Die begrip people's history en die betekenis en toepassing daarvan in die Suid-Afrikaanse konteks

[摘要] English: People's history as part of radical social history is part of a movement known as thenew history. The new history is a reaction against traditional historical writing thatdeals particularly with the political aspects of the past and the lives of so calledimportant persons. In reaction to traditional historical writing, people's history dealswith the subjective life experience of ordinary people in the past. Who and what theordinary people are, depends on the country and context in which people's historyis written, but includes groups like workers, women and blacks. Ordinary people areusually those who have either little power or no power and who are frequently beingexploited or oppressed. People's history is a rather vague term, but this vaguenessbrings about freedom in the writing of history.Influences on the development of people's history include: the rise of the masspolitical movements especially sine the nineteenth century, radical-liberal and Fabianinterest in the livelihood of ordinary people, and the French Annales-school'semphasis on total history. In spite of influences from many countries, people'shistory developed to its full potential in Britain, under the guidance of Marxist inspiredhistorians. From 1966 with the establishment of the first History Workshop in Britain,people's history spread to countries like the USA, Germany, where people's historyis called Alltagsgeschicte, and to South Africa. In all of these countries people'shistory shows a distinctive character.A debate over the role of structuralism versus human agency divided Marxisthistorians in various countries into two groups. The structuralists were of the opinionthat the real life experience of ordinary people in the past is of no importance to thestudy of history. People's history accuse structuralists of placing too much emphasison abstract impersonal factors. Writers of people's history advocate an empiricalmethod through which human agency will be acknowledged.In South Africa, people's history developed, in the late seventies, as on the one sidea reaction against structuralist radical history and on the other side as a reactionagainst Liberal and Afrikanernationalist history writing. The revolutionary climate ofthe eighties helped to establish people's history as a historiographical tradition inSouth Africa.People's history is of the opinion that historians are always influenced by theirpersonal ideological beliefs and value systems and will therefore reflect wittingly orunwittingly on their work. The emancipation of ordinary people from exploitation andoppression is a political aim to which people's history would like to make adeliberate contribution. Presentism is often the result of people's history'sinvolvement with contemporary political issues.Certain postmodernist tendencies like the rejection of the grand narratives and themodernization theory as well as the need to decentralise history, are all part ofpeople's history. Particularly the rejection of the base-superstructure model, throughthe prominence given to n-on-class factors such as culture, ideology et cetera, is arejection by people's history of rigid Marxism.Except for people's history's political motives within the broader society, it also aimsat democratising the subject of History and its writing. The history workshops,attempts to decentralise knowledge of the past and the encouragement of differentgroups to write people's history, is an important contribution towards thedemocratisation of History.Creativity and imagination, for instance the use of oral history, is necessary forpeople's historians to discover sources on the past of ordinary people. People'shistory makes use of qualitative rather than quantitative sources and methods toshow best what role the ordinary people played in the past.In essence people's history is a rejection of the idea of objectivity, and thereforerather advocates radical plurality in history as a starting point for a discourse on thecomplexity of the human past.

[发布机构] University of the Free State