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Suitcases and the Poetics of Oddities: Writing History from Disorderly Archives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 May 2015

Florence Bernault
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Abstract

I argue here against two things: fetishizing the power and wholesomeness of colonial archives, and equating the scarcity of post-1960 repositories with new difficulties to write the past of Africa. Instead, I suggest the productive power of odd findings, and the necessity for historians to trust the energy of heterodox pieces to create original and meaningful historical narratives.

Résumé

Cet essai récuse la tentation de fétichiser la complétude des archives coloniales sur l’Afrique en opposant leur relative richesse à la parcimonie des dépôts après 1960. Ce n’est pas tant la régularité des séquences archivales qui permet d’écrire sur le passé, que le pouvoir mystérieux de fragments empiriques rencontrés ici et là, isolés et souvent énigmatiques. Le récit historique dépend des inflexions problématiques que ces étranges trouvailles proposent au chercheur.

Type
Writing the History of Africa after 1960
Information
History in Africa , Volume 42 , June 2015 , pp. 269 - 277
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2015 

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