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Had an interesting discussion about #publichistory with colleagues from Japan. Always interesting to explore various approaches and understanding of the field.
We had great discussion historiography. Replacing the rise of public history into a context of radical history, history from below. Personally, I think activist and radical history was more important in the UK in the 70s than for the initial tenants of PH in the US.
Also, as often, one key aspect of the discussion was the collaborative dimension of public history. As most of the participants were professional historians, ethics of sharing authority are central
Some of the questions I got: As historians try to be objectives, how can public history include collaboration with several groups with various interpretations, and who are often not looking for objectivity?
Also got the question of how can public history be searching narratives to unite groups and interpretations? I do not think it does, rather trying the opposite, to allow discussion between different - sometimes conflicting - narratives.
The traditional question of then who owns the past? I was given an example of a contested interpretation of the history of one Japanese minority. Who owns their history was the question.
I usually do not use the expression "owning the past", but it is true that public history engages with power relations. It is important to explore who "controls" the narratives.
Got a question related to Jim Gardner's article "Radical trust" in which he opposed opinion to knowledge. For the participant, public history was - due to the multiple non academic participants - closer to opinion than knowledge.
I disagreed (of course) saying that public history is a construction (be it participatory) of knowledge. It is true it raises ethical questions about monitoring (or not) contents, role of expertise....
Going back to shared authority, a question on who has authority then? (assumption was that historians lost their authority). Another tough one.
Tried to answer that historians do not lose their skills, methodology, and expertise... but that public history also accepts other types of expertise (living experiences, communication and media, curation...)
One final question was quite important. As my presentation was on how public history projects, programs, training, conferences developed in many different places today, we discussed the development of the field.
I was told - not sure if it was a question or assertion - that public history was an act of imperialism from the West. PH being mostly based in North America, Western Europe, and some anglo-saxon countries, Public History would impose a certain model.
International public history would actually be a new form of imperialism.
I found it a harsh comment. It is true that public history as an institutional field developed in Western countries. Also, at the beginning some Historians saw themselves as "missionaries" bring the new history.
But its practices and main discussion (role of historians, democratisation of knowledge) are quite global questions. Plus the @pubhisint makes sure to arrange events outside the "West" with partners (Colombia, Brazil, Indonesia..) who bring their own approaches and understandin
And we encourage discussion and production in languages others that English. Still a long road but this is those international discussion that we can enrich our views of public history.
