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Theory and Practice of Historical Writing in Times of Globalization

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Theory and Practice of Historical Writing in Times of Globalization Daniel Brauer Theoryand PracticeofHistorical Writing in Times of Globalization Abstract: In recent years, radical changes have taken place to the ways of think- ing of historicalwriting,its methodologyand its meaning as aspecific field of knowledge.These changes are connected with the historical situation of which it is itself apart,and are also concerned both with adispute within the discipline and with the current ethical-political debates that cannot accurately be removed from attempts to better understand today’sworld. As part of these changes, we are faced with aradical review of historiographical paradigms.Thesechanges concern not onlythe practice of historical writing,but also the role of history as asourceofpolitical legitimation and as away in which individuals under- stand their belonging and commitment to the political-institutionalframeworks within which they lead their lives. Like no other human science, history is an essentiallyinterdisciplinary field whose boundaries are hard to define. Itsrepertoire of concepts not onlyhas to do with the detailed and documented empirical reconstruction of what hap- pened—it also has an interdependent relationship with other social disciplines concerning the topics involved in each case, so that anyinnovations in the the- ories of thosedisciplines have an impact on historical narratives(just as histor- ical reconstructions can help to test and reconfigure them).Onthe otherhand, historiography itself is also situated in ahistorical context,which it tries to un- derstand simultaneouslywith shapingits concepts. The normative dimension of the historical account concerns not onlythe val- ues ahistorian shares with her contemporaries, but also the secular role of his- tory as asourceoflegitimation of power and of the identity policies for civic ed- ucation. The changes in this role also entail modifications to the wayindividuals understand their belongingand commitment to the political-institutional frame- works within which they lead their lives. Whilerecentdebate in historical theory hasrevolvedaroundtwo main themes —namely,the narrativestructure of historicaldiscourse andwhatwemight call the ‘memory paradigm’—with globalization(andthe thematizationthereof in the con- text of thenew ‘global history’), we enterapostnarrativist stageofthe debate,in Daniel Brauer, UniversidaddeBuenosAires (UBA)/Centro de Investigaciones Filosóficas(CIF) OpenAccess. ©2018 Daniel Brauer,published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative CommonsAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110492415-029 398 Daniel Brauer which, as regardsthe firsttheme,the empirical character of historical research is recovered. In this way, it becomespossibletoexitthe blindalley of historiography understood as apurelylinguisticconstruction, consisting in amatrixoftimeless rhetorical andnarrative devices, independentofany cognitiveclaim.Asregards thesecond theme, by placinghistory in thecontextofthe debate concerning abet- terunderstanding of itsown time,itispossibletoaccount forits role in theexplo- rationofthe past as well as in the diagnosisofthe presentand theattemptsto thinkofand actinfuture events.One of theconsequences of thepost-ethnocentric ‘global history’ projectisacritical rehabilitation of keyaspects of thevilified ‘spec- ulative’ philosophyofhistory. I History has undergone, at least for the lastfifty years, acrisis and successive transformation of the traditionalcanons thatused to dominate its self-under- standing as adiscipline and which had been established following its final ‘pro- fessionalization’ (Iggers 2008, p. 108) in eighteenth- and nineteenth-centuryEu- ropean universityspaces.This current crisis can be compared to thatofthe foundations of mathematics in the late nineteenth and earlytwentieth centuries. Both in the caseofhistoriography and in that of its epistemological theory,the reasons for this transformation are not purelyinternal to the historian’swork- shop, but have to do with changes in the structure of the contemporary world to which her interpretationofthe past belongs. These changes cannot,infact,beseparated from the ongoingglobalization process, on which various factors convergeand whose consequences are not yet altogether clear.Itisanepochalprocess that challenges the premises of modern thoughtaswell as those of the so-called postmodern narrativism, insofar as the latter refuses—in its radical versions—to establish acognitive connection be- tween historicalexperience and historiography. Concomitantlywith the ques- tioning of traditional theoretical assumptions, there emerge paradoxicallynew forms of historical writing that implyunconventional