Researching the past: epistemologies of the archive

1. Researching the past: epistemologies of the archive

2. Purpose of Lecture • Explore the links between Sociology and History • ‘History’ as a discipline and its’ links to Sociology, and vice versa: points of tension and overlap • Sociology’s approach to ‘history’ as sequences of events and processes unfolding over time, shaped by the interplay of (social) structure and (individual and collective) agency • The ‘archive’ as a physical and increasingly virtual place where Sociological research occurs • Introduce you to some of the skills and perspectives you might need • The Modern Records Centre as a place at Warwick where it can be/has been done – which you will get a taster of this week • Encourage you to think of undertaking archive work and historical research for dissertations etc

3. Brecht (1935) ‘Questions from a Worker who Reads’ Who built Thebes of the 7 gates?  In the books you will read the names of kings. Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock?  And Babylon, many times demolished, Who raised it up so many times?  In what houses of gold glittering Lima did its builders live?  Where, the evening that the Great Wall of China was finished, did the masons go? Great Rome is full of triumphal arches. Who erected them? Over whom did the Caesars triumph?   Had Byzantium, much praised in song, only palaces for its inhabitants?  Even in fabled Atlantis, the night that the ocean engulfed it, the drowning still cried out for their slaves.  The young Alexander conquered India. Was he alone?  Caesar defeated the Gauls. Did he not even have a cook with him?  Philip of Spain wept when his armada went down. Was he the only one to weep?   Frederick the 2nd won the 7 Years War.  Who else won it?  Every page a victory. Who cooked the feast for the victors?   Every 10 years a great man. Who paid the bill?  So many reports.   So many questions.

4. Structure of lecture • Historical sociology and archival research • Radical viewpoints: Comparisons of C Wright Mills (Radical Sociologist), Howard Zinn and E P Thompson (Marxist historians) and Spivak (postcolonial studies) - • The Modern Records Centre at Warwick • Case Study of ‘The Idea of a University’ Warwick project • ‘On Campus’, 1970 a film from the Warwick archives and follow up • Mick Carpenter’s research andfilm on the history of COHSE, health service union – now part of UNISON

5. Tensions ‘Traditional’ History and Sociology • ‘The facts’: Namier’s 19th C ‘positivist’, ‘empiricist’ tradition – establish authoritatively what happened: did Oswald kill JFK, and JFK have an affair with MM? • Sociological critique – facts ‘socially and politically constructed’ • Historians select particular ‘facts’ and mould to fit their social and political prejudices • Historical records and focus on the elite and victors and tell their side of the story, voices of the losers and ordinary people missing • ‘Great man’ bias, over-emphasizing individual ‘agency’: Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon (not on his own surely says E H Carr) • Focus on immediate ‘facts’ and obscures wider social and political causes: e.g. that gave rise to Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire - need to combine ‘structure and agency’ e.g. the First World War was not inevitable, but... • Historical critique: Sociologists often cavalier about history and make sweeping unsubstantiated claims • E.g. Foucault’s constructionist history of Madness and Civilisation has been challenged as historically inaccurate in key respects e.g. by José GuilhermeMerquiorhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Guilherme_Merquior • E H Carr What Is History? (1960) – moved History towards Sociology (and reflexivity and provisionality): ‘it is a continuous process of interaction between the historian and his facts, an unending dialogue between the past and the present” – echoes Foucault’s claims that history is always ‘a history of the present’ as much as the past

6. Historical Sociology and the Archive • ‘Many of the problems face by sociologists need to be solved historically, and many of the supposed differences between sociology and history as disciplines do not really stand in the way of such solutions’(Abrams, 2009, p. 238) • Both history and sociology share a common project to deal with the problematic of ‘structuring’ (Abrams 2009) • ‘the most compelling reason for the existence of historical sociology… is the importance of studying social change.’ (Calhoun 2003, p. 383) • historical sociology considers factors affecting the construction of and access to archival materials, rather than the archive ‘as a finite set of knowledge about the past’ (Ghosh) [i.e. The archive is itself a social institution]

7. 4 cases of interdisciplinary ‘Bridging’ • C Wright Mills (1959) in The Sociological Imagination placed history at the centre of the sociological enterprise • E P Thompson’s ‘history from below’ esp in The Making of the English Working Class (1963) placed social history at the centre of the historical enterprise http://libcom.org/files/Thompson%20EP%20-%20The%20Making%20of%20the%20English%20Working%20Class.pdf • Howard Zinn’s ‘people’s history’ – focuses on study of ordinary people and struggles from below to change society and power structures A People’s History of the US (1980, 1995) • Spivak and other South Asian ‘postcolonial’ and ‘subaltern studies’ scholars built on ‘history from below to challenge dominant Western approaches to history and society

8. C Wright Mills • C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination - ‘Every well-considered social study – requires a historical scope of conception and a full use of historical materials. This simple notion is the major idea for which I am arguing.’ (1959, pp. 161-2) • The Sociological Imagination describes a mindset for doing sociology that stresses being able to connect individual experiences and societal relationships. The three components that form the sociological imagination are: History (how a society came to be and how it is changing); Biography (what kind of people inhabit a particular society); and Social structure (how the institutional orders in a society operate, which ones are dominant, how they are held together, etc.). • Need to analyse and show interconnections between all three The Power Elite and White Collar sought to do this

