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Historiography and narration in transnational history*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2014

Ann-Christina L. Knudsen  and
Karen Gram-Skjoldager
Ann-Christina L. Knudsen
Affiliation:
Department of Culture and Society, Section for European Studies, Aarhus University, Jens Chr. Skous Vej 5, Building 1463, 6, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark E-mail: alknudsen@hum.au.dk
Karen Gram-Skjoldager
Affiliation:
Department of Culture and Society, Section for History, Aarhus University, Jens Chr. Skous Vej 5, Building 1461, 5, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark E-mail: hiskgs@hum.au.dk
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Abstract

The ‘transnational turn’ has been one of the most widely debated historiographical directions in the past decade or so. This article explores one of its landmark publications: The Palgrave dictionary of transnational history (2009), which presents around 400 entries on transnational history written by around 350 authors from some 25 countries. Drawing on narrative theory and the sociology of knowledge, the article develops an extensive quantitative and qualitative analysis of the most prominent narrative structures that can be found across the Dictionary, thus piecing together a coherent historiographical portrait of the book's many and multifarious entries. In doing so the article wishes to demonstrate a possible methodology for analysing the growing body of reference works – in the form of dictionaries, encyclopaedias, and handbooks – that are currently mushrooming in expanding research areas across the social sciences and the humanities such as international relations, governance, and globalization studies.

Keywords

historiographynarrative theoryreference workssociology of knowledgetransnational history
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Global History , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , March 2014 , pp. 143 - 161
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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Footnotes

*

We would like to thank Christoffer Kølvraa for intellectual inspiration for this article. The Oslo Contemporary International History Network has provided valuable support to our work process. The article has benefited from the comments of two anonymous referees and the editorial team of the Journal of Global History.

References

1 The term ‘transnational turn’ is frequently found, but see e.g. Saunier, Pierre-Yves, ‘Learning by doing: notes about the making of The Palgrave dictionary of transnational history’, Journal of Modern European History, 6, 2, 2008, p. 160CrossRefGoogle Scholar;

Sørensen, Nils Arne, ‘Den transnationale vending?’, Historisk Tidsskrift (Copenhagen), 109, 2, 2009, pp. 459–472Google Scholar. What the precise character and impact of this turn will be remains to be seen.

2 The European University Institute in Florence remains one of the exceptions. On the lack of infrastructure, see e.g. Patel, Kiran Klaus, ‘ “Transnations” among “transnations”? The debate on transnational history in the United States and Germany’, Center for European Studies Working Paper Series, no. 159, Harvard, 2008Google Scholar.

3 See http://us.macmillan.com/series/PalgraveMacmillanTransnationalHistory (last consulted 19 July 2013).

4 Akira Iriye and Pierre-Yves Saunier, eds., The Palgrave dictionary of transnational history: from the mid-19th century to the present day. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009Google Scholar (henceforth, the Dictionary).

5 See, for instance, the Oxford Handbook series published by Oxford University Press that covers themes such as international relations, climate change and society, war, modern diplomacy, and governance. Cambridge University Press, Polity Press, Routledge SAGE, and Wiley-Blackwell are other publishing houses producing handbooks and dictionaries on similar topics.

6 See, for instance, Farquhar, Michael, ‘The Palgrave dictionary of transnational history: from the mid-19th century to the present day’, Journal of Global History, 6, 1, 2011, pp. 155–156CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Wimmer, Andreas and Schiller, Nina Glick, ‘Methodological nationalism and beyond: nation-state building, migration and the social sciences’, Global Networks, 2, 4, 2002, pp. 301–334CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an excellent overview of the use and development of the concept, see also Pierre-Yves Saunier's entry ‘Transnational’ in the Dictionary.

8 Iriye, Akira, ‘The internationalization of history’, American Historical Review, 94, 1, 1989, pp. 1–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar;

Tyrrell, Ian, ‘American exceptionalism in an age of international history’, American Historical Review, 96, 4, 1991, pp. 1031–1055CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 This is evident when we look at some of the special journal issues on the topic. See in particular the special issue of Contemporary European History, 14, 4, 2005; and Bayly, C. A., Beckert, Sven, Connelly, Matthew, Hofmeyr, Isabel, Kozol, Wendy, and Seed, Patricia, ‘AHR conversation: on transnational history’, American Historical Review, 111, 5, 2006, pp. 1440–1464CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Michael Werner and Bénédicte Zimmermann, Vergleich, Transfer, Verflechtung: der Ansatz der Histoire croisée und die Herausforderung der Transnationalen’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 28, 2002, pp. 607–36. The very first issue of the first French journal on global history, Monde(s), Histoire, Espaces, Relations, 1, 2012, focused on transnational history, but again there was no clear conceptual debate.

10 Iriye and Saunier, Dictionary, p. xxGoogle Scholar.

11 The situation is the reverse in global history where there still is no major reference work comparable to the Dictionary, but where there are specialized journals such as the Journal of Global History, Journal of World History and Monde(s).

