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Power and Silence: Navigating the Conception and Production of History

The conception, production, and consumption of history are processes enmeshed

in certain forces, embedded in conditions. By ‘conception,’ I mean the ways history it is

understood while recognizing that it is actively formed, rather than simply perceived.

Here I wish to highlight how some scholars, (Ouzman 2005, Schmidt and Walz 2007,

Trouillot 1995) have discerned and articulated these forces, and developed methods by

which more balanced historical narratives may be produced.

In Silencing the Past, Michel Rolph-Trouillot finds “History is the fruit of

power…the ultimate mark of power may be its invisibility; the ultimate challenge, the

exposition of its roots” (1995:xix). Let the image of Trouillot’s tree guide our reading of

the forces inextricably linked to the production of histories. Perhaps the most significant

result of power is a multi-faceted phenomenon: silencing. Other forces related to

nationhood, identity formation, and globalization, are also evident.

The notion of silences emphasizes that the presence or absence of facts is not

“neutral or natural” (1995:48). Silencing occurs in the production of histories (public

discourse and academic renditions) both consciously and unconsciously, and inevitably.

The factors which shape a historical narrative as conceived and transmitted are so

numerous as to be nearly incomprehensible. They have been navigated for us by

Ouzman, Trouillot, Schmidt and Walz. They are produced when sources are chosen, facts

assembled, narratives defined, and history made. The subjectivities of those involved in

the events (1995:26) and in the telling play a part.

Sometimes silences occur because phenomena are simply outside our frame for

understanding the world. We cannot produce a narrative of something we cannot

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conceive. Trouillot contributes this idea as “unthinkable” history, where understanding of

events, and thus narratives about those events, are forced back within one’s worldview

(1995:91). This idea of unthinkable pasts has the potential to be very useful, particularly

in terms of communicating the disparities of historical narratives to nonspecialists.

And yet, despite an emphasis on the active production of history, there is a

curious lack of individual agency in this line of thinking. Trouillot attempts to counter the

potential critique that this is an argument for humans constrained by their ideology, by

stressing that the issue is epistemological, methodological (1995:74). The framing and

forcing occurs apparently because the questions we ask are limited by our times. “The

unthinkable is that which one cannot conceive within the range of possible alternatives,

that which perverts all answers because it defies the terms under which the questions

were phrased” (1995:82). We are bound by the conditions of our existence, but is it

placing too much faith in human ingenuity to believe individuals could think outside this

range?

This question becomes irrelevant as soon as one is willing to acknowledge and

value various ways of knowing. Thus, although Trouillot’s explanation of the unthinkable

unnecessarily constrains past actors, I think that it useful for understanding the presence

of silences and the often invisible nature of power. Schmidt and Walz’s (2007:66) goal

for historical archaeologies to “not use European contact or European colonialism as a

framing mechanism” compliments this. It is not a reframing that should be sought, but an

elevation of other ways of knowing and a search for disparities.

Trouillot confirms that not all silences are equal, thus the way we deconstruct and

address them must vary accordingly (1995:27). Despite the absence of an equation for the
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remedy of silencing, Trouillot and others (Schmidt and Walz 2007, Ouzman 2005) offer

us useful tactics, which I will return to later.

Though ultimately not separate from the issue of silencing, other phenomena

which affect the production of history are worth teasing out. Sven Ouzman suggests that

“so much of a person’s identity is locational” (2005:218). I take this to allude to the

national identity a person is tied to, and the process by which people are educated about

‘their history,’ or how we learn about ourselves. The effect of globalization, and

alienation in the face of it, become important for self definition and the definition of the

collectivity. While an emphasis on cultural diversity, the ideal of the rainbow (2005:211)

is important, there is a danger of “homogenous inclusivity that sanctions a dominant

group’s identity and voice” in the search for unity (2005:212). The complexity that is

identity formation is entwined with the production of histories. What people say about

themselves inevitably submerges some information and brings some details to the fore.

Thus nationhood and the production of history are bound together with knowing who one

is and who one is not (2005:212). This inclusion and exclusion creates silences.

