“The most awful thing I watched”

Author(s):  
Anindya Raychaudhuri

While every single scholarly account of partition features accounts of violence, very few studies have focused on the use of space in the way in which violence is remembered and narrated. Using a detailed study of a number of oral history testimonies, as well as literature and cinema, this chapter examines how people maintain the sanctity of the home in memory by relegating the violence of partition to the margins. This insistence on a physical separation between the nostalgically reconstructed center of the happy home and the threatening violence from the margins is noticeable across partition narratives, and helps to construct an imaginary geography which allows for the complexities of an event remembered.

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 673-688 ◽  
Author(s):  
PAUL MERCHANT

AbstractThis paper is concerned with the use of interviews with scientists by members of two disciplinary communities: oral historians and historians of science. It examines the disparity between the way in which historians of science approach autobiographies and biographies of scientists on the one hand, and the way in which they approach interviews with scientists on the other. It also examines the tension in the work of oral historians between a long-standing ambition to record forms of past experience and more recent concerns with narrative and personal ‘composure’. Drawing on extended life story interviews with scientists, recorded by National Life Stories at the British Library between 2011 and 2016, it points to two ways in which the communities might learn from each other. First, engagement with certain theoretical innovations in the discipline of oral history from the 1980s might encourage historians of science to extend their already well-developed critical analysis of written autobiography and biography to interviews with scientists. Second, the keen interest of historians of science in using interviews to reconstruct details of past events and experience might encourage oral historians to continue to value this use of oral history even after their theoretical turn.


Interiority ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristanti Dewi Paramita ◽  
Tatjana Schneider

This paper investigates the concept of ‘passage territories’ (Sennett, 2006), de ned as living spaces constructed from one’s passage of movement from one separate space to another, and how it extends the discussion of interiority in contested contexts. Through observations of living spaces and the narrative accounts of dwellers’ in Kampung Pulo and Manggarai neighbourhoods of Jakarta, this study draws attention to the interiority of dispersed and layered spaces occupied by the kampungs’ dwellers. In this context, passage territories are driven by a) a limitation of space that, in turn, triggers the need to acquire more space; b) the occupation of a dweller that necessitates different types of space; and c) the limited access to infrastructural resources that influence the extent of a living space’s dispersal. Through the use of drawings, this study reveals the complete interiority of living spaces consisting of spaces with diverse spatial ownerships and scales. The boundaries of passage territories tend to be de ned by the frequency and length of time needed for an activity instead of the relative proximity between certain spaces. Furthermore, the way objects are placed also shapes the boundaries of passage territories, both for permanent and temporary use of space. This paper then discusses the impact of this knowledge on the interiority of passage territories, proposing to use mechanisms of ‘patches’ and ‘corridors’ to shape the interior of territory that cross, share, and change into one another.


2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 392
Author(s):  
Marcos Felipe Vicente

A História Pública tem apresentado um esforço de construção de uma história com maior participação de seus públicos, desde seu entendimento como plateia, ao seu papel de sujeitos históricos. Utilizando a História oral como fundamento teórico-metodológico, este trabalho busca analisar a construção da memória dos descendentes dos Caboclos de Guarany no início do século XXI e a forma como representam seu passado ancestral e seu direito à terra, atribuindo sentidos ao passado e ao presente. Dessa maneira, a memória desses descendentes representa uma resistência ao interminável processo de expropriação e, principalmente, ao esquecimento produzido pela sociedade, em processo de compartilhamento de autoridade sobre o que se produziu entre depoentes e pesquisador.   PALAVRAS-CHAVE: História Pública, Memória, Esquecimento, Identidades.     ABSTRACT The Public History has shown an effort to build a history with greater participation of its public, since its understanding as an audience to its role as historical subjects. Using oral history as a theoretical-methodological foundation, this paper aims to the construction of the Caboclos of Guarany descendants' memory in the beginning of  the 21st century and the way they represent their ancestral past and their right to the land, assigning meanings to past and present. In this way, the memory of these descendants represents a resistance to the endless process of expropriation and, mainly, to the oblivion produced by society, in process of sharing authority over what took place between deponents and researcher.   KEYWORDS: Public History, Memory, Oblivion, Identities.     RESUMEN La historia pública ha demostrado esfuerzo para  la construcción de una historia con una mayor participación de su público, desde su comprensión como audiencia, a su papel como sujetos históricos. Utilizando la historia oral como fundamento teórico y metodológico, este trabajo analiza la construcción de la memoria de los descendientes de los Caboclos de Guarany a principios del siglo XXI y cómo representan su pasado ancestral y su derecho a la tierra, dando sentido al pasado y al presente. De esta manera, la memoria de los descendientes es una resistencia al interminable proceso de expropiación y, en especial, para el olvido producido por la sociedad, en el proceso de compartir la autoridad sobre lo que se produjo entre participantes y investigador.   PALABRAS CLAVE: Historia pública, Memoria, Olvido, Identidades.


