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Circulation: reflections on circularity, entity, and liquidity in the language of global history*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 October 2017

Stefanie Gänger*
Affiliation:
Historical Institute, University of Cologne, Albertus-Magnus-Platz, D-50923 Cologne, Germany E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

‘Circulation’ is not only among the most widely used words in the language of global history; it is also among the most erratically employed. Amorphous in its usages and protean in its semantics, ‘circulation’ has come to describe any sort of movement: from circular movement and passage along the vessels of closed systems to, paradoxically, open-ended, unidirectional dissemination. This article asks how ‘circulation’ became prominent metaphorically in global history; it seeks to understand the word’s appeal and the consequences of its ascendancy. It argues that the popularity of ‘circulation’ is attributable to a merger of two of its qualities: its seeming ‘untainted-ness’ and openness, on the one hand, and on the other, how its older, medical and economic, meanings resonate in its usages, allowing it to convey a sense of entity (independent existence) for the terrain in which ‘circulation’ occurs, and a sense of directedness, self-reliance, and ‘liquidity’ for the movements it describes.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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Footnotes

*

I thank my former colleagues from the research group ‘Global Processes’, funded by a Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Award, at the University of Konstanz – Martin Rempe, Jan C. Jansen, Franz L. Fillafer, Boris Barth, and Jürgen Osterhammel – for inspiring conversations about the language of global history, which prompted me to write this article. I am also grateful to Andrea Hollington, Jan Eckel, Claude Markovits, Michael Goebel, Roland Wenzelhuemer, Julia Scheibe, Meike Knittel, and Lena Wagner, as well as to the Journal’s editors and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on previous drafts.

References

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3 Rockefeller, Stuart A., ‘Flow’, Current Anthropology, 52, 4, 2011, pp. 558559 Google Scholar.

4 I take this phrase from Neil Safier, who asked in the American Historical Review discussion on the circulation of information how ‘certain terms … come into vogue and become dominant metaphorically … in academic culture, and what the temptations and pitfalls are in using them’. Edwards, Paul N. et al., ‘AHR conversation: historical perspectives on the circulation of information’, American Historical Review, 116, 5, 2011, p. 1412 Google Scholar.

5 See the focus sections ‘Global histories of science’, Isis, 101, 1, 2010; ‘Global currents in national histories of science: the “global turn” and the history of science in Latin America’, Isis, 104, 4, 2013; and ‘Bridging concepts: connecting and globalizing history of science, history of technology, and economic history’, Isis, 106, 4, 2015, where circulation was used in eleven of thirteen articles.

6 In going over uses of the word in a set number of issues of a particular journal using a keyword search, I adopt the approach applied by Stuart A. Rockefeller in his analysis of the keyword ‘flow’. Rockefeller, ‘Flow’.

7 Practitioners in history as well as cultural studies have written about uses of the term ‘circulation’ in past societies. See, for instance, Schmidt, Harald and Sandl, Marcus, eds., Gedächtnis und Zirkulation: der Diskurs des Kreislaufs im 18. und frühen 19. Jahrhundert, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2002 Google Scholar.

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27 For a discussion of circulation’s association with Eurocentrism in a global history of science, see, for instance, Elshakry, Marwa, ‘When science became Western: historiographical reflections’, Isis, 101, 1, 2010, pp. 98109 Google Scholar. For a discussion of the same association in the global history of art, and how an approach ‘that emphasizes circulations of art aims to counter’ diffusionist narratives, see Kaufmann, Thomas DaCosta, Catherine Dossin, , and Joyeux-Prunel, Béatrice, ‘Introduction: reintroducing circulations: historiography and the project of global art history’, in Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Catherine Dossin, and Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel, eds., Circulations in the global history of art, Farnham: Ashgate, 2015, p. 2 Google Scholar.

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29 On how the term ‘circulation’ was introduced in the history of science precisely to displace ‘diffusion’, see Dommann, ‘Alles fließt’, p. 526.

30 Secord, James A., ‘Knowledge in transit’, Isis, 95, 4, 2004, p. 661 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

31 ‘circulation’, in The new encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edn, vol. 3, Chicago: Encyclopaedia Brittanica, 1998, p. 327.

