History From Below
Discussion
Mark Rediker:
" How does this method work and in which way it can help us to have access to the histories hidden, cancelled, removed, silenced by the dominant archives?
MR: History from below is difficult to practice because it requires understanding the past from the point of view of people who did not usually leave documents on their own. One must learn to read archival documents against the grain, to learn through them things that people with power, who usually created the documents, did not intend for us to learn. All of my books are histories from below, in one way or another. I read various historical documents and I place them within the force field of struggle, rooted in various kinds of oppression and resistance. I try to understand what those waging the struggle were doing and especially why they were doing it, what they were hoping to gain. In this sense history from below is actually very old; it is not a new methodology. It entails a kind of sympathy for people and their struggles. I try to establish bonds of solidarity with these historical actors; it matters not that they are dead. I try to develop an ethical relationship with them in order to tell their stories in ways that would have made sense to them and at the same time honor what they did. This is something we normally do not talk about: the secret ethical life of books and films. Ghosts of Amistad tries to demonstrate the methods of history from below in action."