Roundtable

Reading the acknowledgements section of any book that might be categorized as global history, one comes across a long and impressive list of archives, frequently spanning multiple continents. These books often historicize structures that facilitate or constrain global connections, mobility and interactions, and they often present narratives that are less Eurocentric than those they write against.2 But they rarely raise the question of who gets to be a global historian. After all, the use of multiple archives across national borders has always relied on the possession of a strong passport and the funding of a wealthy institution. When these once marginal issues suddenly gained traction in March 2020 amid national lockdowns and restrictions on international travel, we were puzzled. Why did such issues become ‘global’ only when they started to impact particular scholars – notably those who had previously enjoyed the greatest access to resources and freedoms? Why did funding bodies start to think about these issues only once the pandemic hit? What does it mean to ‘do’ global history in a deeply unequal world? It was during an e-conversation about these questions that the idea for a seminar series entitled ‘The archives of global history in a time of international immobility’ was born. Our hope for the seminar series was to provide both a practical forum to exchange ideas about new archival practices, in light of the pandemic, and a space for thinking creatively about ‘disconnection’, a topic of recent and ongoing conceptual discussion in the field of global history.3 After being awarded an online platform by the Institute of Historical Research as part of their online Partnership Seminars, we organized eight roundtable-style Zoom events across 2021.4 As a team of convenors, we invited a total of thirty-three speakers – researchers, archivists and practitioners – based in Denmark, Egypt, Germany, Finland, India, Ireland, Jamaica, the Netherlands, Nigeria, South Sudan, Turkey, the U.K. and the U.S.A. Seminar themes ranged from archiving violence to the architecture of global cities, with common threads relating to access, ownership and collaboration emerging throughout. Following the completion of the seminars, a number of speakers agreed to share responses to three major questions raised during the series, drawing on their own work, research and experience. These responses are presented in this opinion article, with the hope of capturing in written form the vibrancy of the conversations we enjoyed through a medium so characteristic – for some – of pandemic-era working life. The inaccessibility of many traditional, paper archives during the pandemic is a prompt for us to think about archives in the most expansive sense. Across the series we considered the limits of state archives, in particular, for ‘doing’ global history, and heard about ambitious digitization projects that promise to reinvent official records and open them for public use, like Alex Miskin Simple’s outreach work at the South Sudan National Archives. Non-paper archives were a recurring theme: built environment as archive, landscape as archive (in Tereza Valny’s work), inaccessibility as archive. To capture these themes, we asked contributors: where are the archives of global history? Uğurgül Tunç: Before asking where the archives of global history are, we need to question what constitutes an archive. Relying heavily on conventional archives is one of the main reasons behind the lack of diversity and problems of representation in historiography. If we want to create an historiography that gives voice to those whose voices have been silenced because of the gaps in conventional archives, then we need to learn how to read those gaps and search for the missing narratives of historically marginalized people. The work of Natalie Zemon Davis presents a good example of how we can find records of ‘ordinary folk’ through absences in conventional archives. We need to go one step further, though, to include those who may never have made their way into written records. We need to forego our heavy reliance on textual sources and treat remnants of material culture, archaeological and architectural evidence, folk literature, and oral records as pieces of the puzzle. In that sense, vast geographies in their entirety – with their buildings, stories told by their peoples, their traditions, their folklore and so on – contain the archives of global history. We also need to remind ourselves of our responsibility to archive our present era in such a way that ensures future historians’ easy access to information that reflects the experiences (that includes sensory experiences) and contributions of diverse groups of people. Hannah Elsisi: I agree with many of these points. The short answer to this question is that the most pertinent and underutilized archives of global history are not held in official buildings, nor comprised of letterheaded paper. They include: oral traditions that have transmitted historical memory in stories, legends and dinner-table conversations; material cultures and objects – family albums, obituaries, private letters, gravestones, transistor radios – whose circulation or preservation is not, or cannot be, contested by power; and literary, cinematographic and artistic canons that for far too long have been ignored as sources for historians, despite the fact that they are, to use Stephen Guth’s phrase, ‘frequently autobiographical’, not least because they are more likely to evade censorship.5 And, most importantly, individual and collective memory. My research looks into the history of incarceration in Egypt and the wider Middle East. Access to the Ministry of Interior and Justice’s archives is all but impossible, with the effect that there are no extant maps and plans of postcolonial prisons, nor, say, lists of prisoners held in each cell and ward. The archive one must visit to reconstruct such maps, then, is the very memories of still-living former political prisoners, who may inadvertently reveal spatial descriptors of their confinement, such as: ‘It was 2000 steps around the perimeter of the prison courtyard’; ‘We slept in shifts, 40 lying one next to the other, and 40 standing on foot’; ‘We were the only ward that could hear Farid Haddad being tortured’. Speculative maps and plans can then be produced by triangulating such statements, from thousands of sources (memoirs, interviews, party reports, letters smuggled on cigarette paper), and overlaying them with digital satellite and mapping software. Mark Tizzoni: My answer to this question is very much rooted in my research on the late antique Maghreb. For those of us who work on the very distant past the archives are and have always been fragmentary, uneven and inaccessible, marked more by absence than by presence. Indeed, the archive as traditionally envisioned does not really exist for ancient historians. There has always been a need to supplement the ‘conventional’ historical archive with the ‘non-conventional’. In the case of the ancient Maghreb this means poetry, theology and philosophy, and it means material culture too. The ancient archive needs to include the archaeological, epigraphic, numismatic and visual; its compilation and use are inherently and