Between the sirens of nationalism and identity-politics
History seems to be everywhere, put to use in diverse and contradictory projects, and harnessed by a variety of ideologies. Some of these appeal to the past via a civilizational logic, either to congratulate themselves on their own past and demonstrate their superiority, or to draw up a list of grievances against the ‘other’, or for political ends. These usages emanate from historians or figures in society, and they represent a challenge for the discipline of history.
From the time of the Enlightenment, the West liked to claim that it was the sole place with a real historical tradition. However, in the nineteenth century, various anti-colonial movements emerged that mobilized the idea of a national history and attacked the concept of a certain Universal History that was defended by the West.
In later years, the birth of post-colonial studies implied a challenge to history itself as a practice, on the grounds that it was somehow ‘contaminated’ through its association with Western colonialism and imperialism. It was in the context of these multiple debates that the new global history emerged, and it has had to confront the challenges of methodological nationalism on the one hand, and identity-politics on the other.
For Sanjay Subrahmanyam, it is futile to rebuild Universal History, when the ‘universalism’ itself is in question: most Universal Histories were based on deliberate selection and exclusion. Instead, he pleads for an historical practice that is based on a conversation between people in different locations, with an openness to a variety of cultural experiences and sources. This ‘conversational history’ or ‘connected history’ provides a better model than the ones that are born from a desire for revindication or national self-satisfaction.
