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Narrative History and Theory

Author(s): Eileen H. Tamura


Source: History of Education Quarterly , May 2011, Vol. 51, No. 2 (May 2011), pp. 150-
157
Published by: Cambridge University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41303866

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Narrative History and Theory

Eileen H. Tamura

I am a narrative historian. By narrative, I mean the telling of a story to


explain and analyze events and human agency in order to increase
understanding. As a narrative historian, I have not made extensive use of
theory in my analysis of past events. In fact, in the past I consistently
rejected theory, considering it more of a hindrance than a help.
The historian Geoffrey Roberts stated, "History is frequently
labelled an idiographical discipline as opposed to a nomothetic one,
that is, a discipline whose knowledge objects are particular, individual,
and specific rather than classes of phenomena which are abstracted
and subsumed in generalisations about trends, patterns and causal
determinations." In this vein, it was my view - as Peter Burke noted -
that history examines particulars and "attend to concrete detail," while
theory attends to "general rules and screen[s] out the exceptions."1
To be sure, the line separating historians and social theorists - a
name used by Peter Burke to include sociology, social and cultural
anthropology, social and cultural geography, sociolinguistics, social
psychology, and other such areas of study - has been blurred over the
past fifty years, and there is greater overlap between the two groups. For
example, social anthropologists such as Clifford Geertz and Marshall
Sahlins also emphasize the historical dimension, and historians have
become more receptive to using theory, such as those of Michel
Foucault, Mikhail Bakhtin, Pierre Bourdieu, and other theorists.
Nevertheless, there remains a disjuncture between many historians and
social theorists. For instance, narrative historians tend to distance them-
selves from postmodernists by the belief that it is possible to approach the
"truth" of the past. This belief can be seen in debates among historians in
the adequacy of competing narratives. These debates involve issues of
documentation, the accuracy of evidence, and the quality of interpretation.2

Eileen H. Tamura is professor of education at the University of Hawaii. She is a former


president of the History of Education Society.

Geoffrey Roberts, "History, Theory, and the Narrative Turn in IR," Review of
International Studies 32 (2006): 703-14; Peter Burke, History and Social Theory , 2nd ed.
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005), 3.
Burke, History and Social Theory , 16-19, ix-x; Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The
" Objectivity Question " and the American Historical Profession (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1988), 620-21. See, for example, Clifford Geertz, The Social History of

History of Education Quarterly Vol. 5 1 No. 2 May 2011 Copyright © 201 1 by the History of Education Society

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Narrative History and Theory 151

Recently I have moved away from my earlie


warmed to theory because of the insights
understanding of the past. For example, I used the
help develop the framework for a conference p
history session at a recent meeting of the
Research Association (AERA) and for the pape
I also drew from his thinking to help me con
recently edited.3
What set me thinking about the role of
history was a statement made by a distinguish
who, after reading an essay of mutual inte
history." To be sure, the essay differed marked
education. For one thing, it had a style that wa
histories. The scholar used the first person forcef
"I" right at the beginning of the essay and con
the essay. Even more evident was her strong use o
was foregrounded throughout the essay. As a n
well aware that the author did not approach h
"normal" way of historians. Yet I liked this es
should be considered as a historical piece. The
seasoned educational historian, however, led m
methodologies should be embraced or at least
historians? While narrative history has been
historical scholarship, its preeminence has no
the 1980s, the role of narrative in historical w
extraordinarily intense debate." The historica
can be traced to the preceding two decades, when
became discernable: (1) social-scientifically
particular the Annales group, among them
Emmanuel LeRoy Ladurie, who saw narrative
(2) analytical philosophers, among them H
Mink, who "sought to establish the epistemic s
semiologically oriented theorists, among th
Jacques Derrida, who saw narrative as "one

an Indonesian Town (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1965);


Sahlins, Anahulu: The Anthropology of History in the
University of Chicago Press, 1992); Michel Foucault, Th
trans, from the French by A. M. Sheridan Smith (Londo
Mikhail M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination, ed. M
Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: University of T
Bourdieu, In Other Words: Essays towards a Reflexive Sociol
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990).
Eileen H. Tamura, ed., The History of Discrimination in U
Agency , and Power (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008)

