Negotiating Pasts in the Nordic Countries: Interdisciplinary Studies in History and Memory

by Anne Eriksen (Editor), Jon Vi�ar Sigur�sson (Editor)

Overview

A contribution to the popular international and interdisciplinary field of collective memory within a Scandinavian context, this reference presents a number of case studies—from the Middle Age to the present time—that discuss how people look to the past for identity and meaning. Acknowledging that many pasts exist—sometimes harmoniously and other times in conflict—this resource attempts to negotiate the past by analyzing the tensions that occur when individuals with different interests, understandings, and points of view study history and by exploring the inherent desire to develop a consensus between the past and the present. Examining subject areas such as social and cultural history, literature, cultural studies, archeology, mythology, and anthropology, this study expresses how crucial it is to understand the processes of dealing with the past when trying to chart how and why societies and communities change and evolve.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789187121180
Publisher:	Nordic Academic Press
Publication date:	04/01/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	315
File size:	657 KB

About the Author

Anne Eriksen is a professor of culture studies and oriental languages at the University of Oslo. Jón Viðar Sigurðsson is a professor of archaeology, conservation, and history at the University of Oslo.

Read an Excerpt

Negotiating Pasts in the Nordic Countries

Interdisciplinary Studies in History and Memory

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By Anne Eriksen, Jón Viðar Sigurðsson

Nordic Academic Press

Copyright © 2009 Nordic Academic Press and the authors
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-91-87121-18-0

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CHAPTER 1

Negotiating Negotiations

Theorising a concept – conceptualising theory

Helge Jordheim

At any given point in the history of the humanities there are a number of key words or concepts that keep appearing and reappearing across the entire range of texts and arguments in a way that might serve to identify the historical and theoretical character of a particular period. These are the kind of words which help us determine, demarcate and characterise such historical entities as a 'paradigm' or a 'discourse' within our own disciplines. Any avid reader will have noticed that a few lines or even a few words in an article or a book can be enough to pinpoint with an astonishing degree of accuracy the time and place of publication of a text, thanks to the concepts in use. Examples of such key concepts from recent decades could be 'rationality', 'structure', 'system', 'function', 'dialogue', 'identity' or 'global', only to mention a few, in addition to the prefixes 'post-', 'inter-' and 'cross-'. The function of these mostly rather open and ambiguous concepts is to summarise and articulate the theoretical aspirations and ambitions at work in a particular scholarly discourse at a particular time. In exploring their structural relations, semantic layers and rhetorical uses we might be able to identify some of the theoretical presuppositions fundamental to this discourse. To embark on this kind of conceptual analysis, however, also means to undertake a theoretical work in its own right: conceptualising theory –theorising a concept.

In this essay I will attempt to identify some central structural, semantic and pragmatic features of such a key concept, in order to flesh out the theoretical presuppositions and methodological procedures which make up the framework for this book. The key concept in question, which indeed has been a recurring feature across the spectrum of the humanities since the 1990s, is the one evoked in the title of this book: 'negotiating'. Upon a closer look, however, we are not dealing with one single word or concept, at least not linguistically speaking, but with a whole number of related words, all deriving from the verb 'to negotiate'. The most widely used of these linguistic forms is the noun 'negotiations', in the plural, and the gerund 'negotiating', both characterised by suppressing the syntactic subject and thus leaving the question 'who negotiates?' unanswered. This structural and grammatical particularity is going to be a recurring topic in this book. But first I am going to discuss what it means to approach theory and method in the humanities in this way, by focusing on a particular concept and starting our discussions from there.

