Africa in Imperial and Transnational History

Multi-Sited Historiography and the Necessity of Theory

Bibliographic Data

ID8978211
AuthorsAndrew Zimmerman (0000-0003-4328-8115, George Washington University, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume54
Issue3
Pages331-340
Publication date2013-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Journal of African History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-8537 • E-ISSN: 1469-5138
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0021853713000728
OpenAlexW2024234956
LanguageEN
Citations received17
References cited64

A multi-sited, but nonetheless locally grounded, transnational history breaks with older modes of imperial history that treated Africa as little more than a setting for the history of colonizers. More recently, critical approaches to imperial history have pointed to, but not adequately pursued, the treatment of colonizer and colonized as coeval subjects of history and objects of analysis. Historians of Africa and the diaspora, however, moved beyond imperial history decades ago, and these fields provide important resources and models for transnational historians. Transnational history, nonetheless, always risks reproducing the boundaries between colonizer and colonized that it seeks to overcome. The need to think outside of empire from within a world structured by empires requires that historians embrace critical theory, but in a manner consistent with the groundedness of multi-sited historiography

Ancient history · Archaeology · Diaspora · Empire · Genealogy · Historiography · Sociology · World history · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Gender Studies · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History

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