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152 History of Education Quarterly

others"; and (4) hermeneutically oriented phi


Hans Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur, who
"manifestation in discourse of a specific kind o
this essay I discuss the first two of the majo
history.
In the 1960s the dominance of narrative history and its focus on
political history, with its emphasis on individual actions, was challenged
by the Annales school. With the publication of The Mediterranean and
the Mediterranean World , Fernand Braudel was recognized as a leader of
this school, which became influential in the 1960s and achieved world
prominence in the 1970s.5 Braudel criticized the preoccupation of
traditional history in its concern with individual events. Of greater
significance, he said, was a second level of "slower-moving currents of
social history, those of peoples and groups and their economic and
cultural forces." Below this was the "longue duree," a third, deeper level
of " 'almost immobile history' of the relations of humans with their
environment, the 'geographical time' of climate, sea, soil, and
agriculture." The outcome of BraudePs perspective was the growth of
social history and its use of demographics and statistics in historical
inquiry.6
The goal was to establish a "science of human action," which
storytelling did not purport to do. Science, on the other hand, was said to
be based on observable events. Using this line of thinking, advocates of
this view sought "to find in human events the same relation between
observations and laws found in non-human events."7
As a result, for a time there was among historians a strong attraction
to quantitative history and its focus on population growth and decline,
birth and death records, food supply, price fluctuations, harvest yields,
and other quantifiable items. Decades later, however, Lawrence Stone,
who had played a major role in the rise of social history, concluded that
quantification did not fulfill the expectations of the 1970s.8

4Hayden White, "The Question of Narrative in Contemporary Historical Theory,"


History and Theory 23 (August 1984): 1-3 3. In my literature search, I found that most of the
articles discussing the value of narrative in history were published in the 1980s.
5 Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of
Philip //, 2 vols., trans. Sian Reynolds (New York: Harper & Row, 1972; French edition
1949); Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob, Telling the Truth about History
(New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1994), 83.
6Fernand Braudel, Ecrits sur Vhistoire (Paris: Flammarion, 1969), 1 If, 2 1, quoted in
David Carr, "Narrative Explanation and Its Malcontents," History and Theory 47
(February 2008): 25-26; Appleby, Jacob, and Hunt, Telling the Truth about History , 82-
84; White, "The Question of Narrative," 8-10.
Carr, "Narrative Explanation and Its Malcontents," 23.
Carr, "Narrative Explanation and Its Malcontents," 26; Appleby, Jacob, and Hunt,
Telling the Truth about History , 83; Lawrence Stone, "Reflections on a New and Old

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Narrative History and Theory 153

Meanwhile, in the 1970s another challenge


the relationship between narrative history an
argued that there was a disconnection between
beginning, middle, and end - and life itself, w
vein, Louis Mink noted "(1) that the world is no
of well-made stories; (2) that we make such stor
referentiality by imagining that in them the w
the historical narrative poses a dilemma. While
the past, as narrative, it is the result of the narra
According to Hayden White, central to this
there is a deep structural, linguistic basis unde
He argued that historical works are literary c
torical explanations differed, not because of f
because of differences in their emplotment m
tragedy, satire - as well as in their "tropo
figurative representations of metaphor, meto
irony.10 As Paul Roth explains, "There is no tr
the statement that such and such a happening
telling which so presents it." White said it th
really present itself ... in the form of well-m
subjects, proper beginnings, middles and ends
itself ... as a mere sequence without beginning or
Narrativists did not let this critique go
understood that what was at stake in this deb
legitimacy of the historical narrative."12 Acco
his opponents meant by reality was the phy
portrayed in histories is human reality. He refe

History," in The Narrative and History Reader , ed. Geoff


2001), 283.
Louis O. Mink, "Everyman His Own Annalist," in On N
Mitchell (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 2
and the Real World: An Argument for Continuity," Hist
119-20.
10Andrew P. Norman, "Telling It Like It Was: Historical Narratives on Their Own
Terms," History and Theory 30 (May 1991): 1 19-35, uses the word "impositionalists" as a
contrast to the narrativists; Hayden White, Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), 81-100, quote from p. 95; Hayden
White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), 1-42, explains his ideas of three levels of
historical explanation: emplotment, argument, and ideological implication; his notion
of historiographical styles, which combines modes within these three levels; and his
theory of tropes.
Paul A. Roth, "Narrative Explanations: The Case of History," History and Theory
27 (February 1988): 1-13; Hayden White, "The Value of Narrativity in the
Representation of Reality," in On Narrative , ed. W. J. Thomas Mitchell (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1981), 23, emphasis mine.
Norman, "Telling It Like It Was," 1 19.

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1 54 History of Education Quarterly

notion "that we cannot even experience any


present, except against the background of what
anticipate will succeed it." While such a structu
structure, Carr argued, there is a relationship
related to the past and future, and narrative,
middle, and end. Unlike Mink, who stated "that
then afterward ... tell about what we have d
historical narratives are extensions of actual event
recognized that these narratives do not reprodu
structures of the events that they discuss.13
Also writing in defense of narrative histor
that what distinguishes history is its empirical
historians use is available for others to examin
of historians cannot be judged by their narrative
after all, based on historical research. White an
fully examine "the relationship between resea
that, according to Lorenz, is a major flaw in th
Most American educational historians - a
European educational historians, who seem
with theory - would agree with Carr and Lore
critique of narrative history, it continues to
Why? As Carr suggests, narrative history is s
proximity to ordinary discourse. Furthermore, it
actions through time."15
To be sure, narrative history has been enligh
to it. More recent narrative historians have av
earlier historians, and have used the challenges
1980s to craft histories that have as much analy
Given the strengths of the narrative, this
displace the prominence of narrative history.
either-or choice, but a both-and inclusion. A
narrative history provides causal account and
events. Theory allows us to analyze more effect
beneath the surface.16 That is, theory provide
from which to inquire and analyze.
This discussion of a larger role for theory
may seem ironic, given what has been happeni

