Micro-Histories and Things That Matter

Abstract

Her research focuses on intimate and gendered histories of the contact zone in new world settler-colonial societies, incorporating transnational perspectives. Currently involved in a cross-cultural collaborative project with Indigenous communities in Australia and the United States, as well as a longitudinal intergenerational study with the Ngukurr community of South East Arnhem Land, her research pursues decolonising methodologies through a partnership approach to ethnography.

Micro histories of intercultural knowledge exchange: Tao Xingzhi’s educational poetry

“…Transnational histories often draw upon micro histories of marginalised groups in Indigenous, Eastern and Southern settings (e.g. Allen, 2009) to demonstrate the “way intimate biographical traces […] shed light on the transnational nature of localised colonial histories” (Hughes, 2012, p. 269). Informed by feminist and Indigenous standpoint theory, these neglected histories work with evidence from “the margins in order to critique, disrupt and displace the “centre” (Hughes, 2012, p. 270).…”

“…Allen, 2009) to demonstrate the “way intimate biographical traces […] shed light on the transnational nature of localised colonial histories” (Hughes, 2012, p. 269). Informed by feminist and Indigenous standpoint theory, these neglected histories work with evidence from “the margins in order to critique, disrupt and displace the “centre” (Hughes, 2012, p. 270). Life history methodologies illustrate Tamboukou’s (2010, p. 124) argument that “not only do individual human lives enter the discourse of history […] but actually their life stories are creating conditions of possibility for history itself”.…”