The contribution of these authors is not an equation for resolving the issue of

silencing (an impossible feat), or producing a better history. I suggest, rather, that they

provide avenues for producing more dissonant histories. This dissonance is desirable. It is

contradictions of established historical narratives or between materiality and other

evidence that ultimately alters conventional wisdom (Schmidt and Walz 2007:54). To

identify silences, a first step to addressing their production, is to search for dissonance.

Each of these scholars emphasizes the need to actively recognize history as

production. Self reflexivity on the part of professionals is stressed most, but an eye to
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popular discourse, museums, or primary textbooks is just as important. Trouillot usefully

illuminates the position of qualified historians on historical controversies, wishing to

avoid association with any conscious positioning which may appear ideological; they

remove themselves from the debate altogether (1995:155). This, regrettably, removes

them from a position to affect popular history as produced and consumed. It is evident

that the historical relevance of an event does not proceed directly from its original impact

(1995:19), and that pastness is a state made by the present (1995:15). Exposing the roots

of power reveals the crafting of this historical relevance. Thus, although professional

historians have their own subjectivities, some guidance and standards for the

dissemination and consumption of “the Past” are welcome.

The methods, some emphasized more explicitly than others, for broadening our

sources and expanding our purview to other knowledges are useful for creating

dissonance. The first place silences are produced is the choosing of our sources to the

exclusion of others (1995:26). Schmidt and Walz (2007) emphasize an approach which

incorporates oral histories and traditions. In their discussion of approaches to historical

archaeology in Africa they find that the skeptical view of oral tradition “has been

amplified in wider archaeological circles through an ignorance of African case studies, a

striking misunderstanding of the antiquity and usefulness of such traditions, and an

ignorance of the contexts in which oral sources have been linked to monumental

mneumonics” (2007:56). Oral traditions are often seen as capable of providing a hint of

truth, but are typically considered second-rate, never as reliable sources for understanding

the past or constructing historical narratives. Recognizing the need to break down the

prehistoric/historic dichotomy is invaluable. If “any consideration that historical

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archaeology will remain trapped in the conundrum of ethnocentrism until it accepts and

values the integrity of African historicities” is “missing from queries about how to

reconcile various definitions of historical archaeology with its practice in Africa”

(Schmidt and Walz:66), than such considerations are certainly missing elsewhere. The

integrity of alternative historicities needs to be valued in every endeavor of the

production of history.

Ouzman emphasizes that the “The ancient African and human tradition of

storytelling has great emancipatory potential (2005:218). Storytelling is another way we

can reevaluate the production of history, as it actively recognizes that history is made.

Storytelling also “allows for the suspension of disbelief; the co-existence of past and

present and an almost infinite imagination for human existence” (2005:219). If history

can be unthinkable, if events can be unthinkable and thus inevitably silenced, then the

story as an imaginative craft can help us grasp what seems impossible.

If the metaphor of exposing the roots of power can help us understand the

messiness of history (Trouillot 1995:110), then another metaphor, that presented by

Schmidt and Walz (2007:62) of “tacking among oral, archival, and archaeological

evidence,” can help us understand how to move forward. It is when we isolate ourselves

too long that things become unthinkable. The idea of tacking implies a steady variation of

our sources, a movement between disciplines, and also a commitment, an investment to

this and then that way of knowing. It is only by valuing various ways of knowing that we

can draw from them and see dissonance between them. It is only then that we can tack

back again, to reach a fuller understanding of the past.

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The authors I have drawn on here recognize that the conception and production of

history is bound by conscious and unconscious forces. Thus some events and sources are

privileged over others, creating silences. Some ways of knowing and narrating are

privileged over others, creating silences. And sometimes the past and the present are

unthinkable, leaving us without words, leaving silences. While I agree with Trouillot that

historical narrative is a “bundle of silences” (1995:27), it is worth it to tack between more

evidences, to include, even at the risk of dissonance, more voices.

Works Cited:
Ouzman, Sven 2005. Silencing and Sharing of Southern African Indigenous and
Embedded Knowledge. In Indigenous Archaeologies: Decolonizing Theory and Practice,
eds. C. Smith and M. Wobst London: Routledge

Schmidt, Peter R and Jonathan R Walz 2007. Re-Representing African Pasts Through
Historical Archaeology, American Antiquity 72(1) 53-70

Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. 1995. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History.
Boston, Beacon Press