32 See also Dear, ‘Historiography’, p. 203.

33 See, for instance, Irigoin, Alejandra, ‘The end of a silver era: the consequences of the breakdown of the Spanish peso standard in China and the United States, 1780s–1850s’, Journal of World History, 20, 2, 2009, pp. 218 Google Scholar, 219, 222, 223; Yang, Bin, ‘The rise and fall of cowrie shells: the Asian story’, Journal of World History, 22, 1, 2011, pp. 910 Google Scholar. See also Ann Pollard, Elizabeth, ‘Pliny’s Natural history and the Flavian Templum pacis: botanical imperialism in first-century c.e. Rome’, Journal of World History, 20, 3, 2009, p. 333 Google Scholar, n. 79; Shaffer, Robert, ‘The “internationalization” of U. S. history: a progress report for world historians’, Journal of World History, 20, 4, 2009, p. 593 Google Scholar; Kuroda, Akinobu, ‘The Eurasian silver century, 1276–1359: commensurability and multiplicity’, Journal of Global History, 4, 2, 2009, pp. 245246 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Peter Földvári, Bas van Leeuwen and Pirngruber, Reinhard, ‘Markets in pre-industrial societies: storage in Hellenistic Babylonia in the medieval English mirror’, Journal of Global History, 6, 2, 2011, p. 190 Google Scholar.

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39 One laudable exception is Peter Dear, who has pointed to how the concept of ‘circulation’, as it is used by historians of science today, is ‘partly drawn from the Smithian notion in “classical” economics of the circulation of money and fungible goods’. Dear, ‘Historiography’, p. 203.

40 Raj, Kapil, ‘Beyond postcolonialism … and postpositivism: circulation and the global history of science’, Isis, 104, 2, 2013, p. 344 Google Scholar.

41 See, for instance, the suggestion to employ ‘circulation’ for ‘a double movement of going forth and coming back, which can be repeated indefinitely’. Markovits, Claude, Pouchepadassm, Jacques, and Subrahmanyam, Sanjay, ‘Introduction: circulation and society under colonial rule’, in Claude Markovits, Jaques Pouchepadassm, and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, eds., Society and circulation: mobile people and itinerant cultures in South Asia 1750–1950, London: Anthem, 2003, p. 3 Google Scholar.

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65 Latour, Bruno, ‘On actor–network theory: a few clarifications’, Soziale Welt, 47, 4, 1996, pp. 370372 Google Scholar.

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66 Bruno Latour reconciles the notion of the closed system and the expansive nature of networks, by arguing that the ‘network’, even when expanding, ‘has no outside’. Bruno Latour, ‘On actor-network theory’, pp. 372; 377.

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69 Rockefeller, ‘Flow’, p. 559.

70 Tyrrell, Ian, ‘Reflections on the transnational turn in United States history: theory and practice’, Journal of Global History, 4, 3, 2009, p. 457 Google Scholar.

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73 This criticism was expressed by Rockefeller in his reflections on ‘flow’. See Rockefeller, ‘Flow’. Some global historians have criticized their fellow practitioners for privileging not the manner in which connections come about but the fact that they do. See, for instance, such a criticism in Sebastian Conrad, Globalgeschichte: eine Einführung, Munich: C. H. Beck, p. 93.

74 Zastoupil, ‘“Notorious and convicted mutilators”’, p. 401.

75 Adelman, ‘Mimesis and rivalry’, p. 85.

76 Davini, Roberto, ‘Bengali raw silk, the East India Company and the European global market, 1770–1833’, Journal of Global History, 4, 1, 2009, p. 64 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

77 Mcquade, Joseph, ‘The new Asia of Rash Behari Bose: India, Japan, and the limits of the international, 1912–1945’, Journal of World History, 27, 4, p. 641 Google Scholar.

78 ‘circulation, n.’, in Oxford English dictionary online, Oxford University Press, draft additions October 2009 (consulted 23 June 2016).

79 Gerritsen and McDowall, ‘Material culture’, p. 100.

80 Huang, Ellen, ‘From the imperial court to the international art market: Jingdezhen porcelain production as global visual culture’, Journal of World History, 23, 1, 2012, p. 115 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

81 Horne, ‘Cosmopolitan life of Alice Erh-Soon Tay’, p. 421.

82 This example is taken from a review published in the Journal of World History: Zouhair Ghazzal, ‘The long divergence: how Islamic law held back the Middle East, by Timur Kuran’, Journal of World History, 23, 2, 2012, p. 422.

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86 ‘Reviewers’ can ‘refuse to circulate’ a narrative by declining to review it. See Jeffrey Gunn, ‘Creating a paradox: Quobna Ottobah Cugoano and the slave trade’s violation of the principles of Christianity, reason, and property ownership’, Journal of World History 21, 4, 2010, p. 629.

87 Rockefeller, ‘Flow’, p. 559.

88 Ibid.

89 As Stuart A. Rockefeller put it, ‘flow’ ‘privileges a form (unbroken, agentless movement) over any content’ (ibid., p. 560).

90 On subaltern agency, see, for instance, Pedroni, Thomas C., ‘Can the subaltern act? African American involvement in educational voucher plans’, in Michael W. Apple and Kristen L. Buras, eds., The subaltern speak: curriculum, power, and educational struggles, New York: Routledge, 2006 Google Scholar.