9. History from Below & People‘s History • E P Thompson ‘history from below’ 1966 Times Literary Supplement - uncovers the lives and aspirations of the powerless and marginalised and ‘rescue’ the losers of history such as early 19th C handloom weavers and Luddites and ‘deluded’ religious fanatics from ‘the enormous condescension of posterity’ • Relational history of society: Thompson ‘class happens’ i.e. a historical process, not just economic but ‘when some men [sic], as a result of common experiences (inherited or shared), feel and articulate the identity of their interests as between themselves, and as against other men whose interests are different from (and usually opposed to) theirs’. • Howard Zinn – ‘people’s history’ critiques exaggerated emphasis of ‘great men’ and emphasises group conflict and agency of movements of ordinary people: ‘The history of any country, presented as the history of a family, conceals fierce conflicts of interest (sometimes exploding, most often repressed) between conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves, capitalists and workers, dominators and dominated in race and sex. And in such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, as Albert Camus suggested, not to be on the side of the executioners.’ – A People’s History of the United States, 1980

10. Subaltern Studies – Gayatri Spivak etc • Giving voice to the experiences of those excluded from ‘hegemonic’ colonial power structures (drawing on Italian Marxist Gramsci and E P Thompson’s ‘history from below’) • E.g. ‘Indian Mutiny’ 1857-8 rebellion of the Indians ‘sepoys’ of East India Company – dissolved and British Crown took over after ruthlessly putting rebellion down – formation of British Raj and Queen Victoria declared ‘Empress of India’ later - 1877 • Colonial view – savage and fanatical Indians who ‘massacred’ ‘European’ (i.e. white) women and children and thus needed to be ‘brought to order’ (this not seen as massacres) – echoes of the War on Terror today • Subaltern view – challenging the dominant colonial records by reinterpreting elite documents, and trying to get alternative evidence of ‘faceless masses’ – peasant soldiers with material grievances which then become wider national rebellion, even though triggered by use of pig fat to grease rifles which offended religious sensibilities • Broader agenda – postmodern critique of Western progress http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/journal_of_military_history/v067/67.4roy.html

11. How civilized colonialists brought order to India

12. Remember Sociology was historically constituted too… • Auguste Comte, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, Alexis de Tocqueville, Anthony Giddens • As people and what they said shaped by wider society – French revolution, industrial capitalism, European expansionism (Empire) • Their sociology also historically reshaped the wider society through ‘the double hermeneutic’ • Marx and revolution, emphasizing structure and agency “Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.” (18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte’ • Durkheim influenced 20th Century Social Reform, and (racist?) evolutionary views of ‘primitive society’ – ‘mechanical to organic solidarity’ • Anthony Giddens shaped New Labour and ‘The Third Way’ (now history!)

13. The Archive ‘A collection of historical documents or records providing information about a place, institution, or group of people; the place where such documents are kept.’ (Dictionary definition) National, state, local, interest group/ institutional archives

14. Archive Records Texts and images in institutions: official correspondence, government letters, personal letters and memoirs, diaries, newspapers, drawings and paintings, photograph albums. Virtual archives: digitisation opens up much wider access (as we’ll see) - Don’t have to travel down to Public Records Office in Kew - Not the same as handling ‘real’ records? That’s what you get to try this week – don’t miss it!

15. Selected list of archives • http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ • http://www.theherbert.org/index.php/home/history-centre/history-centre-collections • http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc • http://parlipapers.chadwyck.co.uk/marketing/index.jsp • http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/Corporation/LGNL_Services/Leisure_and_culture/Records_and_archives/ • http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/indiaofficeselect/welcome.asp • http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/thewomenslibrary/ • http://library.wellcome.ac.uk/?gclid=COLNu_DLiKECFSaElAodgFRpNw • http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/ • http://www.imagesofempire.com/bin/empire.dll/go?a=disp&t=home-loader.html&_max=0&_maxlb=0&si= • http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/search?adv=y

16. Critique of the Archive • Snapshots of time; purpose/ intent • Elites/ non-elites – whose voice recorded (Brecht, postcolonial studies) • Men’s more than women’s history • Global north/ south • Truth and objectivity; meta-history; postmodernism (Keith Jenkins 1997) • Radical, traditional & ‘undecided’ historians … N. Geras: ‘If there is no truth, there is no justice … The victims and protestors of any putative injustice are deprived of their last and often best weapon, that of telling what really happened.’ (1997, p. 23). • Modern archives – like the Modern Records Centre have sought to address these issues

17. Critique of Virtual Archives Renée M. Sentilles (in Burton, 2005): ‘however bizarre and interesting the materials I have found through my computer, they never send me on flights of imagination like paging through original newspapers and getting the dust of two centuries under my nails … it is … human response to tangible artifacts that I have seen time and again in my students as well as myself that convinces me that virtual archives will never serve as more than a place to begin and end the research journey; never as a place to dwell.’ (2005, p. 155).

