Of Foundations and Horses- Session 9

This week's readings, on top of touching on many of the themes we have been discussing in the past few classes, were also highly amusing (particularly- Prakash's response to O Hanlon and Washbrook). 

I agree that Prakash's advocacy of the "mythical" may be a bit of a stretch for the field of history. Yes, fiction and myths contribute to our understanding of a particular time period or context. Yes, they may even present a situation in a form that allows us to empathize and connect with individuals and groups across time. We can also agree that any practice of history writing, be it with or against the grain, has an act of interpretation, of an "imaginative leap"- it is never "purely objective". However, that is not to say that all histories are mere fiction, as Hayden White states. It is not to say that the line between fiction and history is merely an imaginary one, that it can be done away with. History needs to maintain some distance from the voices it is writing about. Writers can be self reflexive and state their biases, acknowledge their own positions, and state their political motivations and implications. They can acknowledge that the sources, too, are colored by power relations. In taking history as an academic discipline, we must maintain some distance- as we have discussed in the previous classes. 

I also understand the tendency to disparage the approach that calls all categories, structures, and approaches "subjective" (or "relativist" or any of the jargon that we are so accustomed to hearing from post-modernists in academic disciplines). To go down that path is to make conversation and writing impossible- it is to erase the distinction between good histories and bad histories, it is to do away with distinction between history and fiction. I agree with Trouillot here that we need to maintain a balance here- we cannot go down either extreme. 

That said, I think O Hanlon and Washbrook misconstrue the argument presented by Prakash when they reduce his critique of foundational, totalizing systems and narratives to a mere "Subjective" approach, that is supposedly categorical of postmodernism. What is (somewhat) implied in his first article, and is explicitly stated in his response to them, is that these systems are important and powerful, but that we must look beyond just them. 

There is an uneasiness in accepting ambivalence, he states. A shirking of the possibility of riding two horses, so to say. This discomfort has surfaced time and again in our class discussions, where we either go down the path of "We cannot write subaltern histories because we do not have the sources", or we give too much credit to grand narratives and structures (the foundational structures Prakash speaks of). Ambivalence allows for too many possibilities, it does not give us a clear path forward, or a clear mode of thinking. It cannot tell us what to believe. Why, it is important to ask, is that a bad thing? Why can we not use that as a method of resistance? Why can we not hold two contradicting ideas in our heads and see how they relate to one another in different contexts? Can we not use it as a tool against the hegemonic systems that have dominated our histories for far too long?  

As Prakash writes, domination can never be complete- neither class, nor the state, nor any grand structure or narrative can eradicate its opposition. There will always be differences that need to be explained or accounted for.  That, in itself, should give us some hope and some direction for the future.   

Tied again to this move away from foundational narratives is a mode of history writing that is more self reflexive- albeit not as clear cut. This is where the Subaltern Collective fits in. It acknowledges and accounts for totalizing systems, as Prakash writes (they would not be called totalizing were they not so powerful and pervasive), but still attempt to look at other categories, other means of explanations. They look for, (and I hope this doesn't sound presumptuous or pretentious)- subaltern categories and fields; for interpretations we would not ordinarily have. In consciously trying to account for the silences in history, in trying (sometimes too idealistically) to give a voice to them, they still add to our understanding. Once again, this method of history writing is not to discard academic rigor, it is not to throw away archives and sources and make up voices based on pure imagination- it is to exercise caution in acknowledging difference. 

Whether it is with the grain, or against it, whether it focuses on silences or what is said, whether it looks at structures within themselves to see the relations or power, or outside them for alternatives, these modes of thinking and writing are useful. They allow us to see subjects and conditions in a relational aspect, they allow us to avoid the tendency to essentialize out of convenience, they give us a nuanced understanding of the past. The past is more than just "noise" for us to decipher. It is for us to evaluate and re-evaluate- to keep coming back to, to pose questions to, given the times that we live in, and what it is we need to understand.