A new article by Dr Matt Hodges in the June 2019 edition of the journal Current Anthropology, History’s Impasse: Radical Historiography, Leftist Elites and the Anthropology of Historicism in Southern France, takes a critical look at the value, importance and communicability of history, with implications for experts and stakeholders in history, heritage, archaeology and related fields.
What is history and why do we set great store by it? In an age dominated by social media, widespread misinformation and a resurgent Populism, the answer seems obvious. People’s need to connect with a meaningful and truthful past has arguably never been greater. But the views of historians are frequently drowned out—and people’s needs are addressed, too often, by those who speak loudest and appeal to the lowest common denominator. At a time when the historian’s voice needs to be heard, why is there a disconnect between historians and the people they write about?
‘History’s Impasse’ puts historians, anthropologists and their relationship under the microscope. Drawing on ethnographic and historical research on politically-engaged French historians who write history “for the people”, and advances in our knowledge of how culture shapes the way in which we imagine the past, Dr Hodges generates new insights into how to use history within social scientific research, and how to understand and value alternative ways of invoking the past across cultural traditions.
In an echo of today’s age of activism in response to austerity politics and climate change, the article looks at radical leftist historians who sought to stir rebellion and revolution among French farmers and peasants in the 1970s, but whose efforts stumbled due to the very different ways in which local people imagined and engaged with the past. The study of popular history practices, Dr Hodges argues, can inspire the generation of new cultural forms for communicating historical knowledge, and help both historians and social anthropologists, and indeed archaeologists, historical geographers and other experts and stakeholders, to catch the ear of wider publics.
For the full press release on the Current Anthropology website, follow this link.
The published article can be downloaded for free.
Image: François Mitterrand at a demonstration at Larzac, August 1974. Photograph by Gerard Bonnet, © University of Kent.