18. The idea of a university: Warwick project

19. The Idea of a University A Research Exhibition, 24 - 26June 2010, Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre, University of Warwick. For further details and an invitation, please contact reinvention@warwick.ac.uk

21. Spaces and Stories of Higher Education • A collaborative, year long research project involving students and staff (esp Cath Lambert): http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/cetl/filmspublications/ideaofauniversity/ • Involved research in MRC archives, particularly Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals of the Universities of the UK (CVCP) archive and the University of Warwick Archives (UWA) • Interviews including photo-elicitation and walking interviews

22. 'In December 1968 someone painted an entire Winnie-the-Pooh story on the paved path between Rootes Hall and the library (it was, incidentally, written in such a way that to read it one had to walk backwards). Soon afterwards workmen appeared to overturn the offending paving stones. Protest meetings were held, petitions were circulated, a rash of slogans appeared around the University designed to proclaim the right to daub on university buildings - some solely about Pooh, and some attempting to widen the political content. One such included a reference to the May 1968 troubles in France, declaring in red paint *'La Chienlit, c'est JB'. Work on overturning the paving stones was halted, and half an A.A. Milne’s story written backwards was left to face the elements. Not a trace remains today, but the effects on students was of a more permanent nature'. E. P. Thompson Warwick University Ltd (1970: 43) *‘La Chienlit, c’est lui’ (‘Chaos’, pun ‘craps-in-bed’, it’s him: 1968 slogan, referring to Charles de Gaulle’s original statement ‘La réforme oui, la chie-en-lit non), at Warwick ‘J.B.’ is J.B. Butterworth, Vice Chancellor

23. Registrar's Notice to All Staff at the The University of Warwick 12 February 1970 Certain statements have been made and a letter has been circulated to colleagues by Mr E. P. Thompson suggesting that the University maintains records about the outside political activities of staff and students. The purpose of this note is to say quite categorically that this is not so. Inevitably members of the public write to the University from time to time about the outside activities of its members. When replies are sent to such letters, it is stated that the University has no concern with the political or off-campus activities of either staff or students. D. W. Dykes Registrar In E P Thompson (1970) in Warwick University Ltd

24. Letter from Headteacher of school to University Admissions Feb 1969 I write to you concerning the application for entry in 1969 of M. Wolf of this school. I find it necessary to add to the comments made on the UCCA entry form concerning his preoccupation with student politics. He is now a committee member of the London Schools Action Group, engaged in the organizing of protests and demonstrations concerning school government, etc. His name appeared in The Times Educational Supplement of 10 January, expressing his intention to embark on militant action when necessary. I felt it was, important that you should be aware of this in making your decision. I would prefer this communication to be treated very confidentially, and should be pleased to receive your comments. Written at foot of letter: Reject This Man, J.B.B. (signed).

25. The struggle at Warwick had begun over this issue of the social building; after the discovery of the files attention was focused on the propriety of keeping political information; in the weeks following the issues changed. The students began to realise that these were not the real issues at all, but were merely symptoms. What was wrong was the whole concept and structure of the University. The ideals of academic excellence and the pursuit of knowledge had to be reasserted over the aims of the 'Business University‘. Thompson, Warwick University Ltd 1970: 59

26. On Campus, 1970 http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/explorefurther/filmvideo/oncampus/ • This frank portrayal of Warwick University students at work and play • The students' sometimes unenthusiastic voices (and music from the Beatles' Abbey Road) are heard over shots of a comparatively new campus which was typical of those which had been created on 'green-field' sites during the expansion of higher education in the 1960s • Perhaps it indicates some of the ‘concerns’ that were soon to feed into student protests • The film was directed for the Film Producers' Guild by Stefan Sargent • From the University of Warwick Archive (UWA/AV/3/1).

27. Mick Carpenter’s MRC COHSE archive • COHSE was a health service union dating back to 1910, which merged into UNISON 1993 • He was commissioned to write the official history of the union • Mick worked previously as a nurse and wanted to write a ‘hidden history’ of the NHS from below that uncovered • The contribution that ordinary nurses and ancillary staff made to the service had been overlooked • How they fought for better conditions and campaigned for a better health service • How they combined with patients and users to protect the service against cuts from the 1970s onwards • http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/explorefurther/filmvideo/allforone Check this film to see how I researched health workers ‘from below’ and listen to how I did historical interviews with nursing and health service trade unionists • This is his last undergraduate lecture, he’s concentrating on historical research now (with Alice Mah) on local residents stories and accounts of why successive government initiatives since the 1970s have failed to eradicate poverty in Hillfields, Coventry

28. Reminder on MRC sessions • Everyone should now be signed up for a MRC taster session • Attendance compulsory - registers will be kept • Seminars will be led by the archivist Helen Ford, with support from a Sociology tutor • It gives you a great opportunity to see what it has to offer, and also handle and analyse ‘physical’ rather than ‘virtual’ documents