paradigms whose theory is onlybeginning to arise. The topics Iwill address next involvethe historical situation of historio- graphical practice under globalization, the changes concerning the subject or theme of traditional history,and the changes brought about by all this regarding its conceptual repertoire, as well as keyaspects of its methodologyand postu- lates that usedtobeconsidered decidedlyahistorical. These changes, as we will see, alsoinvolve historical metatheory and some rehabilitation, though with strong caveats from the long vilified ‘speculative’ philosophyofhistory.Fi- Theoryand Practice of Historical Writing in Times of Globalization 399 nally, we should consider the consequences of the foregoing for the internal re- arrangement of the discipline,the wayoforganizinghow it is taught and, more importantly, its cognitive and normative contribution in the context of contempo- rary societies, with aview to an extended publicsphere at the global level. First of all, we should start by specifying the realm of history against other fields of knowledge basedonits specific object of study. As is generallyknown, the term ‘history’ has manymeanings. Usuallyadistinction is drawnbetween its referencetothe objective course of events, on the one hand,and its narrative manifestation, on the other—but the polysemydoes not end here (Brauer 2009,pp. 19–38). In anycase, it is significant thatthe word ‘history’ should al- ways be accompanied by agenitive—the ‘history of…’ – and it would seem that anyobject or subject could take the place of these suspension points, from the ‘history of the Peloponnesian War’ to the ‘history of Romanpainting’.Itisthis flexibilityofthe term thathas triggered the view that history,rather than having aspecific object of studyissimplyone approach to anyobject,perceivedthrough its changes over time. While thereiscertainlysome truth in this, it is also true that we mainlyassociate the word ‘history’ with aspecific theme (though it is usually taken for granted): the changes in collective life and its forms of social and political organization. Akey example of this theme in the modern world (at least since the emer- gence of history chairs at universities) has been that of the ‘nation state’,fulfill- ing asimilar role to those previouslyplayedbymonarchies or religions.This is shown by the fact that the need for constructinghistorical accounts and teaching them went hand in hand with the demands for aretrospective legitimation for the establishment of states, and that it ranparallel to the creation of archives, museumsand ‘sites of memory’ (Nora2001, pp. 23–43). In the case of the his- tories of states—like in those of nations, religions and the more or less vague concept of ‘peoples’—there is usually(besides anytheoretical interest in how the events took place) apolitical mandate concerning the justification of power,aswell as the development of criteria for citizens’ belongingand identi- fication (Berger/Donovan /Passmore1999;Berger/Lorenz 2010). This can clearlybeseen in the role of history at school, beyond its claim of providing ‘ob- jective’ knowledge of the past.Therefore, when we talk simplyabout ‘history’,we tend to think of nationalhistories or of human history in general, wherethe for- mer would be protagonists in awider context. While it is true thathistory is implicitly associated with the transformation of the collective life of nations and theirpolitical and social organizations, an- other one of its non-thematized assumptions is some idea of acommon frame- work integrating the most diverse human activities, as belongingtothe same ‘pe- riod’.Thisassumption of totality maybeabyproduct of the construction of 400 Daniel Brauer History with acapital initial, but it should not necessarilybeinterpreted as sug- gesting ahypostatized collective subject, but as apossiblespace for interaction among various factors This presupposition of ahistory common to humanity,shaped by the pres- ence of multiple states organized around alimited territory with ahorizonof contemporaneity,remains at the basis both of the historiographyofnations and of teachingcurricula,and is also shared by the view of history still held by the reader of ahistoriographical text.Preciselythis relationship with the pub- lic is also an undeniable aspect of historical discourse, which distinguishesit from thatofother disciplines to the extent that understanding ahistoriograph- ical text does not seem to require anyspecialized knowledge.Accordingly,histo- ry has privileged access to public opinion—and it is no coincidencethat most disputes,particularlyabout recent history,havetodowith contemporary politi- cal struggles. However,overthe last few years these assumptions have been moving away from the central stageofhistoricalnarratives—which does not ac- tuallymean that they are no longer written. This
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