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Historisk tidskrift 130:1 • 2010

Innehåll (Contents) 2010:1

Uppsatser (Articles)

Cross-over! Om komparationer, transferanalyser, histoire croisée och den metodologiska nationalismens problem

Av Silke Neunsinger

 

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Summary

Cross-over! On international comparisons, transfer analysis, histoire croisée and the problems of methodological nationalism

The aim of this article is to review the on-going debate between German and French historians on the need to overcome methodological nationalism. Methodological nationalism means that interpretations of historical developments are structured by preconceptions derived from nationally-centred perspectives, terms and categories, leading to a separation of the historical processes studied from the broader, transnational context. Historians have proposed different approaches in order to transcend the national paradigm and the nation-state as the pre-structured framework for historical investigations and explanations.

The first part of the article deals with the problems and advantages of international comparisons and transfer analyses, both of which are discussed in relation to methodological nationalism.

The second part introduces the programmatic approach of histoire croisée, following the works of Michael Werner and Bénédicte Zimmermann. This approach emphasizes a high degree of reflexivity on the part of the historian with regard to his or her relation to the object under study as well as a hermeneutic method. The reflexivity serves both to question the nationally centred perspectives, categories and terminologies and to highlight the varying roles that the nationstate has played in different historical contexts.

Keywords

international history, comparative history, entangled history, histoire croisée, historical method, methodological nationalism, historiography