necessarily interdisciplinary. The ancient archives, therefore, exist in situ in the field and in museum collections just as they do on the shelves of research libraries. It also means that there is both an archive that exists directly in the landscape in which it was created and an archive that exists in varying degrees divorced from its point of origin. There is, nonetheless, a great richness to the archives of a global late antiquity. For the decades surrounding 500 C.E., the Maghreb’s archive includes tenancy and marriage agreements on wooden tablets excavated in Tunisia, inscriptions and monumental tombs attesting to Indigenous state-building along the old Roman frontier in Algeria, and an odd collection of poems providing a mirror on late-Vandal Carthage, surviving in an eighth-century manuscript from south-western Europe. Curtis Wallace: From the perspective of the work that I am currently doing on the history of in the history of the the archives of global history are the records that have been created by the and the and groups that were in with them the was These records include state that were by the the and the and of and with the and records of and that were by the these archives provide on the and practical of in to that they were often produced by state and they provide a of the as Hannah and Uğurgül more perspective is gained from the records produced by of the public and and or as private These include and oral history. the official and the records to the are held in state archives in and the but some are also in and digital archives. these records provide on the of and in They also provide into the and of the and In my most recent I the as I was to research and write a history of the in were in this as had an a I on material from the archive, because the archive is and most archives have very despite the As I in my I do of the of the by of of with sources from their of – for a manuscript and the of sources to learn about – to a of than about the of sources from a But more importantly, material in my in the U.K. and at the in made time and to on the and surrounding my this material in an have had a impact on my this material have read any or into the had I read it in an in of the most archives of global history are in history and in and the as these are not only archives of by to and in global but are also a of a in about future research on history, the of such collections is often not is in particular the digitization of collections and archival access to a of new material that has the to light on how history and each from the to the new of material global to our of the and of and historical in former historical archives and collections are an point for global historical into the of our of and its In the of history, there is a in perspective on the is to a particular work as to the of an at a and these but also in the way that each then a on of the or on From the perspective of architectural history, which is the field I work the of the history of at a or in a particular working with an archive that is and and also is not what is in an archive. My at in and so access not only to the archives of but also to the archives of the that in to the archives of that had to with and to the I was In that sense, the was both the all around the which the ‘global’ or of a particular and the they at a particular in this case the archive, also to this of the particular or of the in or as from a more global of or For at how new and such as to and their work and but also to share their with the or us how work was about not only or these but also about the records of the the its its and so In that sense, the of global history is not only what is in the archive, but also the of these records were as as what for in my particular the buildings, the the and the structures archives have been to my work on in too. My research archives in the U.K. These archives are like many are by of what they cannot us – and many scholars have this – is how To to the perspective of I had to learn to read then for these archives. there are of history and archives in what is to the of during the the archives and global history is not time sources in I have been by just how present the is and how present the state all, were organized into national bodies and their in national In the what has been has been and made in that are of to the state – to the Curtis with to the point about and point about for my research too. of my is on the by a working in the by the the the of across the In of the the of the and from notably the in the I the and archives in these and in and the of the National of the of and the of in for their digital Historical research is a in and When these archival I find that are never The projects that I am in were in that the global of and is about the spatial such as and can be but I need to it it in my In a is and thinking is We need I think that most archives in the in be categorized as I that this to archives from the and as these are most by what we might As I in my during the my own research about Roman in to archives in the Netherlands, and the experiences of the and the archives they of these archives really as the archive in was the archive of a of and the National in as of the of the more than I think that it be all who are to archives more of the ‘global’ or international and of the collections they work could to more about the history of the of around the I to more about the of in practical and and the pandemic has to research and practices, as as of thinking about and its In our how had questions from projects into own how as a and the as many of our unequal that of during the pandemic it and far into the in of archival We asked the pandemic had for any particular issues to working with global My is as a and architectural historian. In just the of the pandemic, I a the archive of the Institute of the for the South in was the of the of the in the of the Institute in was not a for the who such as the they about and We have no records from this When archival work in the the was on what was and To this the archive has no for or for our records and our are not of archival The pandemic has this work in of my with the in but the from the has been is that I am not a In pandemic-era Zoom have a with than might have been We are asking how far our future be to material to it to for a and we digitization what and The fact that the archives of the are is of the in from so records of their are in the archive The pandemic has made it more as we go the archives is I was to be to most of my research the pandemic but also to do this research the of a at the of which the resources and a from which to for all the I to I to to the to or to the and to the archives For as a to reconstruct the history of my own the pandemic what my as an and a has always that of unequal and access to to travel, to and so In particular, the pandemic all of the to their borders and to to from the means that for the past access to about the and about often in these has to be inaccessible, and to scholars from the the of the pandemic for the pandemic into the that have always and to impact and only which we but who gets to write which – these questions are by and that I think scholars and in the are to Curtis Wallace: For a who and