History

Introduction What is at stake? What is the status quo? What are the alternatives? What happens when different knowledge systems speak to each other? Resources

Introduction History is often portrayed as the description of what happened in the past. In a post-modern world, it is understood that 'history' is more correctly described as 'histories'. If what we see and do is dependent upon our observations, then each person will have a different view of a particular event, they will construct their own history. Add to this the complexities of interpretation and language and there is likely to be no chance of there being one 'true' history. History is contingent and dependent upon the circumstances in which you find yourself, the image you want to portray and the rights you have to present your turn of the events. History is often described as the story of the winners

What is at stake? !he issues at stake then are not "ust the accuracy of the textbooks, but the actual power and influence that goes with being the person or group that gets your story heard. It is the history of the dominant group that gets to be told and it is their story that is often the one that becomes normalised whilst the stories of others gets 'othered' or ignored.

#inority groups and outcasts in society don't get to tell their story or their side of a story. A classic example is being drawn out before us this year with the opening up of the histories of the Stolen Generation in Australia early last century. It's either hidden or not an important part of $uropean history in Australia and for those to whom it happened, there was no forum in which to tell their story. %nly with the increasing pluralism in Australia and the development of a climate that supported the telling of stories other than the official line was it possible for members of the stolen generation to speak and be heard by the media and therefore the general public. It is interesting to see how the power has shifted slightly in the discourse around the &tolen 'eneration in recent times. How has people's perception of the Stolen Generation changed over the last century? (ecause the history is linked to culture and ultimately power, it is important to be aware of the difficulties in developing appropriate ways of using and managing resources when the stories make the owners of those resources invisible. )hilst the *enan people of (orneo are not recognised and are invisible in the forests there, it is a legitimate activity to clear fell the forests and sell their timber to first world nations. It is also legitimate to ensure that the profits from such activity flow directly to the lumber companies without any recognition for the prior ownership of the trees or timber. As a resource manager, it is important to recognise the contingent nature of histories and the ability to influence the allocation and use of resources.

What is the status quo? History: a hard core of facts

$ H +arr's ,-./01 seminal text What is History? is still important today. He inspects 'history' and finds from the -.th century an empiricist tradition exists where 'commonsense' is found to underpin ,modernist1 history and tells us that2 Facts, like sense-impressions, impinge on the observer from outside and are independent of his consciousness. History consists of a corpus of ascertained facts. The facts are available to the historian in documents, inscriptions and so on, like on the fishmonger's slab. The historian collects them, takes them home, and cooks them in hatever style appeals to him !p"#. $ccording to the commonsense vie , there are certain basic facts hich are the same for all historians and hich form, so to speak, the backbone of history %and& ... These so-called basic facts, hich are the same for all historians, commonly belong to the category of the ra materials of the historian rather than history itself. The second observation is that the necessity to establish these basic facts rests not on the any 'uality in the facts themselves, but on an a apriori decision of the historian.The facts speak only hen the historian calls on them( it is he ho decides to hich facts to give the floor, and in hat order or conte)t !p*+ - **#. Disputing the interpretation #aking further use of the food etaphor, +arr took care to contrast the 'hard core of facts' in history with the 'surrounding pulp of disputable interpretation - forgetting perhaps that the pulpy part of the fruit is more rewarding than the hard core'. 3evertheless, +arr teaches 'it is the historian that selects the facts', and 'this element of

interpretation enters every fact of history' ,p-41 - the facts as based on 'evidence'. He concludes2 The historian and the facts of history are necessary to one another. The historian ithout his facts is rootless and futile, the facts ithout their historian are dead and meaningless. -y first ans er therefore to the 'uestion 'What is history?' is that it is a continuous process of interaction bet een the historian and his facts, an unending dialogue bet een the present and the past !p.+#.

