What did Michel Rolph Trouillot argue?
Trouillot argued that unequal power structures work to create and reinforce historical narratives that contain “bundles of silences.” He contended that these silences are found not just in academic histories, but in sources, archives, and more broadly in how societies remember the past, tell stories, and establish …
What does Trouillot mean by the unthinkable?
Trouillot borrows Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of the “unthinkable” as referring to “that which one cannot conceive within the range of possible alternatives which perverts all answers because it defies the terms under which the questions are phrased” (82).
Who is Trouillot?
Trouillot was the author and co-author of a number of books. As an activist and undergraduate he published in 1977 the first nonfiction book in Haitian Creole, Ti difé boulé sou istwa Ayiti (A Small Fire Burning on Haitian History), which attempts to shed knowledge and ignite new interpretations of Haitian history.
When was silencing the past written?
1995
First published in 1995, Silencing the Past- long appreciated by historians from all focuses- is a primer in contemplative historiographical analysis and is conscious of the necessity of its own existence.
What did Michel Rolph Trouillot argue so unthinkable in his chapter titled an unthinkable history?
In the passage from Trouillot I quoted in an earlier essay, he argues that the Haitian Revolution as the act of enslaved Black men and women making a bid for full freedom and political self-determination was “unthinkable” to even the most radical factions in revolutionary France because they could not envision a Black …
What is the savage slot?
The “Savage Slot” was not created by anthropology. Rather, the “savage or the primitive was the alter ego the West constructed for itself” (18). Moreover, the Savage was always a “Janus-faced projection,” linked with ideas of order and utopia. The ‘Savage Slot’ was not created by anthropology.
What made the Haitian revolution an unthinkable history?
To sum up, in spite of the philosophical debates, in spite of the rise of abolitionism, the Haitian Revolution was unthinkable in the West not only because it challenged slavery and racism but because of the way it did so.
What are some things that Trouillot says about the unthinkable?
For whom was the Haitian Revolution Unthinkable?