Writing Social Histories: Asian Historiographies and Political Regimes
A conference organised by the International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam, and Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta
Venue: Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Date: 16-17 December 2005
Committee: Touraj Atabaki, Ratna Saptari, Willem van Schendel and Bambang Purwanto
Call for Papers
Abstract Deadline July 15, 2005.
The writing of social history has always been a politically contentious endeavour in all parts of the world. Historians and historically-minded social scientists in Asia have become increasingly aware of three main issues. First, we need to write social histories in order to challenge dominant styles of history-writing that privilege the political. Writing social histories can act as an antidote to the histories of Great Men, dynasties or nationalist movements. For instance, nationalist historiography has been strong in many parts of Asia, particularly during or after independence struggles. In such writings, political leaders are portrayed as national heroes and seen as representing the "collective conscience" of the whole society. These nationalist historiographies tell the tale of the political elite and their undisputed role in the nationalist project. Although this type of history writing has been challenged since the late 1970s, that challenge has been highly uneven in different parts of Asia. With the establishment of the subaltern studies collective in India, new questions were asked regarding the role of popular politics as opposed to state-oriented or state-based politics, and regarding the role of culture in shaping such politics. Many publications have been written debating not only the understanding of particular events or the nature of popular culture and identities but also on the writing of social history itself. However, such debates have not spread to other parts of Asia. In some places, such as Burma, there is a near- absence of social history writing, in others, such as Central Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, different paths have been taken. In many cases, the writing of the "history from below" (e.g. the history of labour or social movements) tends to concentrate on the role of trade unions or that of the leaders of the movements.
A second issue that has come to the fore is that the politics of the present strongly shape writing about the past. The political climate in different Asian societies leads to different spaces being given to academics to choose their topics independently, and to different styles and choices in studying history. The weakness of social history in many parts of Asia is also related to these political environments. This is another reason why it is crucially important to develop the writing of social histories in Asia.
Third, there is a need to shed the inward-looking, national nature of much history writing about Asia. Comparisons between Asian societies promise to revitalize local traditions. Comparative history writing is a problem for the reasons outlined above. Without acknowledging the varying historiographical styles and traditions, intellectual communication between the different regions of Asia will not be very fruitful. It is the aim of this conference to examine the diverse approaches in Asian social historiography and why they continue to be diverse.
A number of questions guiding the papers are:
- What is the impact of political regimes and the general political climate on the craft of history-writing?
- What are the historical debates and methods that are dominant? Which genres and historical sources have been most frequently used?
- How has "the history from below" been tackled in different Asian countries?
- How has historiography influenced public debates?
Call for papers:
The conference invites papers dealing with diverse traditions of social history in different parts of Asia, and to relate these to the political contexts in which they developed. The aim is to suggest possibilities for better comparisons and communication across the vast region of Asia, and between Asia and Europe.
Abstracts and Papers:
Prospective participants should send an abstract of 300 words by 15 July 2005. Please submit abstracts in digital form using Microsoft Word. Deadline for papers is 15 November 2005.
Publication of proceedings:
We propose to publish papers presented in the conference in a volume. All papers submitted should therefore be of publishable quality and constitute new work. All speakers must commit to publish their papers as part of the conference volume.
Enquiries:
For further information please contact Dr Ratna Saptari: