Distance and Historical Representation

Making Histories

“…The ''specialized form of human insight'' that is history requires a distance between the material and its interpreter. 38 MINML organizers were wholly attuned to the emotional register of the process, but standing back and analyzing those emotions was not part of the project. Instead it was about capturing them on camera: execution not analysis.…”

Preparing to Teach a Slavery Past: History Teachers and Educators as Navigators of Historical Distance

“…Historians often use the concept of distance as a metaphor for an imagined relation between the past and the present (den Hollander, Paul, & Peters, 2011). In addition, the term "distancing" (M. Phillips, 2004Phillips, , 2011 refers to people's interpretative activity when they try to situate themselves between a then and a now. Distance in this case should be viewed as a continuum with numerous possible combinations and manifestations.…”

The colonial archival imaginaire at home

“…But this ontological insistence destabilises the carefully constructed sense of ‘elsewhere’, blurring the idea of distance and separation from the past. Photographs modify and reconstruct the temporality of historical accounts, thereby shaping every part of archival engagement: they offer an ‘entire continuum from proximity to detachment’ (Phillips : 126).…”