13Carr, "Narrative and the Real World," 121-22, 126,


Chris Lorenz, "Can Histories Be True? Narrativi
'Metaphorical Turn,' " History and Theory 37 (August 199
Carr, "Narrative Explanation and Its Malcontents,"
Bruce Mazlish, "The Question of The Question of Hu
(May 1992): 143-52. Mazlish uses "analysis" instead of "t

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Narrative History and Theory 155

that of a turn to narrative. According to Robe


comes from "the crisis of confidence in posit
post-structuralist rediscovery of the power o
individualism and the appeal of emancipatory
based movements; and, perhaps most impor
exposure of the meta-narratives under
construction."17 I view this turn to narrative
positive development, for it reinforces my view
can work together successfully.
In a recent article in the History of Education
points out that most historians in history
educational historians in that most of the latter reside in schools or
colleges of education and therefore need to engage in research that
"speaks to current educational concerns."18 While his conclusion is not
a subject of discussion in this paper, his distinction between educational
historians in schools or colleges of education on the one hand, and most
other historians on the other, speaks to my inquiry on the place of theory in
educational history. I would add to his distinction by stating that even
educational historians who reside in history departments may have more in
common with educational historians in schools and colleges of education
than they do with colleagues in their history departments. This is due to
their relationship to the wider community of nonhistorian educational
researchers, and their membership in educational research associations
such as the AERA, whose members are predominantly nonhistorians.
Educational historians are situated between, on the one side,
historians who are unconnected with professional schools and who
may have little interest in theory - and on the other side, nonhistorian
educational researchers who embrace theory. Educational historians
stand between these two groups and can take advantage of their position.
In other words, historians of education should take the opportunity of
their in-between-ness to draw from both theoretical perspectives as well
as the more traditional historical methodology.
I recognize that a growing number of historians are using theory in
their analyses, perhaps more so than educational historians. At the same
time, educational historians have a greater need than other historians to
communicate with theoretically minded but nonhistorically minded
scholars, namely, nonhistory educational researchers, because of their
shared concerns about educational issues.

17Roberts, "History, Theory, and the Narrative Turn," 703.


John L. Rury, "The Curious Status of the History of Education: A Parallel
Perspective," History of Education Quarterly 46 (Winter 2006): 592.

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156 History of Education Quarterly

Historical inquiry seeks to provide an under


goal is to find the best ways to achieve this unde
narrative and theory, educational historian
different, and helpful perspectives to an und
Moreover, while not the primary aim, thi
historians to speak to both narrative and
bridge connecting historian and nonhistorian
Such a bridge would encourage better commun
groups, with the result that educational histor
from their nonhistorian colleagues, who may
greater appreciation of the relevance of educa
Even historians of education who reject th
included me for a long time - have, I submit
thinking by theorists such as Gramsci, Marx
White. Perhaps the first step for those in th
concepts and perspectives from theorists to
Theory may thus be there, if only in the backgr
may want to use theoretical models to help "cr
Still others may want to "discuss theoretical i
examine particular historical episodes.19
Some may argue that I am presenting a fa
narrative and theory because, they would say,
approach. To be sure, narrativists have a fram
their studies. In this case, what is at work is a
methodology.
However, what we - the author of this essay
next two essays - are referring to when we u
explicit use of nonnarrative methods in analy
quote from the introduction of this special is

By theory, we mean an interpretive framework that


sources and serves as a lens to analyze evidence and e
explain identities, actions, events, realities, rationali
phenomena. More specifically, when we refer to the
cational history, we mean the engagement and mo
feminist, critical race, queer, and social-constructiv
"post" approaches to historical interpretation, includ
structuralist, and postcolonial theories.

19Burke, History and Social Theory , 1; Burke, History a


"model" as "an intellectual construct which simplifies re
recurrent, the general and the typical, which it presents in
attributes."

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Narrative History and Theory 157

Because the narrative has dominated the works of American


educational historians, my distinction between narrative and theory is
an attempt to encourage educational historians who are narrativists to
open themselves to theoretical works.
This essay does not argue that all educational historians should use
theory. What I am saying is that there exists a canon of narrativity that
should be challenged. In other words, there should be a prominent seat
at the educational history table for such scholarship that marries theory
with narrative and/or foregrounds theory in examining historical issues
in education.

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