Conceptual history, conceptual theory

According to the German historian Reinhart Koselleck, who was instrumental in founding the post-war discipline of Begriffsgeschichte in Germany, a 'key concept'–what he calls a Grundbegriff–is characterised by always remaining ambiguous and multi-faceted: 'A word,' Koselleck writes, 'becomes a concept when the full richness of a social and political context of meaning (die F Fülle eines politischsozialen Bedeutungszusammenhanges), in which–and for which–the word is used, is taken up in the word'. The concept, he explains, 'assembles the plurality of historical experiences as well as a series of theoretical and historical issues in one whole, which is only given in the concept itself and can only be experienced there'. Even though Koselleck writes about what he terms 'social and political language,' not scholarly language in particular, his insights seem to be just as relevant for key concepts in the humanities. On the one hand, it would be naïve to believe that scholarly concepts exist independently of their social and political contexts; on the other hand, words like 'negotiations' and 'negotiating' find their primary source of meaning, the 'full richness' of it, not within the scholarly tradition itself, but in the world of politics and economy.

Hence, we are working with a set of concepts, or perhaps rather a conceptual or semantic field, characterised not so much by its sharp demarcations and intersubjectively accepted definitions, but rather by a richness of meaning and experience at work within the concepts themselves. This plurality of meaning and experience should not be seen as a weakness or even a problem, in the sense of something that needs to be tamed and controlled, in favour of more precise and sharp definitions, but rather as a productive source of ideas, approaches and insights. I am going to use this introductory essay to review and discuss some of the levels of meaning and experience at work in these concepts, as a way of laying out some of the perspectives to be employed.

On a very general level I would argue that the main point of thinking about objects in the field of the humanities in terms of 'negotiations' is to suggest a theoretical structure which is genuinely dynamic, where there is no stable, unchangeable centre around which everything else revolves, or, to put it differently, no absolute standard setting the pace. In a process of negotiations, no one can avoid re-evaluating and changing their positions in answer to impulses and suggestions from others–hence, no one and nothing remains exactly the same, exactly identical. In 'negotiations' as a theoretical concept, we are faced with a highly complex structure of positions and relations, which, in spite of its complexity, is moving, evolving, changing. In the wake of the linguistic turn, of structuralism and post-structuralism, conceptualising the world in terms of 'discourses', 'epistemes', 'systems' and 'grids', which often tend to 'freeze history', this is a potential we should not leave unexplored.

The following essay consists of three sections. In the first I will discuss the structural aspects of 'negotiation' and 'negotiating', how these concepts can be said to impose a certain structure on the material we are studying and what kind of structure this is. In the second section, I will try to fill this structure with content or substance, exploring the historical and semantic layers inherent in these concepts, primarily with reference to the commercial, the political and the managerial meanings. Finally, in the third section I will discuss the pragmatic implications of these structural and semantic characteristics and look more closely at the different kinds of scientific practice following from the conceptual presuppositions. As a conclusion, I hope to emerge with a set of ideas which will fuel the following empirical and theoretical discussions in this book, as well as in future research. To begin with, I will say something about the tradition that more than any other can be said to be responsible for introducing the concept of 'negotiations' into the humanities during the last decades: the so-called 'New Historicism' or 'Cultural Poetics'.

Negotiations in New Historicism: Greenblatt revisited

Among the works of the literary historian Stephen Greenblatt, who is often seen as a kind of godfather figure for the trend in the historical humanities referred to as 'New Historicism', is his study from 1988 Shakespearean Negotiations: subtitled The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England. It could be claimed that it was Greenblatt, in this and other books, together with his now famous colleagues Catherine Gallagher, Lynn Hunt, Louis A. Montrose and Thomas Lacqueur, who coined 'negotiations' as a theoretical concept for historical and literary research in general at the end of the twentieth century. But as any reader of Greenblatt will know, his efforts at developing a theoretical framework for this conceptual innovation have beeen rather sketchy, to say the least, to the extent that we are dealing with a scholarly or even stylistic attitude rather than a full-fledged theoretical approach.

