Palimpsests of the Past: Oral History and the Art of Pointillism

2018 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
pp. 855-877
Author(s):  
Katherine A. Bowie
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
State Formation ◽  
Oral Histories ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The Past ◽  
Time Periods ◽  
Nation State Formation

The use of oral histories is embedded in the interplay of archival limitations and shifting historiographical questions. This essay begins with a preliminary historiography of oral history usage in Asia, exploring its contrasting usages among scholars of China, Japan, India, and Thailand. However, more than filling in archival gaps, oral histories can challenge broader historiographies. Arrested multiple times, Kruba Srivichai (1878–1939) is northern Thailand's most famous monk. Illustrating a pointillist approach that draws upon hundreds of oral histories and dividing the palimpsest of Srivichai's controversial life into four time periods, this essay shows how oral histories challenge four corresponding paradigms and thereby force a reengagement with the overall narrative of Thai nation-state formation. This essay argues for the importance of oral history, not merely in “filling in gaps” in archival sources, but in challenging hegemonic historiographical paradigms.

Beyond the Nation? Or Back to It? Current Trends in the Sociology of Nations and Nationalism

Sociology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (6) ◽  
pp. 1072-1087
Author(s):  
Daniel Chernilo
Keyword(s):  
State Formation ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The Past ◽  
Methodological Nationalism ◽  
Current Trends ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Nation State Formation

This article critically reviews three of the most significant debates in the sociology of nations and nationalism over the past 50 years: (1) the problem of methodological nationalism on the main features of nation-states; (2) the tension between primordialism and modernism in understanding the historicity of nations; and (3) the politics of nationalism between universalism and particularism. These three debates help us clarify some key theses in our long-term understanding of nations and nationalism: processes of nation and nation-state formation are not opposed to but compatible with the rise of globalisation and non-state forms of governance; the question ‘when is a nation?’ combines modern and pre-modern dimensions; the politics of nationalism is neither unfailingly democratic nor exclusively regressive. A key paradox that unfolds is that all nations invest heavily in the production and reproduction of their own exceptionalism.

Socialist Modernisation in Mongolia as Narrated after Socialism

Inner Asia ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuki Konagaya
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Life Histories ◽  
Oral Histories ◽  
View Point ◽  
The Past ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
History Narratives

AbstractIn this article I introduce our collection of oral histories composed of life histories recorded between 2001 and 2006. First, I discuss some devices implemented in the process of collecting life histories, which was to make oral histories 'polyphonic'. I then suggest that oral history always has a 'dual' tense, in that people talk about 'the past' from the view point of 'the present'. This is illustrated by six cases of statesmen narrating their views about socialist modernisation. Finally, using one of the cases, I demonstrate the co-existence of non-official or private opinions along with official opinions about the socialist period in life-history narratives in the post-socialist period. I call this 'ex-post value'.

Indigenous Spheres of Deliberation

2018 ◽  
pp. 99-110
Author(s):  
Martin Hébert
Keyword(s):  
State Formation ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Community Life ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Regional Organizations ◽  
Political Deliberation ◽  
Nation State Formation

Indigenous peoples’ rights to self-determination and self-government are recognized by several international instances. Deliberation plays a key role in the exercise of these rights, and its forms are as diverse as the cultures and social structures of which it is part. However, efforts to understand commonalities and differences between contexts and experiences have led to discussions of what Rodolfo Stavenhagen has termed the “indigenous situation.” This chapter looks at some ways in which self-identified Indigenous peoples have maintained, repurposed, and developed practices of political deliberation within such contexts of colonialism, nation-state formation, and capitalist expansion. A particular emphasis is put on the various scales at which deliberation takes place, be it in community life, regional organizations, or national and international political movements.

“Noble and Delicate Sentiments”

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyne R. Larson
Keyword(s):  
Small Group ◽  
State Formation ◽  
National Society ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Social Patterns ◽  
European Science ◽  
Natural Scientists ◽  
Individual Choices ◽  
Push And Pull ◽  
Nation State Formation

This article explores the emotional community of museum natural scientists in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Argentina, a context in which the growth of museum natural sciences and nation-state formation became closely intertwined. Influenced by powerful nineteenth-century notions of civilization and modernity, Argentine scientists and statemakers sought to create a distinctively Argentine science, which would emulate European science in form but also retain a uniquely national character. A small group of influential museum administrators and scientists consciously strove to strengthen science’s influence in Argentine national society by creating communal norms among scientists that resonated with narratives about civilization and modernity, and that guided proper behavior and emotional expression. Scientists also challenged the expectations of their community, testing the strength of central emotional tenets such as patriotism and objectivity. This article uses emotional communities as a framework for exploring the push and pull between social patterns and individual choices in this critical moment in Argentina’s history, when new and powerful ideas about science—as a modern, objective, and national practice—emerged in tandem with nation-state formation. In particular, this article explores museum natural scientists’ emotional concerns with objectivity and patriotism through a small group of Argentine museum natural scientists: Francisco P. Moreno, Juan B. Ambrosetti, Hermann Burmeister, and Florentino Ameghino.

scholarly journals Decolonising war

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tarak Barkawi
Keyword(s):  
State Formation ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The West ◽  
War And Society ◽  
Small War ◽  
Nation State Formation ◽  
Do So

AbstractWhat would it mean to decolonise the concept of war? ‘Decolonising’ means critiquing the ways in which Eurocentric ideas and historiographies have informed the basic categories of social and political thought. Dominant understandings of the concept of war derive from histories and sociologies of nation-state formation in the West. Accordingly, I critique this Eurocentric concept of war from the perspective of Small War in the colonies, that is, from the perspective of different histories and geographies of war and society than were assumed to exist in the West. I do so in order to outline a postcolonial concept of war and to identify some of the principles of inquiry that would inform a postcolonial war studies. These include conceiving force as an ordinary dimension of politics; situating force and war in transnational context, amid international hierarchies; and attending to the co-constitutive character of war and society relations in world politics.

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