A research meeting titled “Africa as a Global History” was held jointly with a study group “Reconstruction of African History in a Global Context” (representative Shoichiro Takezawa) at the National Museum of Ethnology (Suita, Japan) on Saturday, January 25, 2015. The purpose of this joint meeting was to discuss how African history should be described within “new world history,” a topic which has not been sufficiently deliberated among GHC members. The meeting featured reports from two presenters each from the GHC and the “Reconstruction of African History in a Global Context” study group, followed by a one-hour general discussion session.  

 

HANEDA Masashi: “New World History and Global History”

 

The joint meeting began with a keynote presentation　from Masahi Haneda representing the GHC. He explained how the terms “gurobaru hisutori (the Japanese version of global history)” and “global history” are used in Japan and in the international academic community, respectively, and how these differ from the “new world history” pursued by the GHC (i.e. new world history ≒ gurobaru hisutori ≠ global history). Based on this, Haneda pointed out the challenges of world history written by Japanese scholars and discussed the need to write a history of “earth people” and to develop methodologies for doing so if we are to create an identity as “earth people.” Various questions were raised during the Q&A session that followed, including how regions should be addressed in a “new world history” that does away with regional divisions, how and for whom “new world history” should be written, and whether or not the concept of “earth person” is appropriate. A fruitful exchange of ideas was carried out in terms of proceeding with activities of the GHC.

 

TAKEZAWA Shoichiro: “Excavation of Chinese Porcelain from 9~10th-century Site in West Africa: Gurobaru hisutori as seen through archaeological artifacts”

 

The gist of the next report from Shoichiro Takezawa, representing the “Reconstruction of African History in a Global Context” study group, was to rewrite the existing descriptions of West African history and to place it in the context of the world history based on the results of an archaeological excavation in Gao City in the Republic of Mali. Up to this point, the main sources of West African history included historical records written in Arabic (8th to the 16th century) and Western languages (15th century and after), in which Africa is described as an object without any intrinsic capacity for development. In contrast to this view, using archaeological artifacts, Takezawa demonstrated that trans-Saharan trade existed prior to the introduction of Islam and that nations were established and continued to develop up to the 15th century and only began stagnate after that point. Various issues were brought up during the Q&A session, including problems related to the demarcation of regions including Europe and Africa/West Africa as well as the need to consider climate change, which was not referred to in the presentation itself.      

 

(Osamu OTSUKA)

 

IKEYA Kazunobu: “Environmental History in Africa: Elephant tusks, ostrich feather and fox fur”

 

Kazunobu Ikeya (National Museum of Ethnography/Graduate University for Advanced Studies) introduced his own research up to this point on the environment and society of the British protectorate of Bechuanaland in southern Africa in the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. Thereafter, he proposed a plan for integrating environmental and trade history in the creation of a new world history by focusing on the relationship between animals and people while also being conscious of balance in spatial scales ranging from region, to continent, to world. From the floor, the opinion was expressed that Ikeya’s plan was interesting due to its overlap with the world history of cotton fabric. In addition, in response to a comment questioning the use of the framework of the “African Continent,” Ikeya explained that, while such a framework may lacks in academic rigor, it is nonetheless useful when comparing Africa with other regions.       

 

SUZUKI Hideaki: “The Potential and Limitations of Maritime History in World History: The Indian Ocean Maritime History” 

 

Hideaki Suzuki (Nagasaki University) examined the region defined as the “Indian Ocean Maritime World,” from the standpoint that it is necessary to investigate both micro- and macro-movements when creating a world history. The concept of the “Indian Ocean Maritime World” entails both a fixed regionality and partitioning. The idea of the spread of the network has not yet been comprehensively understood. In order to overcome these issues, Suzuki proposed redefining the “Indian Ocean Maritime World” based on the collections of people responsible for creating the rhythms related to livelihood, migration, and exchange as well as the sharing of and similarities in everyday culture. Questions raised by the audience included whether or not it was absolutely wrong to emphasize regionality and how women and families would fit into this concept.     

 

General discussion

 

At the start of the general discussion, Takezawa summarized the discussion up to that point into two points: (1) what units should be used to divide up the world, and (2) how relationality should be handled. The general discussion focused on point (1), and particularly how to think of the history of the unit called “Africa.” Various opinions were forwarded during the discussion, including the fact that there is no need to think that “African history” can be written for all time periods, that the setting of the unit of study depends on the purpose of the history and the audience, and that it is desirable to retain a critical view of European exploitation of Africa. In addition, the relationship between history and identity was also discussed.   

 

(Chikara UCHIDA)