One of the major issues in Greenblatt's ideas has been the criticism of both Formalist and Marxist theories of art and history, which, in spite of their opposite claims regarding the role of art in society presuppose the same stable dualism between the world, society or history on the one hand, and art (mainly literature and drama) on the other. The whole idea of 'negotiations' should be read as a way of breaking with or even eclipsing this stable dualism in favour of a much more complex and dynamic way of thinking about art and society. Indeed, this entire dualist or binary structure is put into motion:

[...] the work of art is not itself a pure flame
that lies at the source of our speculations.
Rather the work of art is itself the product of a
set of manipulations, some of them our own
(most striking in the case of works that were not
originally conceived as 'art' at all but rather as
something else – votive objects, propaganda,
prayer, and so on), many others undertaken in
the construction of the original work. That is, the
work of art is the product of a negotiation
between a creator or class of creators, equipped
with a complex, communally shared repertoire of
conventions, and the institutions and practices of
society.

In his introduction to Shakespearean Negotiations, Greenblatt discusses some of the implications of this theoretical stance: First, art or literature as such must be seen not as the product of a singular genius, but as a 'collective creation', in the sense that 'collective beliefs and experiences [are] shaped, moved from one medium to another, concentrated in manageable aesthetic form, offered for consumption'. Studying these collective cultural practices implies what Greenblatt has called 'a poetics of culture'. Second, these processes of negotiation are bound up with 'modes of aesthetic empowerment', referring to the ways in which cultural objects or practices, for instance literary works, acquire a specific kind of 'social energy', that is, a capacity to 'produce, shape, and organize collective physical and mental experiences', such as laughter, tension, fear, sorrow, and so on. Third, these negotiations do not only take place within one specific historical context or one particular discourse, but across the centuries, in terms of 'a historical process, a structured negotiation and exchange', which in hermeneutical terms is referred to as a Wirkungsgeschichte. Greenblatt writes:

Whereas most collective expressions moved
from their original setting to a new place or time
are dead on arrival, the social energy encoded in
certain works of art continue to generate the
illusion of life for centuries. I want to understand
the negotiation through which works of art obtain
and amplify such powerful energy.

In anticipating some of the articles in this book it should be stressed that works of art are obviously not the only cultural products, expressions and practices containing a powerful social energy. A similar claim can – and will – be made on behalf of other objects and genres, such as history books, museums, school tours and monuments. 'Mimesis', Greenblatt writes, 'is always accompanied – indeed is always produced by – negotiation and exchange'. Similarly, the cultural materials involved in such a process of negotiations can be very diverse and include genres and generic distinctions, scientific theories, political struggles and aesthetic interests, as well as physical objects, such as clothing, bodies and houses.

However, 'negotiations' is by no means the only concept evoked by Greenblatt to describe these processes. Recurring words used more or less synonymously are 'circulation', 'transactions', 'manipulations', 'mediation', and 'improvisations', their main common feature being that they do not indicate any kind of stable structure or dualism, but, without exception, movement. 'Why are we obliged to speak of movement at all?' Greenblatt asks at one point, rhetorically, thus stressing the fundamental issue in his entire theory: how cultural materials are moved across the shifting boundaries of time and space, and thus how nothing remains the same, stable or identical, but how everything is swept away by the process of history, understood as a process of negotiations and exchange.

Nevertheless, the title concept of the work and probably the concept most closely associated with Greenblatt's work is and remains 'negotiation'. And the main question accompanying all his writing is summed up in the following way: 'Above all,' he asks, 'how is the social energy inherent in a cultural practice negotiated and exchanged?'

In place of a blazing genesis, one begins to glimpse something that seems at first far less spectacular: a subtle, elusive set of exchanges, a network of trades and trade-offs, a jostling of competing representations, a negotiation between joint-stock companies. Gradually, these complex, ceaseless borrowings and lendings have come to seem to me more important, more poignant even, than the epiphany for which I had hoped.

