Historisk tidskrift 123:2 • 2003
Innehåll (Contents) 2003:2
Uppsatser (Articles)
Syntetiska ögonblick. En reflexion
Ann-Sofie Ohlander
Fulltext (pdf)
Summary
Synthetic Moments. A Reflection
The writing of syntheses never seems to have been a major concern
of Swedish historians. Neither theoretical discussions nor historical
practice indicate much effort within the field. But does this
belief hold true on closer examination? My argument here is that
in reality syntheses or at least synthetic moments are far more
frequent in Swedish – and other – historical research than one
might realise at first sight.
How do I understand the concept
of synthesis? Complexity, difference and integration are given
as key words in the standard dictionary of the Swedish language.
A good example in practice is the British archaeologist Colin
Renfrew. In his work Archaeology and Language he tries to combine
and integrate recent results from his own discipline with those
of linguistics in order to gain a new understanding of the origin
and diffusion of the Indo-European languages. Renfrew’s is a
conscious and systematic effort at synthesising. But the encounter
of knowledge emanating from different sources, processed with
different methods and presented in different ways occurs in many
other circumstances.
What do (Swedish) historians generally understand
by a synthesis? The concept is sparsely mentioned in current
theoretical and methodological textbooks written by Swedish historians.
General use seems to indicate a rather vague notion where long
time spans and national, continental or even global aspirations
play a role. Some more specific definitions presuppose, erroneously
it seems to me, an organising principle or theory, or include,
likewise erroneously, generalisation as an aspect of synthesis.
Historians from the neighbouring countries seem to have given
somewhat more thought to the problem, among them the Finnish
historian Pentti Renvall and the Norwegian historian Knut Kjeldstadli.
For both of them, complexity and possibilities of integration
are crucial. They both consider scope as important but not decisive.
Economic history as a discipline seems to offer a special case
with an inherent problem of synthesising, since it was originally
created out of two subject fields, history and political economy.
The fact that the definition includes complexity, difference
and integration when applied to actual historical practice seems
to give abundant evidence of synthesising, whether intentional
or not. The field of Swedish and international historical research
has grown dramatically over the second half of the 20th century
and this in itself creates situations where synthesising is hardly
possible to avoid. Examples include the many different aspects
of the process of state formation in the 10th and 11th centuries,
the complex background of Swedish absolute monarchy in the 17th
century, and the intricate relations between population development,
conditions of ownership, the use of natural resources, social
structure, and political action in a rural community during the
17th through 19th centuries. Another apparently endless problem
is that of integrating women’s and gender history into history
proper or the reverse, fundamentally affecting both temporal
and other traditionally prevailing structures. There is every
reason to pay attention to synthetic moments in historical research.
However inconvenient and troublesome they may appear, they may
contain new and fruitful possibilities of new understanding.
|