in the more the access to archives with on in has been a In the access has been by state at the time of the of records that had the to reveal about the of and Access to the records has been by restrictions on the of their the of some records in archives, and the with to to and the These have been by the pandemic, which has in archives, the of and restrictions that the of from the South to the U.K. These limits have global in by voices that diversity to global history. Hannah Elsisi: The of the pandemic raised the of the that Middle scholars the from the were their projects were they were with no for and the of be in the of their For the most these were or In 2020 history had to with a and by who had no for or access to and what is a that is based on to no or it to say, we did not a answer to this it a of in our not least in drawing to the very held by the most what is history? In the the of and in history at and – where I was working in some research – for the that pandemic-era contain of It that to their or an of have to and their these were the about to and The for were have to work at least to provide with collections and research for those and marked by archival inaccessibility or the pandemic was the on my own on and in the Middle to the only a had an on the and just one read any of its were by the In the problems and working in from the South suddenly for the of the of the pandemic, then, is the way in which it has research and that have historically and groups – of and – The hope is that the from that – and them – not be as we to some of The is that the is to the the series, that we were a and in of unequal access to resources and each to our new projects that to some of these particular to global history, where an on can the of we considered the particular and the records of global history by We heard from and all working with the in about the series of projects and relating to the history of the material about which is to we asked about emerging for collaboration across and and for global to new is an answer to these and I think it new for scholars who may work with more resources than in of research and But I think we be not to present digitization of collections as an easy for all of that exist It a of to digitization projects for and there always be which collections are for digitization and which are I think that do to more with when they are doing archival example is the new of the National of and which in conversations with and the The from the idea that archival collections to the with they than to the which I think is really I my the but have a from digital is a and but it not gets And, of it has a impact on I am that and objects can always more information than a When I a in the an that the that I had than the in their online the are organized and presented is We can because of digitization projects to I of the a of collaboration to and archival collections in of the But for a and diverse like India, collaboration of the by like Access From my own and in are their the of paper records into as the for all problems of access and it be their resources and about how they could to access to a For this also the of of For the of of The of India, despite the of that in the drawing the resources and of a of in around the have this As as archives as a and I have been thinking about this question as an for an online platform that history, culture and in and the – an we that we use to and thinking about My own part of the on which I work with is is about that are projects in the for example and oral history and to how are with this has been in a of with that were to way for a public As have of digitization to to the needs and of who have or historical with the material being at the time as those of and But there are and to which we have been thinking about in the of example is in we invited of the to or to us to and then to this material the of a public to this is our to What this means is working with to and create so that can material on their own is when there is of based on a history of being from the issues for the of history which are often to access for global historians. archival and are frequently many in the field are the research of or in As a global have a time the and collection of history I hope that the digitization of collections and archival an history and their global historians, digital and The question of this how can we that history collections and archives become a for in the of vast as it is in the of history and Uğurgül Tunç: ‘global’ history the of the field to diverse groups of are more than many they and all to these archives and to in collective of global history are we are oral history archives to the of diverse groups of and to facilitate an historiography that own narratives of history. We have a public archive to which can of their experiences during the My as a sensory is such at an oral history archive the sensory experiences of in of this that of the future have more than just or official records of our present These projects can be with in around the to form an and of global archives. is also a how the of and to the pandemic in in the of the pandemic in to for and remnants of that which in in the of a there are with that need to be any is both as an archival and for when has great to collective and of the archives of global history. Mark Tizzoni: My answer to this question comes from my work the history of I am this question from my because I think that the is a part of the answer as Hannah archives, in a global are They are in and and and just a that in the of late antique Egypt and the and they like with from these global archives them the to start these or at least the that they want to and need is or by the work of the archives more through digitization and of Egypt, the multiple projects working on the ongoing of the the are a and archive on the of is to my own I have started to that to for and in with These to my own in the archive for a new through and of prompt for this seminar series was the fact that global history, as a has not discussion to its archival the number of and to the the of global has not been or to the say, the archive of history, or the archive of history. The of the the lack of its and the to as a global all have to do with Indeed, in this series of Zoom we did not speakers their own work as global history. the seminar series that this is far from just a the archival of global history is we want to the to history more and in pertinent to the we – in – was a of experiences of with some space for the of As the contributions there was much about the pandemic that was not as a The in this have some a of the archives of global to think more deeply about what constitutes an archive, who gets to do global history, what our are to future If we that global history is more a of practices, and than a then conversations like those are a good to In the from which a of global archival could is a forum of experiences of practitioners working across – as and public historians, as as – and across with no to being or

Political science · Asian American and Pacific Histories · Colonial History and Postcolonial Studies · History · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies

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