12 Wæver, Ole, ‘The sociology of a not so international discipline: American and European developments in international relations’, International Organization, 52, 4, 1998, p. 716CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A good outline of this approach is

Ringer, Fritz, ‘The intellectual field, intellectual history, and the sociology of knowledge’, Theory and Society, 19, 3, 1990, pp. 269–294CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Iriye, Akira and Saunier, Pierre-Yves, ‘Introduction’, in Iriye and Saunier, Dictionary, xviiiGoogle Scholar.

14 See, for instance, Kamola, Isaac, ‘Why global? Diagnosing the globalization literature within a political economy of higher education’, International Political Sociology, 7, 2013, pp. 41–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Farquhar, Michael, ‘Palgrave dictionary’, p. 156Google Scholar.

16 Wertsch, James V., ‘Specific narratives and schematic narrative templates’, in Peter Seixas, ed., Theorizing historical consciousness, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004, p. 50Google Scholar.

17 White, Hayden, ‘The question of narrative in contemporary historical theory’, History and Theory, 23, 1, 1984, p. 27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Wertsch, ‘Specific narratives’, p. 51Google Scholar.

19 Ricoeur, Paul, ‘Narrative time’, Critical Inquiry, 7, 1, 1980, p. 178CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 White, ‘Question of narrative’, p. 20Google Scholar, emphasis in original.

21 The actantial model is widely used in narrative analysis. An illustration can be found in Gerald Prince, Dictionary of narratology, 2nd edn, Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, p. 2Google Scholar. For an elaborate development of the linguistic arguments behind the model, see

Greimas, A. J. and Porter, Catherine, ‘Elements of a narrative grammar’, Diacritics, 7, 1, 1977, pp. 23–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar. An exploration of its potentials is provided by

Barthes, Roland and Duisit, Lionel, ‘An introduction to the structural analysis of narrative’, New Literary History, 6, 2, 1975, pp. 237–272CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 58%, based on a sample of approximately one-third of all entries in the Dictionary.

23 International organizations are positioned similarly in Iriye, Akira, Global community: the role of international organizations in the making of the contemporary world, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004Google Scholar.

24 ‘League of Nations Economic and Financial Organization’; ‘League of Nations Health Organization’; ‘League of Nations system’; ‘United Nations decades and years’; ‘United Nations system’; ‘United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) educational programmes’; ‘United Nations Women's Conferences’.

25 White, Hayden, ‘The value of narrativity in the representation of reality’, Critical Inquiry, 7, 1, 1980, p. 16CrossRefGoogle Scholar;

White, ‘Question of narrative’, p. 5Google Scholar;

Patel, Kiran K., ‘Überlegungen zu einer transnationale Geschichte’, Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft, 52, 2004, pp. 626–645Google Scholar.

26 See ‘Abolitionism’, ‘Children's rights’, ‘Commission on International Labour Legislation’, and the other examples offered below.

27 A similar categorization is used in Gilbert, Mark, ‘Narrating the process: questioning the progressive story of European integration’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 46, 3, 2008, pp. 641–662CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Cf. White, ‘Question of narrative’, pp. 20–1.

29 For instance ‘Africa’, ‘Abolitionism’, ‘Children's rights’, ‘Consumer cooperation’, and ‘Criminology’.

30 ‘Children's rights’, ‘Commission on International Labour Legislation’, and ‘United Nations’ Women's Conferences’.

31 See, for instance, ‘Children's rights’, ‘Commission on International Labour Legislation’, ‘United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG)’.

32 Climate Change. Also: Biodiversity, Greenpeace, Diet and Nutrition, Genetically Modified Organisms.

33 In particular, ‘Consumer society’, ‘Democracy’, ‘Development’, and ‘Growth’.

34 It should be noted that a few entries discuss the political and moral problems related to various forms of international cooperation (see e.g. ‘Bibliographical classification’, ‘Books and bibliographical exchange’, and ‘Developmental assistance’).

35 See, for instance, ‘Antisemitism’, ‘Birth control’, ‘Capitalism’, ‘Cricket’, ‘Drink’, ‘Electricity’, ‘Philanthropic foundations’.

36 See also ‘Absolutionism’, ‘Dollar’.

37 See also ‘Air pollution’, ‘Transnational’.

38 ‘About the Dictionary’ on its official website: http://www.transnationalhistory.com/about.aspx (consulted 7 May 2013).

39 Saunier, ‘Learning by doing’, pp. 163Google Scholar, 160.

40 Terminology used in the Dictionary entries on the 1960s and America.

41 Vauchez, Antoinesettings’, ‘Interstitial power in fields of limited statehood: introducing a “weak field” approach to the study of transnational, International Political Sociology, 5,3, 2011, pp. 340–345Google Scholar;

Heilbron, Johan, Guilhot, Nicolas, and Jeanpierre, Laurent, ‘Towards a transnational history of the social sciences’, Journal of the History of the Behavioural Sciences, 44, 2, 2008, pp. 146–160CrossRefGoogle Scholar.