sus experiencias como agentes de la memoria en la posguerra, así como sus negociaciones del discurso público y sus resistencias no violentas para la supervivencia ética, cultural y material.

This essay takes the ‘Social Contruction of Technology’ dictum as a given. But what mainly concerns us here much more than this rather self evident truth, are the obvious accompanying questions: Exactly what sort of societies are the ones... more

This essay takes the ‘Social Contruction of Technology’ dictum as a given. But what mainly concerns us here much more than this rather self evident truth, are the obvious accompanying questions: Exactly what sort of societies are the ones ‘constructing’ our technologies? In what ways is our technical apparatus designed and constructed in order to fit in certain historically conditioned social relations? And more importantly: can the social construction of technology, not any more as a theorem to be proved, but as an undisputed social fact, be used so that the history of technology contributes to social and labor history?
The methods used here stem from the marxist history of technology and labor history as they came to be since the early ‘60s. These methods, as well as the reasons for their adoption are described in the first chapter of the essay. In the following chapters, these methods are enriched and applied through an accumulative process. Each chapter answers to historiographical questions posed by previous chapters, enriches our methods and poses questions of its own. For example, the introduction of the automobile in Greece during the turn of the century provides us with a notion that could be abridged as ‘international technical coinstantaneity’. Indeed, during the Second Industrial Revolution, various ‘new’ material apparatus and technical methods were diffused all over the world. At the same time large numbers of workers (many of them of greek origin) emigrated to the United States. The international diffusion of technical apparatus as well as the large shifts of labor immigration can be used in order to detect relations and differences between different countries. In our case they are used in order to dwell into some of the questions posed by Greek historiography from 1975 onwards.
The goals and methods of the second industrial revolution and their reflection on Greek historiography are dealt with in the third and fourth chapter of the essay. In chapter 3 the ‘taylorist’ movement is shown to be an ambitious ‘technopolitical’ project aimed at reclaiming control of the workplace. It is argued that this reclamation of the workplace could only be carried through by destroying old methods of work organization and at the same time by destroying what David Montgomery calls ‘functional autonomy’ of the workers. In chapter 4 we detect historiographical questions posed by greek historiography to which our methods can contribute. Such questions concern the existence – or inexistence – of a working class in Greece during the turn of the century, the supposedly ‘underdeveloped’ character of the greek industry, as well as the historiographical significance of the greek military entanglements in the Balkans from 1897 onwards.
Chapters 2 and 5 are dedicated to two case studies concerning the introduction of ‘innovative’ machinery in Greece during the beginning of the twentieth century. At the same time, our methods are used in order to dwell into the historiographical questions detected in chapters 3 and 4.
The case study presented in chapter 2 concerns the introduction of the automobile in Greece during the first decade of the twentieth century. The automobile is presented as a technical exrpession of a class conflict simmering in turn-of-the-century Athens. It is also argued that the automobile was conceived as a machine compatible with larger class and state concerns such as the homogenization of the Greek territory, as well as the preparation for the Balkan wars of 1912-1913.
The case study presented in chapter 5 concerns the introduction of cigarette making machines in Greece in 1910. An historical essay concerning the organization of labor and the introduction of the Bonsack cigarette making machine in countries such as Egypt, Spain and the U.S. from 1880 onwards, serves to better understand the organization of the workplaces of the Greek cigarette making industry during the same period. It is argued that cigarette making machines were introduced in Greece less as a means of efficiently producing cigarettes and more as a means for the reclamation of workplace control from skilled cigarette rollers. It is also argued that the control of the workplace exercised by Greek cigarette rollers during the turn of the century was equally based on a ‘technical’ knowledge of the production process, and on a ‘moral economy’, the two being irrevocably intertwined.
In chapter 6 the conclusions of our two case studies are used in order to answer the historiographical questions posed in chapters 3 and 4. We argue that the various Greek military entanglements are historiographically significant in order to understand processes usually considered to be ‘irrelevant to war’ such as turn-of-the-century Greek ‘touring and athletic clubs’, or the introduction of the automobile in Greece. We also argue that the working class was ‘happening’ in Greece during the turn of the century, not as the rise of large workers’ unions or as a concentration of large numbers of ‘industrial workers’, but as various forms of collective expression of material interests and as technopolitical methods of state repression. Finally, we argue that the usual historiographical connection made between greek ‘industrial underdevelopment’ and the ‘lack of skilled workers in Greece’ is mistaken. Not because of some supposed ambundance of skilled industrial workers in Greece, but because Greek historiography tends to perceive mistakenly the ‘skilled worker’ notion as it appeared in Greece and elsewhere during the second industrial revolution.
It is in such ways that the history of technology is used in order to contribute to historiographical questions posed by social history and labor history. The argument closes by indicating that such a contribution may indeed be particulaly up to date, in the sense that it can contribute to historiographical questions and answers relevant to today’s historiographical needs.

