History hasn’t always been a struggle for historians, but with new scholars in the field every day, new issues come up. Now the problem of narrativization, moralization and what the hegemonic narrative in a story is are big concerns among historians and historiographers, no matter what the topic is. Many scholars have tried to solve these issues and alternatives were proposed with side by side histories for example. Although the principal way of representing the past today still is the narrativized form, possibilities are available and might be more adequate. We will see how this style is criticized by Hayden White, the options left behind with Ashis Nandy’s article and how the narrativized mode has misrepresented Native Americans in the history
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Historians have always been trying to represent the truth as much as possible by having an objective view on history. This impartial perspective led to different ways of depicting history with for example the annals or the chronicles. Most of the previously used means of storytelling were left behind to find the perfect and most fair approach to the rendering of history. The narrative form was for a long time used, but the narrativized form soon became the preferred system. Narrativization happens whenever historians try to get the story to tell itself and get rid of the narrator. At the beginning, historians are fully committed to objectivity, but unfortunately this method inherently moralizes. The avoidance and suppression of a declared narrator, the inclusion of what seems relevant to the author, the added coherence, and the establishment of the authority all contribute to the joined moral of the narrativized form. These factors can deeply affect storytelling and the perception of a …show more content…
As a lot of people know Native Americans are divided in tribes and each tribe has its own origin accounts, myths, and traditions transmitted orally. They rely heavily on spoken communication to perpetuate the knowledge for the next generations. Unfortunately, when the Europeans came Native’s stories were unheard except by anthropologist as we can see in an article from the American Anthropologist “While today Native American scholars have better possibilities of raising their own voices within the academy and in the public debate, this was not historically the case, and for some periods Native voices are entirely absent except in the reports of anthropologists” (Pharao 542). It is quite astonishing to know that the fundamental aspect of communication and source of knowledge of the Native Americans was mostly avoided and unheard. Also, their history was heavily based on myths. In this case, if the myths were not transmitted, and for the most part they weren’t, then they are lost due to the lack of written archives and eventually their complete history is lost. These losses lead to both misrepresentation and underrepresentation, here is a concrete example in children’s books: “In her later work, Reese (2007) explains that there are two primary representations of Native Americans in children’s
Historians have always been trying to represent the truth as much as possible by having an objective view on history. This impartial perspective led to different ways of depicting history with for example the annals or the chronicles. Most of the previously used means of storytelling were left behind to find the perfect and most fair approach to the rendering of history. The narrative form was for a long time used, but the narrativized form soon became the preferred system. Narrativization happens whenever historians try to get the story to tell itself and get rid of the narrator. At the beginning, historians are fully committed to objectivity, but unfortunately this method inherently moralizes. The avoidance and suppression of a declared narrator, the inclusion of what seems relevant to the author, the added coherence, and the establishment of the authority all contribute to the joined moral of the narrativized form. These factors can deeply affect storytelling and the perception of a …show more content…
As a lot of people know Native Americans are divided in tribes and each tribe has its own origin accounts, myths, and traditions transmitted orally. They rely heavily on spoken communication to perpetuate the knowledge for the next generations. Unfortunately, when the Europeans came Native’s stories were unheard except by anthropologist as we can see in an article from the American Anthropologist “While today Native American scholars have better possibilities of raising their own voices within the academy and in the public debate, this was not historically the case, and for some periods Native voices are entirely absent except in the reports of anthropologists” (Pharao 542). It is quite astonishing to know that the fundamental aspect of communication and source of knowledge of the Native Americans was mostly avoided and unheard. Also, their history was heavily based on myths. In this case, if the myths were not transmitted, and for the most part they weren’t, then they are lost due to the lack of written archives and eventually their complete history is lost. These losses lead to both misrepresentation and underrepresentation, here is a concrete example in children’s books: “In her later work, Reese (2007) explains that there are two primary representations of Native Americans in children’s