ANTi-History and the entrepreneurial work of privateers

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to theorize the social role of management systems and their political connections using ANTi-History. In so doing, it engages with academic conversations around the writing of business history. The paper focuses on subjective experience in the context of colonial privateers and the vice-admiralty court in the Napoleonic Wars era. Design/methodology/approach ANTi-History is proposed as a theoretical lens to examine the entrepreneurial work of privateers. ANTi-History destabilizes the idea of history as a dominant account of the past and is interested in controversies as to how history is produced. This paper also brings-in Bourdieu’s notion of officialization because historical knowledge is situated in official practices that conceal translations and political strategies that enable actor-networks to act as one. Findings The controls of the vice-admiralty court not only perpetuated the inherited British class system, but also created versions of reality that came to be accepted as recorded history. This shows that the rules and regulations of the court were not neutral accounting activities. The systems constituted the identity of actors and produced privateer history as a modernist knowledge of the past and officialized by western, white, male, elites. Originality/value The “historic turn” in management and organization studies has not been fully realized more than a decade after its introduction. This paper engages with the historic turn by providing a specific exemplar of history as applied to officialized accounts of colonial privateers. Using ANTi-History as a methodological approach also makes a contribution by promoting it beyond a prolonged descriptive phase.

Controversies as method for ANTi-history: An inquiry into public administration practices

“…Deal et al (2019) addressed the corporate-sponsored history project at Pan American Airways, in which traces of the past allow inquiry into sotto voce socio-politics’ controversies in history’s construction. These and others ANTi-History researchers (see Corrigan and Mills, 2012; Secord and Corrigan, 2017) identify a common point. History’s accounting is a process marked by disagreements and marginalization of peripheral actor-networks.…”

“…History’s accounting is a process marked by disagreements and marginalization of peripheral actor-networks. Even when reality’s surface appears coherent and unproblematic, stories untold can be brought to life, allowing researchers to understand how they are interwoven, avoiding special status being assigned to privileged actors (Secord and Corrigan, 2017).…”

“…Once translation involves negotiation between diverse actors’ interests, controversies of interpretation are likely to arise (Hussenot, 2014). Secord and Corrigan (2017), for example, showed the historiography of Nova Scotia being performed in terms of controversies between privateers and the court of the vice-admiralty, a point tangentially addressed by Corrigan’s (2016) analysis of the controversies between the municipality of Halifax and the community of Africville.…”

“…The empirical analysis of situated actions is evident in much ANTi-History research. However, except for Secord and Corrigan (2017) and Novicevic and Mills (2019), ANTi-History authors have not shown how dominant versions of reality may be directly derived from controversies. This is an important consideration because heterogeneous actors will sometimes disagree with each other, bringing different relevancies and interests to bear on their storying of the past, creating controversies.…”

“…Accounts that stabilize history can be invented discourses (see Corrigan, 2016; Secord and Corrigan, 2017) or a consequence of power relations silencing peripheral voices (see Durepos et al, 2008; Kivijarvi et al, 2018). Therefore, from the genesis to the temporary closure of controversy, it is essential to describe the representativeness, influence and interests of diverging points of view (Venturini, 2010b).…”