THE PUZZLE OF THE BANQUET HALL OF THE DUKES: THE PROFESSIONALIZATION OF SWEDISH HISTORICAL RESEARCH STUDIED THROUGH LUDWIK FLECK'S “THOUGHT COLLECTIVE” AND “THOUGHT STYLE”

In 1312, the Swedish dukes Erik and Valdemar Magnusson married the Norwegian princesses Ingeborg Haakonsdaughter and Ingeborg Eriksdaughter at a ceremony in Oslo, Norway. In 1313, the two couples were reunited at a purpose-built banquet hall, believed to have been located in the medieval Swedish town of Lödöse. The main source of information concerning these events is the Swedish medieval rhyme chronicle The Chronicle of Duke Erik. However, a closer reading of the chronicle reveals that Lödöse is never mentioned in relation to the banquet hall. The article discusses the passing down of knowledge through generations of the same professional collective, in this case the professional collective of Swedish historians during the twentieth century, and demonstrates how the validity of once-established prescientific knowledge persists. To achieve its goal, the article applies Ludwik Fleck's terms “thought collective,” “thought style,” and “tenacity in science,” as well as Thomas Kuhn's concept of the “paradigm,” to a historiographical case study of how the proto-idea of the banquet hall being located at Lödöse has survived to become an established scientific fact. The location of the banquet hall concerns but a minor detail in the turbulent political situation of the Swedish kingdom during the first decades of the fourteenth century. However, the continuing reiteration of this minor detail is evidence of a larger phenomenon, namely how contemporary historical research is influenced by scholars in the prescientific past.     

Spatial skill concentration agglomeration economies

Using the Brazilian census and administrative panel data, the present paper provides evidence that the spatial concentration of analytical skills generates positive wage externalities for all workers in the local labor market. We rely on shift‐share instrumental variables to overcome the endogeneity of skill concentrations. The observed externality is independent from the classical market size economies. The estimates are robust to geography, institutions and workers' sorting on unobservable abilities.     

What's the grand story? A macro-narrative analytical model and the case of Swiss child and adult protection policy

This paper expands on the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) by adding a theoretical and empirical exploration into macrolevel narratives. Existing NPF research largely neglects macrolevel narratives, which prevents the NPF from developing its full power. The main contributions of this paper are threefold: (1) It provides a definition of macrolevel narratives by conceptualizing them as the “story form” of a policy paradigm. (2) It proposes a model and an empirical approach, which may lay the foundation for a standard macrolevel NPF approach. (3) It contributes to the NPF's aim of connecting the macro and meso level. The paper tests the model in a comparative multi-method design applied to the Swiss child and adult protection policy. The findings show that macrolevel NPF analysis helps understand where mesolevel policy debates come from, namely from an underlying paradigm and its effects on institutions and culture that enable and constrain macrolevel narratives.     

MIGRATION AND NARRATION: HOW EUROPEAN HISTORIANS IN THE NINETEENTH AND EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURIES TOLD THE HISTORY OF HUMAN MASS MIGRATIONS OR VÖLKERWANDERUNGEN

Historians’ interest in the history of human migrations is not limited to recent years. Migrations had already figured as explanatory factors in connection with cultural and historical change in the work of classical and ancient studies scholars of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the writings of these scholars, migrations acted as historical landmarks or epochal thresholds and played a key role in the construction of geo-historical areas. This model has been called “migrationism” and cannot be explained simply on the basis of the history of individual disciplines, but must be seen in its complex interaction with scientific and historical contexts. However, “migrationism” does not relate to fixed political and scientific positions or movements. For this reason, it cannot be explained adequately by using a historically or ideologically based approach. Relying on narratological approaches, this article examines migration narratives that historians of this period used to explain the rise and fall of ancient civilizations. Referring to contemporary historiographical representations of the ancient Near East, it distinguishes three main narratives that are still common today: narratives of foundation, narratives of destruction, and narratives of mixtures. In this sense, analyzing older migration narratives helps us to sharpen the critical view on the genealogy of our own views on the history—and present—of human migrations.     

