MIKROHISTORIE OG AKTØR-NETVÆRKS-TEORIER: KONTEKST, REPRÆSENTATION OG RELEVANS

Resumé

ABSTRACT

Micro History and Actor Network Theories: Context, Representation, and
Relevance

Traditional history focusing on nation states, often blame micro history that it is irrelevant if the case examined does not represent a larger historical reality (implied: national history). The matter of representation, however, presupposes that it is possible meaningfully to distinguish between a historical incident and its context. Representation consists in reference from incident to context, but this division is problematical. Based upon Actor-Network-Theories (ANT) and their insistence that reality is concrete the article argues that micro and macro histories are of the same kind and interconnected. Hence, micro history is viewed as the particular’s participation in discursive networks of materiality and cognition including the studied case as well as the historians and their readers. The micro
perspective naturally extends to the limit of network interaction. So, if no relevant context exists that is not itself part of the network, and if no meta-reality or a higher order is present behind the mess of everyday life, then micro history has no problem of representation.