Editor 19s introduction: minor histories of the Pacific

Mishra, Sudesh R. and Smith, R. (2012) Editor 19s introduction: minor histories of the Pacific. ANU E Press.

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Abstract

This issue of AHR takes as its focus variations on the theme of minor history. Sudesh Mishra reminds us that minor histories are concerned not so much with excluded events as with events that are included within major historical narratives as exceptions to the norm. They constitute asides, snippets and fragments that depart from the dominant account. Since they are dangerous supplements, they are openly acknowledged in the major account but as exceptions that do not upset the rule. The figure that best captures this idea is the footnote. Set below the bar of the dominant account, the footnote has the potential to lead an argument astray. To defend against this possibility its exceptional status is duly recorded, but with a view to clinching precisely this fact 14its exceptionality in the face of the non-exceptional event unfolding in the upper body of the argument. The footnote is visually and discursively disbarred from the dominant account. It is, therefore, that which is excluded at the moment of inclusion. Mishra 19s paper elaborates on this notion by examining girmit 14a term coined by Indian coolie workers in Fiji to describe their ordeal in cane plantations 14as the history of an exception vis-

Item Type:	Other
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > D History (General)
Divisions:	Faculty of Arts, Law and Education (FALE) > School of Language, Arts and Media
Depositing User:	Ms Shalni Sanjana
Date Deposited:	28 Jan 2013 23:32
Last Modified:	03 Dec 2013 19:50
URI:	https://repository.usp.ac.fj/id/eprint/5472

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