In this quotation–just one of many examples – the concept of 'negotiation' is placed firmly in the context of capitalist discourse and practices, of trade, commerce and mercantile language. As we shall see later, this is also the most prominent and durable layer of meaning, historically speaking. On the one hand, the importance Greenblatt ascribes to the commercial aspects is due to the fact that Shakespeare is part of an emerging literary market in which aesthetic pleasure, money and power can be used as currency; on the other hand, it serves as a more general analysis of the conditions of artistic production in different historical epochs. In a thoroughly Marxist fashion the market is also linked to the question of power, of subversion and containment. The question arises if the negotiations can, in some cases, lead to a subversion of the existing power-structures, or if they will always lead to a reaffirmation of social and political hierarchies through containment and co-optation. Critics of New Historicism in general have pointed to the fact that in this theoretical framework there seems to be no real possibility of subversion, that, indeed, this is where the process of negotiation, of perpetual movement and change; stops, or more precisely, where it is contained. This is not a question we shall discuss at length here; we simply draw attention to the fact that all processes of negotiation, without exception, are imbued with relations and mechanisms of power which must be accounted for when these processes are described and analysed.

The structures of negotiation: reciprocity, symmetry, conflict

Before going into the diverse and shifting historical meanings of 'negotiation', it might be useful to map out some of the linguistic structures at work in this concept, or rather in this conceptual field. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the verb 'to negotiate' can have four meanings. Used intransitively, not taking an object, 'to negotiate' means 'to communicate or confer (with another or others) for the purpose of arranging some matter by mutual agreement; to discuss a matter with a view to some compromise or settlement'. Used transitively, on the other hand, with an object, it can either mean 'to conduct a negotiation or negotiations about (a matter, affair, etc.)' or 'to arrange for, achieve, obtain or bring about (something) by negotiation'. The third meaning specifies the judical or commercial meaning already implied in the second, whereas the fourth, which also seems to be of some relevance here, indicates that 'to negotiate' can also mean 'to find a way through, round or over (an obstacle, a difficult path etc.)'. However, it is the first two definitions which interest us most here.

For a basic structural representation of the process of negotiation, the key elements seem to be communication, purpose, object and agreement. Obviously, negotiation presupposes communication. You always negotiate 'with' someone, or, to underline even more the element of reciprocity, negotiations take place 'between' two parties. However, it might be important to remind ourselves that these two different parties do not always constitute two different (groups of) physical beings. A useful term for understanding how subjects negotiate with themselves is autopoiesis, in the way this term has been adapted to sociological material by the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, referring to the production and organization of the self. In a similar manner, the past, or rather the manifestations of the past in the present, books, letters, ruins or monuments, might be turned into a kind of negotiating parties, when they are addressed in certain way by the interpretative subject. Furthermore, there is a purpose to all negotiations. The parties involved want to achieve something, a particular goal. This might be a common purpose shared by both parties, but often there is more than one purpose at stake, distributed among the participants, making the whole process much more complex and unpredictable. The object of the negotiations, which might be the same as the purpose, but also differ from it, is normally represented syntactically by a prepositional phrase, introduced by 'about'. Finally, both purpose and object might in turn set themselves off from the implicit goal of the negotiations, which, structurally speaking, is to reach an agreement, or a compromise.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Negotiating Pasts in the Nordic Countries by Anne Eriksen, Jón Viðar Sigurðsson. Copyright © 2009 Nordic Academic Press and the authors. Excerpted by permission of Nordic Academic Press.
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Table of Contents

Contents

Title Page,
Copyright Page,
Foreword,
Negotiating Negotiations - Theorising a concept–conceptualising theory,
Negotiating the Past in the High Middle Ages,
Historical Writing and the Political Situation in Iceland 1100–1400,
Political Polemics in Early Modern Scandinavia,
National Histories - Sven Lagerbring and his Channels of Communication,
Negotiating the History of the World,
On Whales, Potholes and Giants,
The Historical Novel Negotiating the Past - Enquist's The Visit of the Royal Physician,
Using a Past–Magistra vitæ - Approaches to History,
Personal Pain, National Narrative - Commemorating an SS-camp,
Negotiating Holocaust Memory in School-trip Reports,
The Emperor and the Aunts,
Negotiating Pasts –an Afterthought,
About the Authors,