106th American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting
“Difference, (In)equality & Justice”
Nov 28 - Dec 2, Washington, DC

Session Title: Schooled in Inequality: The Role of History Education in the Construction of Race and Hierarchy

Session Chair: Autumn Barrett (arbarr@wm.edu)
Session Organizer: Kathryn Sikes (klsike@wm.edu)

Session Abstract:

To quote Herbert Butterfield, “The past as it exists for all of us is history synthesized by the imagination and fixed into a picture by something that amounts to fiction.” Storytelling and other forms of representation, whether official history or counter-narrative, serve to anchor identity, morality, and ideology. Communally shared historical narratives lend legitimacy to laws and social hierarchies. They necessarily embellish known facts and in doing so give closure to conflict, impart meaning to events, and define the context necessary for the construction of present day meaning from a positioned point of view. The sociopolitical uses of historical precedents in the construction and maintenance of current social identities, ethnic conflicts, and conflict resolutions are therefore vital topics of anthropological inquiry. Narrative, pictorial, or material representations of shared historical identities are employed in the validation of social constructions of ethnicity, class, and race. They become precedents that legitimize present day attitudes and actions that can support or refute social inequality. The panelists of this session present critical analyses of the ways in which the histories of state-sponsored children’s public school textbooks function as acts of representation that contribute to social inequality by privileging the histories of some while neglecting the narratives of others that would challenge the status quo. Further, we suggest alternative methods of constructing public histories that would seek to decenter dominant narratives. In an effort to identify common patterns of distortion in the selection and translation of primary evidence into secondary historical narratives, these papers take the position that in examining the past we are all seeking, overtly or implicitly, to validate our present.

Panel Presentations (15 min. each):

1. Kathryn Sikes/ Autumn Barrett
Paper Title: Myths of Origin and the Origins of Myth: History and the Construction of Privilege in Virginia’s Public School Text Books

Abstract:
History is an analogy for the present as much as it is a description of the past. As history and collective identity are intimately intertwined, the authors view concepts of community, ethnicity, race, region, and nation as inherently historically situated. This study presents a critical deconstruction of American history as presented through the State of Virginia’s public school textbook literature, arguing that the dominant historical narrative serves as a mechanism to position children within a racial hierarchy. In an examination of how children are taught to see themselves in relation to particular pasts as part of a process of identity acquisition, we argue that overt themes of patriotism, democratic freedom, and equal opportunity mask the inequality of an essentially white, middle-class historical perspective. The complete omission or underemphasis of content related to Native and African American agency within Virginia’s history textbooks amounts to the “symbolic annihilation” of the historic communities from which many public school students understand themselves to be descended. By effacing these actors from historical representations of the past, the voices of analogous communities in the present are also subverted. The authors suggest that a curriculum that encourages critical analyses of primary documents, supplemented by the introduction of alternative evidence, offers the potential to engage all students in the act of their own representation, whereas the current overwhelming reliance upon secondary narratives is limited in its ability to offer multivocal views of the past.

2. Shannon Mahoney
Paper Title: From Reconstruction to Civil Rights: Anthropology and African American History

Abstract:
The post-Emancipation transition for African Americans in the rural South from enslavement to freedom was culturally, socially and economically complex. Modern public school history textbooks do address the cause and effect relationships of segregation, racist terrorization and changes to civil rights legislation; however, they do not emphasize African American responses to these inherently racist acts. How can we, as anthropologists, assist in reframing historic texts to address the dynamic and diverse achievements of African Americans in the South prior to the Civil Rights movement? As a case study, I will be discussing a late-nineteenth to early-twentieth century rural African American neighborhood near Yorktown, Virginia. Through this research, which utilizes artifacts, oral histories and historical documents, I focus on the dynamics of community building after Emancipation and the role of this process in the movement for social equality. Artifacts often represent the only means to consider change over time given the near absence of primary documents from the residents. The intent of the study is to draw attention to this era and discuss the social and cultural processes for African Americans in the South following the attenuation of Reconstruction and the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement.

3. Angela Daniel
Paper Title: Virginia’s Secret: Hidden Histories

Abstract:
The Native perspective of history has traditionally been denied any credibility, legitimacy or free public expression in the state of Virginia. Regardless of recent trends in postcolonial theory and the surge in recording oral traditions by anthropologists in the late 20th century, perspective of Powhatan Indians in regards to colonial history in Virginia was virtually ignored academically. As a result, Virginia museums and public schools did not have Powhatan interpretation to present in their exhibits or school textbooks. Due to hegemonic strong holds on the production and dissemination of history in Virginia, the Powhatan-centered history appears to have escaped these influences in the broader scope of academia. My research with Mattaponi tribal oral historian, Dr. Linwood “Little Bear” Custalow provides detailed insight into the boarder overarching themes expressed by leaders of descendant Powhatan tribes, such as “We welcomed the English colonists when they came. They would not have survived without us.” As a result, it becomes apparent why Powhatan interpretations of colonial history have been silenced and hidden. This paper considers the major differences between Powhatan and Euro-American historical narratives, and the ways in which Powhatan narratives might be incorporated into textbook representations of Virginia’s colonial past.

4. Derek Miller /R. Grant Gilmore, III
Paper Title: Windward Children? Historical Narratives in St. Eustatius Schools and Their Intersection with Public Archaeology

Abstract:
St. Eustatius, the “Historical Gem,” historically sat at the primary trade entrepot for the Atlantic world during the late 18th century. Its central Caribbean location made it a source of information, as well as the major mode of communication for much of the Americas to Europe. However, through various historical factors, St. Eustatius has slowly melted away from the consciousness of both the larger Atlantic world and its current population. Largely due to the current educational curriculum dictated by the Netherlands, the history of St. Eustatius is mostly ignored in local history texts that were written for Dutch school children (and in Dutch, though the lingua franca of the island is English). Consequently, there has been a general apathy by the island’s public about its history. This apathy has been aided by troubles passing monument ordinances for the island, thus leaving many of the historical resources of the island open for destruction and erasure from the landscape. This paper will discuss the consequences of an educational narrative based on a Dutch vantage point, and will consider how through public archaeology and strong interest from the local school system, a counter-narrative centered around the descendant community is being exposed to the children of St. Eustatius.

5. Dores Cruz
Paper Title: “Portugal Gigante:” nationalism, motherland and colonial encounters in Portuguese school books

Abstract:
Nationalist intellectuals and especially political elites used language, territory and historical episodes to define the unified culture of a “nation.” Triumphalist narratives of historic events have defined features of nation-state building. In Portugal, while the concept of national identity had been constructed during the 19th and early 20th century, it was during the period of the “Estado Novo”(i.e., New State) fascist dictatorship (1933-1974) that concepts such as “motherland,” nation and patriotism, among others, were conveyed to the grassroots level. The concept of “pátria” (motherland) as a broad national identity included the metropole’s territory as well as the African colonies. Motherland and nation “aquém e além mar”(“from here and overseas”) were at the core of the dictatorship’s colonial ideology, to justify the last remaining European colonial empire and, in the 1960s, the war waged in the colonial spaces. As a result, the great narrative of national history and the nostalgia of empire were transformed into public memory through celebrations, museums, monuments and school books. In this paper, I will be investigating the nationalist discourse and iconography present in elementary school books as a tool to maintain the concept of overseas empire alive, at a time that this empire was collapsing, and how they subsequently influenced generations of Portuguese citizens.

Discussant (15 min): Dr. Tomoko Hamada Connolly

General Discussion (15 min)