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93 On historiography and empire, see Friedrichs, Anne, Das Empire als Aufgabe des Historikers: Historiographie in imperialen Nationalstaaten, Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, 2011 Google Scholar. On historiography and nationalism, see, for instance, Berger, Stefan, Donovan, Mark, and Passmore, Kevin, eds., Writing national histories: western Europe since 1800, New York: Routledge, 1999 Google Scholar.

94 Osterhammel, Jürgen, ‘Globalifizierung: Denkfiguren der neuen Welt’, Zeitschrift für Ideengeschichte, 9, 1, 2015, p. 12 Google Scholar.

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95 Sarasin and Kilcher, ‘Editorial’, p. 7. On celebratory rhetoric, mobility, and liquidity, see also Osterhammel, Jürgen, ‘Global history and historical sociology: global history’s need for theory’, in James Belich, John Darwin, Margret Frenz, and Chris Wickham, eds., The prospect of global history, New York: Oxford University Press, 2016, pp. 3839 Google Scholar.

96 For this argument, see Osterhammel, ‘Globalifizierung’, p. 13.

97 For reflections on how the role of the heart as central pulse generator opened the metaphor of circulation to include any entity ruled by authorities, see Marek, Roman, ‘Creativity meets circulation: internet videos, amateurs and the process of evolution’, in Gerhard Fischer and Florian Vassen, eds., Collective creativity: collaborative work in the sciences, literature and the arts, Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi, 2011, p. 210 Google Scholar.

98 Nicholas Purcell, ‘Unnecessary dependences: illustrating circulation in pre-modern large-scale history’, in Belich, et al., Prospect of global history, p. 73.

99 Hicks, Daniel J. and Stapleford, Thomas A., ‘The virtues of scientific practice: MacIntyre, virtue, ethics, and the historiography of science’, Isis, 107, 3, 2016, p. 452 Google Scholar.

100 Rockefeller, ‘Flow’, p. 559. Jürgen Osterhammel, too, has argued that ‘the idiom of flows and interaction diverts attention away from settled units such as local communities or nation-states’. See Osterhammel, ‘Globalizations’, p. 94, and ‘Global history and historical sociology’, pp. 38–9.

101 Sarasin and Kilcher, ‘Editorial’, p. 10, write that ‘circulation’ as it is used in the history of knowledge refuses to comply with the idea that ‘knowledge has a recognizable origin and point of departure’ (‘widersetzt sich der wissensgeschichtliche Begriff der Zirkulation … der Vorstellung, es gäbe einen identifizierbaren Anfang und Ausgangspunkt von Wissen’).

102 Hazareesingh, Sandip, ‘Interconnected synchronicities: the production of Bombay and Glasgow as modern global ports c.1850–1880’, Journal of Global History, 4, 1, 2009, p. 11 Google Scholar.

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104 According to Foucault, power ought to be ‘analyzed as something that circulates, or rather as something that functions only when it is part of a chain. It is never localized here or there, it is never in the hands of some, and it is never appropriated’. Foucault, Michel, Society must be defended: lectures at the Collège de France, 1975–76, London: Penguin Books, 2008, p. 29 Google Scholar, cited in Painter, Joe, ‘Geographies of space and power’, in Kevin R. Cox, Murray Low, and Jennifer Robinson, eds., The SAGE handbook of political geography, London: SAGE, p. 66 Google Scholar.

105 Patterson Giersch, C., ‘Cotton, copper, and caravans: trade and the transformation of southwest China’, in Eric Tagliacozzo and Wen-Chin Chang, eds., Circulations: capital, commodities, and networks in Southeast Asia, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011, p. 39 Google Scholar.

106 DaCosta Kaufmann, Dossin, and Joyeux-Prunel, ‘Introduction’, p. 2.

107 Roberts, ‘Situating science in global history’, p. 18.

108 Secord, ‘Knowledge in transit’, p. 661. For an application of these conceptual considerations, see Davids, Karel, ‘Dutch and Spanish global networks of knowledge in the early modern period: structures, connections, changes’, in Lissa Roberts, ed., Centres and cycles of accumulation in and around the Netherlands during the early modern period, Zürich: LIT, 2011, p. 31 Google Scholar.

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110 Rockefeller, ‘Flow’, p. 562.

111 Bauman, Liquid modernity, p. 2.

112 Appadurai, Arjun, Modernity at large: cultural dimensions of globalization, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1996, pp. 4 Google Scholar and 28.

For a discussion of the literature in relation to its stance on ‘placelessness’, deterritorialization, and ‘liquidity’, see Rockefeller, ‘Flow’, pp. 562–5.

113 Osterhammel, ‘Globalizations’, p. 90.

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115 Osterhammel, ‘Globalizations’, p. 100.

116 Dear, ‘Historiography’, p. 204.

117 Osterhammel, ‘Globalizations’, p.100.

118 Rockefeller, ‘Flow’, p. 557.

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120 Cooper, ‘What is the concept of globalization good for?’, p. 213.