Reimagining Global History – Doing History Globally. Perspectives from Africa, Latin America and Australia
This roundtable brings distinguished, internationally experienced historians and archeologists from Brazil, Tanzania and the Torres Strait Islands into conversation with their German moderators to reflect from within different knowledge traditions and institutions on challenges and opportunities of the global making of history in the twenty-first century. They draw on concrete insights from their own diverse portfolios and allow a grounded but theoretical discussion about the pitfalls of international historical collaboration. In following the conference theme, we are interested in reflecting on how existing global power asymmetries shape historical research and narratives. We will focus our discussion on four themes.
1. Research infrastructure: What advantages and disadvantages constitutes existing international history collaboration? What would a global history research utopia look like? 2. Primary sources: What kind of textual and non-textual primary sources allow for the telling of which kind of histories? To what extent do power asymmetries affect their access and selection?
3. Scholarship and reference discourses: What are considered standard works of (global) history in Latin America, Africa and Australia? In how far are they in conversation with or different from an anglophone model? How can the historical canon be diversified?
4. Epistemologies: What kind of epistemologies should be brought into conversation and why? Do decolonial approaches provide a suitable tool to reconceptualize historical thinking?
Through these four themes, the roundtable seeks to ground an analysis of global collaborations in practical experience, shedding light on lessons learned, and offering insights to inspire equitable and insightful future collaborations. Fostering a dialogue that bridges regional and disciplinary divides, this roundtable aspires to reimagine the production of history.
Marcia Schenck (Potsdam), professor of Global History, experienced in international teaching and research cooperations on five continents, and Frederik Schulze (Köln), Privatdozent in Latin American history, will moderate the panel featuring three guest speakers:
Rodrigo Goyena Soares (São Paulo), professor of history at the University of São Paulo, is an expert in the history of the River Plate basin in the nineteenth century and coordinates the Laboratory of Studies on Brazil and the World System, which ranks among the most important centers for global history in Latin America. In his contribution to the panel, Goyena will outline the Brazilian way of doing global history, discuss the current trends in Brazilian historiography, problematize global power relations in the humanities, and reflect on the access to primary sources and funding from a Brazilian perspective.
Nancy Rushohora (Dar es Salaam), lecturer in the Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies at the University of Dar es Salaam-Tanzania, works on memory and memorialization of colonialism in Tanzania. Her contribution to the panel will entail reflecting on power imbalances in international collaborations with a focus on critically examining concepts such as (under/post)development. Further, she will engage the politics of colonial archives, publication, heritage, and access to resources in the context of Tanzanian global history.
Leah Lui-Chivizhe (Sydney) is a cultural historian of the Torres Strait Islands and Scientia Senior Lecturer at UNSW, Sydney. Her current research explores strategies for reconnecting 19th century museum collections from the Torres Strait to pre-colonial Islander histories and practices of human and more-than-human relationality. In her contribution to the panel, Leah will outline how her work with objects/artefacts held in museums around the world can be interpreted to write new histories of the Torres Strait, particularly as this relates to women’s knowledges and practices and the exercise of gendered power in community and institutional contexts.