Linked (im)mobilities and the relational politics of movement in post-earthquake Nepal

ABSTRACT

This article highlights the importance of various (im)mobilities that were induced by the massive 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Nepal on 25 April 2015. It analyzes over 120 news articles published in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, arranging these into a mobility-centric narrative that highlights the politics of movement in the disaster’s wake. Drawing on the theoretical and methodological “mobilities turn”, I introduce the concept of linked (im)mobilities to demonstrate the complex dialectics structuring (im)mobilities after the disaster. More specifically, Nepal’s post-earthquake (im)mobilities intersected with one another and with a variety of geographic and political factors to produce a mutually constitutive web of contingent movements. Attending to these not only underscores the centrality of (im)mobilities themselves. By raising questions of scale, inequality, bordering, and “islanding”, the approach advanced here widens our analytical frame. It offers a conceptual architecture capable of encompassing more factors (beyond mobility), thereby facilitating a broader understanding of the disaster event and its various outcomes.     

The modemization paradigm based on monistic multi-linear theory: a response to some comments

Long before 1979, Chinese historical research had been dominated by the theory of “the Five Modes of Production”, according to which the whole Chinese history as well as the other parts of the world had been developed from the first MOD to the last one by one. The modernization theories prevailed during the 1950s and the 1960s, bringing about another uni-linear model of historical changes. For example, W. W. Rostow designed a five-stage process as a universal frame work of economic development, based on which each society could find its position in this uni-line. The task of the less developed societies is just to introduce modemity from the modernized societies so that they can make some developments. Thus modernization is a uni-direction movement as well as a uni-linear process. After 1979, modernization as a new paradigm has been accepted by an increasing number of Chinese historians. The increasing depth and breadth of the academic researches have encouraged such an acceptance, but, admittedly, as a new conceptual system that corresponded to the historic breakthrough and the new direction towards modernization in China. This acceptance also showed the “crisis of paradigm”, that is, the contradiction between the new themes and the old ones that had dominated Chinese humanities and social sciences. The modernization paradigm based on monistic multi-linear theory considers modernization as a unique breakthrough in history, a great transformation around the whole world, and a historical process that does not have a given ultimate aim and value but different models and routes. The monistic multi-linear theory on historical development is open and all-embracing in historical studies. A variety of historical paradigms is favorable to prosperity of Chinese history. __________ Translated from: Shixue Yuekan 史学月刊 (Journal of Historical Science), No.5, 2004, by Wang Fan; Revised by Chong Hua     

胡适与庄子研究

胡适在20世纪中国庄学研究史上占有重要地位.他尝试运用西方哲学体系研究<庄子>,推动了庄子研究范式的转换.胡适对庄子人生哲学展开了激烈批判,对庄子反科学主义思想既有所批判,又努力挖掘庄书中所包含的生物进化论思想.最近20余年来,庄子研究范式又得到了新的救正.     

社会史:新的史学范式与新的通史观念--评赵世瑜著《狂欢与日常--明清以来的庙会与民间社会》

赵世瑜教授是当代中国社会史研究的积极倡导者和实践者之一,所著《狂欢与日常——明清以来的庙会与民间社会》一书,探讨了当代中国社会史研究力图形成的新的历史解释思路、新的通史意识及其发展态势与存在的问题。     

1951:唯物史观派主流地位的确立

1951年,唯物史观派对于学术机构领导权和学术期刊经营权的掌握和控制以及自身社会地位的提升,使他们成为在学术界确立新意识形态的主导地位、推动学术变革和话语转换的中坚力量;唯物史观派聚拢传统学人进行史料整理、古籍校订,为学术史留下一笔财富。1951年前后唯物史观派主流地位的确立和当时学术格局的变动直接影响了20世纪后半期学术界的走向。     

试析马来西亚华人母语的转移现象

根据在马来西亚进行的实地调查所得到的数据和实例，以马来西亚五大方言群体为基础，逐一分析福建、广东、客家、潮州和海南方言群体中，相同家庭里祖子孙三代的母语种类和数量变化。研究证实，马来西亚华人的母语从方言逐渐转向英语和华语，开始摆脱原有籍贯的方言痕迹。