1994 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 129-145

John Hubert Craigie was descended from Scottish crofters. His grandfather, William Craigie, the son of Hugh Craigie of Rousay, was born on Rousay, Orkneys, in 1810, and died in Canada in 1901. Life was difficult in Scotland early in the 19th century. Like many of his fellow Orkneymen, William Craigie emigrated to Canada as an indentured employee of the Hudson’s Bay Company, probably in the 1830s. In the course of his duties he crossed Canada two or three times, travelling out of York Factory on Hudson Bay. The family oral history is that William could not abide the way the Company treated native peoples; factors were expected to ply the natives with liquor and then ‘purchase’ furs for a pittance. As an ‘indentured servant’ he would be in mortal danger from the colonial authorities if he tried to leave, but he took an opportunity to escape via the USA and returned home to the Orkneys. There he married Jean Mainland. Because they could not get permission to marry on Rousay, they eloped by rowboat to be married in another village. William and Jean later emigrated to Canada, reaching the port of Pictou, Nova Scotia, in June 1842 after sailing on the barque Superior for 51 days from Thurso, Caithness.


2021 ◽  
pp. 259-271
Author(s):  
Eleanor Whitehead

This text provides an overview of the Manchester United Museum’s size and scope, as well as a more in-depth look at how the museum’s collections are managed. Visitor demographics and their interactions with collections are examined, as are the ways in which they form emotional connections with museum objects; recognising that visitors see themselves as standing within the club’s history rather than outside it. The report takes into account best practice at other UK museums as well as guidelines and reports produced by the UK’s Museums Association. These contextualise the ways in which the Manchester United Museum has worked to better engage with visitors, through public participation and community projects. The way oral history interviews are now being employed to gather stories about the club is also discussed, as well as the challenges faced when trying to find and record underrepresented demographics. Finally, the report briefly looks at how the museum is following the lead of other departments in the club moving towards achieving a greater online presence, in order to continue to engage with global fans in the face of an unprecedented pandemic.


2020 ◽  
pp. 64-83
Author(s):  
Sharika D. Crawford

This chapter introduces locales that formed part of the turtlemen's mobile and transnational world. It explores the interconnectedness between the Cayman Islands and various circum-Caribbean communities in Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Colombia through ethnographical accounts, missionary reports, oral history accounts, and newspaper reports. It also focuses on the way a seafaring culture of Caymanians led to temporary and permanent migration, the formation of transnational as well as transcultural families, and the transmittal of maritime and cultural knowledge among turtlemen of multiple nationalities. The chapter argues that the Caymanian seafaring culture, particularly, turtle fishing, facilitated the creation and recreation of a dynamic contact zone of ongoing transnational and occasional cross-racial encounters among indigenous, white, and Afro-Caribbean inhabitants.


2018 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 396-425
Author(s):  
Thabit A.J. Abdullah

Abstract In 1895, a Mandaean priest was captured near the town of Chabāyish in Iraq and brought to the jailhouse in Basra. Shaykh Ṣaḥan was accused of murdering his nephew and, more significantly, of supporting an Arab tribal rebellion against Ottoman authority. Using archival sources and Mandaean oral history, this article analyzes the case of Shaykh Ṣaḥan within the context of state centralization, Ottoman-British rivalry, and the internal conflicts among the Mandaeans. The case is significant because it sheds light on how large-scale transformations affected vulnerable minorities like the Mandaeans, and the way these communities struggled to survive in turbulent times.


2005 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
HAYDEN LORIMER ◽  
NICK SPEDDING

This paper reconstructs the historical geographies of a family holiday and field trip in 1952 to Glen Roy, Scotland, site of the famous Parallel Roads. The puzzle of the Parallel Roads' origin has generated a hefty literature over the years, much of it written by eminent scientists, but is here considered through an episode in the scientific history of Glen Roy that did not make the published record. The primary source is the Murray family's expedition logbook: a private and personal document that records the various aspects of life and work in the field. This is supplemented by the family's oral history. Drawing on concepts from science studies and geography, the paper tries to ‘get behind the science’ itself to explore the underlying motives and actions that make it happen. These are intrinsically geographical, because they shape, and are shaped by, the relationships between people, ideas and places. Two themes are central to the account of these other historical geographies of this trip to Glen Roy. The first of these is the coming together of a distinctly local community of knowledge in the Badenoch Field Club in the early 1950s. The second, revealed by the logbook's emphasis on storytelling, travelling and residing, is the way in which the presence of the family in the field changes the ways in which the site of scientific investigation is experienced and understood.


2009 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 60-66
Author(s):  
Linda Shopes

Abstract This commentary on the preceding six articles identifies those elements that contributed to Baltimore '68: Riot and Rebirth's success as a public history program, even as it raises questions about the program's long-term impact. It pays particular attention to the way the oral history interviews conducted as part of the program created a more inclusive public conversation about the Baltimore riot. It also recognizes the importance of the University of Baltimore's commitment to what is often termed the scholarship of engagement by marshalling institution-wide resources for the program; and suggests commonalities between engaged scholarship and public history. Finally, this commentary suggests that while Baltimore '68 was enormously successful as a public humanities program, the depth and duration of its civic impact are less certain, and as a consequence, it raises issues simultaneously organizational, conceptual, and social.


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