HIEA 115 (Week 7)
Prompt: Relate the discussions about the incompleteness of archives that you had in your groups through Korean, “buraku,” and Okinawan women and men who lived primarily in the Japanese countryside, to your own conditions today. What kind of history-writing about the lives of these women is ethical, and how is being careful about how we represent them using archival materials different from erasing them from history?
In order for historians to ethically and accurately document other people’s histories, I think that it is important to narrate it objectively and in a manner that is representative of how the historian themself would want their own experiences documented and shared. With that being said, if a person’s history is not narrated objectively, it can be argued that it is exceptionally difficult to do so without inherent or predisposed notions bleeding into the text. If we focus too much on what information may not be directly available to us, we can have inclinations to draw conclusions based on the historical information given to us. Sometimes these conclusions may end up unintentionally reinscribing stereotypical images that were trying to be portrayed, as pointed out during lecture.
Personally, I feel as if most of my experiences and interactions that may have been significant to me throughout the past year would likely not be recorded in archives or narratives of historical significance. Even if my own experiences were recorded and narrated by historians, it would likely not paint a full picture of how my life has been through the pandemic. It would be significantly easier for historians to objectively analyze and interpret my experiences, but would their narration be entirely accurate and representative? If historians were to only analyze relevant documents concerning me in an effort to narrate the experiences in the past year of my life, how can they be certain that the conclusions they are making about me are fair? That is, how would they portray my feelings and emotions throughout such experiences? Would they truly be able to understand how I was feeling at the time? Finally, how would they be able to ensure that the target audience interprets the narration as they have?
As is the case in Brand’s “right hand ledgers”, I believe that there is a fine line between being careful to represent a person’s history accurately by picking-and-choosing relevant archival materials versus omitting potentially informative archives. Who has the authority to omit certain documents for the sake of the narrative? If such information is omitted, it has to be done knowing that the withheld information isn’t affecting the narrative to the point where some of these women’s lives are, essentially, being erased from history.
Knowing this, I would argue that history-writing concerning the daily lives and challenges faced by these Korean, “buraku”, and Okinawan women and men is ethical. When writing historical narratives about people, the most ethical way to ensure that their histories are being described objectively and accurately is for the historian to utilize materials to the best of their ability and write these narratives in a way that is fair and representative.
In regards to the ethics of historians having to dig through the person’s personal experiences and relationships, I would say that such would have to be done in order to provide a complete, honest, and representative narration of a person’s history. Personally, I think that I would not feel uncomfortable having future historians digging through my experiences in the past year, if it meant that it would be helpful in narrating people’s experiences in the pandemic and creating a full picture that is representative of those experiences. I would, however, prefer the narrative containing my experiences to be published posthumously, as I’m sure that is the case for many.
To reiterate, thinking about all of the questions that have been prompted and lecture material discussed, I believe that the most ethical way to write other people’s histories is through using the documents, material, and firsthand accounts available to ensure that the narrative is representative of the people and their experiences.
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