What are the alternatives? History as discourse suggests an entirely different set of 5uestions for 'what really happened'. (arthes ,-.671 asks2 /s there in fact any specific difference bet een factual and imaginary narrative, any linguistic feature by hich e may distinguish on the one hand the mode appropriate to the relation of historical events - a matter traditionally sub0ect, in our culture, to the prescriptions of historical 1science1, to be 0udged only by the criteria of conformity to 1 hat really happened1 and by the principles of 1rational1 e)position - and on the other hand the mode appropriate to the epic, novel or drama !p*23#? History writes itself? !here may be few differences between the narrator and the historian however, as (arthes ,-.671 says 'the history seems to write itself'. !his is the so-called 'ob"ective' mode of historical discourse, 'in which the historian never appears himself. )hat really happens is that the author discards the human persona but replaces it by an ob"ective one.where

ob"ectivity turns out to be a particular form of fiction.they had suppressed all traces of the I in their text' ,p-0.1. In this account historical discourse is essentially a product of ideology, or rather of imagination. It is for this reason that the very notion of 'historical facts' has at various times seemed suspect. ! universal history !he pursuit of a 8niversal History represented an attempt to find a meaningful pattern in the overall development of human societies generally. 8niversal History is not the same as a history of the universe from the big bang on as discrete events. 9ather the believers saw history as a progressive revelation of the way the universe was ordered, and one that provided an explanation of #an's origin and purpose. It is the telling of a single story of human events, a story that includes a ,determined1 future, the idea that 'human nature remains the same'. Winners write history It is often said that history is the ,ideological1 story told by the con5uerors to "ustify their ascendancy. :osers don't get the chance to be the tellers of history. !his is maybe true only of western history which is produced as deterministic narrative ,this happened which caused that to happen, which in turn caused something else1 as if the direction of history was pre-ordained. ;oucault ,-./.<-.6=1 a famous =7th century ;rench historian showed, in a number of wide ranging studies, "ust how thin this linking, deterministic thread of events really is. However, history could always have been different. )henever a history is told, it creates another side of the story, so the 5uestion of who gets a chance to speak - the politics of representation - is crucial to our understanding of history.

Instead of the belief of a single story embracing the ensemble of human events, we now believe not only that there are many stories about different events, but even different stories about the same event.

What happens when different knowledge syste speak to each other?

)hen different knowledge system speak to each other about histories, there is an understanding of the contingent nature of knowledge and historical discourse. If people are able to talk about histories, then they are opening up to negotiation and contestation on what is normal, right and true. )hat flows on from that is a shift in power relations and therefore opportunity for negotiation on the ownership and use of resources. !he recent history of Australia post-#abo and post-)ik is a clear instance of the need to shift ,albeit often unwillingly on the part of the government of the day1 to accommodate alternative readings of history. !he obvious conse5uences of this are the changes to legislation that have recognised prior Indigenous ownership of land and 3ative !itle. !his comes at a cost to the Australian government and industry in a loss of un5uestioned access to resource rights, because mining companies and pastoralists now have to recognise the ownership of land by Indigenous people and involve them in the process of developing and using resources. !he broader community is willing to begin entertaining the idea that there are histories that exist in the country that are other than their own.

"esources

!hese readings will provide you with a starting point for looking at the contestation of knowledge in history. "eading #$% +arr, $. H. -./0 What is History? *enguin, :ondon. &ther references (arthes, 9. -.67 'Historical >iscourse' in #. :ane ,ed1 4tructuralism( $ reader, ?onathon +ape, 3ew @ork. ;oucault, #. -./.<-.6= The $rchaeology of 5no ledge, trans. A.#. &heridan &mith, !avistock *ublications :imited, :ondon. Auhn, !. &. -.67 'Introduction2 a 9ole for History' in The 4tructure of 4cientific 6evolutions, +hicago 8niversity *ress, +hicago. #ink, :. %. -.B6 Historical 7nderstanding, +ornell 8niversity *ress, 3ew @ork. http://learnline.cdu.edu.au/units/contestedknowledges/Issues_ ist.html