Since the establishment of the independent Belgian kingdom in 1830, numerous citizens have written a so-called letter of request or demande de secours to the royal family to ask for money or help in kind. Between 1865 and 1934, spanning... more

Since the establishment of the independent Belgian kingdom in 1830, numerous citizens have written a so-called letter of request or demande de secours to the royal family to ask for money or help in kind. Between 1865 and 1934, spanning Leopold II's and Albert I's reigns, the royal family received tens of thousands of these letters. Only a few hundred, though, have been preserved (as yet uncatalogued) in the Archives of the Royal Palace in Brussels. Using James C. Scott's concept of the 'public transcript' this chapter asks to what extent the 'official' royal imagery resounded in a sample of sixty letters of request to Leopold II and Queen Elisabeth, Albert I’s consort.
The letters reflect marked class differences. In showing themselves very modest and belittling themselves in the face of royal power, middle-class requesters explicitly appealed to the official transcript of royalism. The lower classes, however made less use of these strategies. They did not always seem to master the official transcript sufficiently to put it to conscious use, which puts a new perspective on Scott's insistence that the subordinate deliberately manipulate the dominant values to their own advantage. The official public transcript might at times have been too hard to read (and use) for the lower classes.
Linda Colley's appraisal of the British monarchy also applies to the Belgian case. From this sample of request letters, it appears that in Belgium the image of the king and queen as 'essentially the same as his [or her] subjects', gradually became popularized after Albert I's marriage to Elisabeth in 1900. Citizens were prompted to see their royal family 'as unique and as typical, as ritually splendid and remorselessly prosaic, as glorious and gemütlich both'.

Since its inception as a modern nation state, Iraq has experienced a variety of more or less autocratic rulers who impeded the evolution of democratic institutions. This article joins other works that aim at recovering a legacy of... more

Since its inception as a modern nation state, Iraq has experienced a variety of more or less autocratic rulers who impeded the evolution of democratic institutions. This article joins other works that aim at recovering a legacy of democratic traditions in Iraqi society and try to evaluate future perspectives for participatory and inclusive forms of government. It widens this search into seemingly improbable terrain by focussing on the Baʿthist era. Despite the large-scale destruction of relevant archives during and after the invasion of 2003, formerly inaccessible sources from within Saddam Hussein’s ruling apparatus, a growing number of autobiographical sources and testimonies have broadened the empirical base for the historiography of Baʿthist Iraq. This study contributes to that endeavour by offering a fresh reading into open sources that have long been used by scholars. It draws on Iraqi print media published during the late 1980s and during the embargo years. This study traces evidence for a more flexible handling of domestic dissent on the part of the regime than has been commonly acknowledged in existing scholarship on Ba'thist Iraq.

"Francisco Franco conservaba tan sólo seis informes sobre la guerrilla antifranquista en su despacho. Dos de ellos hacían referencia a un pequeño grupo de guerrilla urbana granadino, los Hermanos Quero. Sus acciones espectaculares, su... more

"Francisco Franco conservaba tan sólo seis informes sobre la guerrilla antifranquista en su despacho. Dos de ellos hacían referencia a un pequeño grupo de guerrilla urbana granadino, los Hermanos Quero. Sus acciones espectaculares, su apego por el riesgo, desconcertaron a las autoridades de la época y contribuyeron a extender su leyenda. El presente libro, a través de documentación inédita, reconstruye su historia desde sus orígenes.
Los Hermanos Quero fueron hijos de una guerra. Una guerra declarada el 1 de abril de 1939 cuyo objetivo era someter a los vencidos de una guerra anterior, pero los Hermanos Quero no había nacido para ser sometidos. El combate hasta la muerte, e incluso el suicidio, eran preferibles a vivir de rodillas."

