Claiming histories beyond nations

Situating global history

Bibliographic Data

ID8961990
AuthorsG Balachandran (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, corresponding author)
Year2012
Volume49
Issue2
Pages247-272
Publication date2012-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Indian Economic & Social History Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0019-4646 • E-ISSN: 0973-0893
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/001946461204900204
OpenAlexW2124613807
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited99

History is conventionally imagined and narrated in the context of the nation, relating its stories and shaped by its imaginaries. To the extent the latter are selectively re-encoded into seemingly wider scales or spaces of historical narration, projects such as global history may be said to be oxymorons. Historians in the post-colonial world have also long been aware of the nation’s shadow even in purportedly transnational projects emanating from the North, yet many remain similarly in thrall to the nation. In surveying the various levels at which histories have attempted to be narrated purportedly beyond the boundaries of nations, this article argues for a more consciously layered awareness of our multiple historical locations. Life unfolds at multiple levels and spaces between which exist complex overlays, tensions, conflicts and connections. Besides the conventions and expediencies of scholarship, often in practice historians too, will feel impelled to privilege one or another level or locus for their stories. However it is important to be aware of the reasons and limitations of such choices, and that no level or locus of analysis can credibly claim to subsume all others, or render them redundant

Aesthetics · Art · Colonialism · Context (archaeology · Epistemology · Literature · Narrative · Political science · Privilege (computing · Scholarship · Shadow (psychology · Sociology · World history · Australian History and Society · Colonial History and Postcolonial Studies · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · History · Law