“Prawatsas Jak Bueng Lang Kue Prawatsas Prachachon: Rueng Lao Jak Fai Sai Anglish Mue Chon-Chan Rang-Ngan Took Tan Tee Duai Prachachon” [History From Below is People’s History: A Story from British New Left when ‘Working Class’ was... more

“Prawatsas Jak Bueng Lang Kue Prawatsas Prachachon: Rueng Lao Jak Fai Sai Anglish Mue Chon-Chan Rang-Ngan Took Tan Tee Duai
Prachachon” [History From Below is People’s History: A Story from British New Left when ‘Working Class’ was Replaced by ‘The People’]. Paper presented in The 2nd National Southern Network of History, Anthropology, and Sociology “Sas Hang Kan Jum Lair Silapa Hang Kan Luem” [The Science of Remembering and The Art of Forgetting]. August 25 - 27, 2016 at Prince Songkhla Nakarin University, Pattani Campus, Thailand.

The subalterns refer to the masses—the peasants, fishermen, laborers, and the like. Ranajit Guha argues that the masses reacted not only against British rule but also against the Indian elitist brand of nationalism. Theirs was a “history... more

The subalterns refer to the masses—the peasants, fishermen, laborers, and the like. Ranajit Guha argues that the masses reacted not only against British rule but also against the Indian elitist brand of nationalism. Theirs was a “history from below,” a “postcolonial history,” and a “post-nationalist historiography.” Their consciousness was not “pre-political,” as what Marxists say, but a genuine immanent political consciousness during the moment of rebellion.

Egyptian workers have taken part in almost every modern archaeological project in Egypt. Nevertheless, historians of Egyptology have only recently shown sincere interest in them. This paper aims to explain why it has taken so long, and... more

Egyptian workers have taken part in almost every modern archaeological project in Egypt. Nevertheless, historians of Egyptology have only recently shown sincere interest in them. This paper aims to explain why it has taken so long, and why the Egyptian workers do deserve scholarly investigation. In my analysis, research has been hampered by a lack of sources on workers, but also, and more importantly, because traditional
Egyptological thought separates modern from ancient Egypt and therefore ignores the former. To modern Egyptology, constituted in Europe, Egyptians, generally identified as Arab and Muslim, are not a research topic and their language is not to be learnt, because
they are, unlike Westerners, “unworthy” successors of the ancient Egyptians. They are perceived as destroying the Egyptian antiquities and failing to take proper, scientific care of them. Archaeological workers are modern Egyptians as well, so Egyptology equally excludes them. However, the discipline should care about them. First, because workers
-through their skills or the lack thereof, through their presence or absence- must have a tangible impact on what is found, and how it is found, in excavations. Second, Egyptian workers may help bridge the gap that continues to separate most archaeological projects in Egypt from neighbouring local communities. Where such a gap exists, residents may not treat the archaeological site in a way archaeologists would like to see it treated, and archaeologists may forfeit crucial local knowledge. I illustrate my reflections with findings from my ongoing research into workers of German-led excavations in Egypt between 1898 and 1914. Moreover, I find commonalities between workers of modern Egyptian archaeology and workers and craftspeople of ancient Egypt, which again calls into question Egyptology’s segregation of the two eras.

The History Workshop movement, a grassroots coalition of radical-academic, feminist, and labour historians founded at Ruskin College in the late 1960s under the guidance of Raphael Samuel, represents a powerful example of the fusion of... more

The History Workshop movement, a grassroots coalition of radical-academic, feminist, and labour historians founded at Ruskin College in the late 1960s under the guidance of Raphael Samuel, represents a powerful example of the fusion of political commitment with historical practice. However, outside of a handful of general commentaries, the history of the Workshop remains mostly unexplored. This article focuses on two central pillars of the Workshop's programme, the annual workshop gatherings held at Ruskin and the History Workshop Journal, in order to examine how its socialist (and feminist) political aspirations were translated into democratic and radical historical forms. It argues that this connection between politics and history should not be simply understood in theoretical or ideological terms, but should also encompass the symbolic, aesthetic and emotional dimensions of historical practice. While critical attention is paid to the tensions and limits of the Workshop's project, the article suggests that it was precisely in the effort to negotiate the contradictions inherent in its own ideals that the relevance and productive use of the case of History Workshop endures.

Chapter 6 of Filipinos and their Revolution: Event, Discourse, and Historiography

Motivi della ricerca, fonti e breve quadro storico pag.5

Motivi della ricerca, fonti e breve quadro storico pag.5

This document is a short term paper on the subject of Subaltern Studies and the relationship among historians in the post-colonial period in India. From the criticism to colonialists and Marxist historians by the group of scholars around... more

This document is a short term paper on the subject of Subaltern Studies and the relationship among historians in the post-colonial period in India. From the criticism to colonialists and Marxist historians by the group of scholars around the figure of Ranajit Guha, this report offers some remarks on reading current history with the History from Below approach.