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History textbooks, racism and the critique of Eurocentrism: beyond rectification or compensation

2011; Routledge; Volume: 35; Issue: 7 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01419870.2011.600767

1466-4356

Marta Araújo, Silvia Rodríguez Maeso,

Global Educational Policies and Reforms

Abstract Abstract This article is based on the theoretical framework developed within a research project on the construction of Eurocentrism and, more specifically, on the analysis of Portuguese history textbooks. We propose that the textbooks' master narrative constitutes a power-evasive discourse on history, which naturalizes core processes such as colonialism, slavery and racism. Showing the limits of an approach that merely proposes the compensation or rectification of (mis)representations, we argue for the need to unbind the debate on Eurocentrism from a perspective that fails to make problematic the 'very idea of Europe'. Accordingly, our analysis of Portuguese history textbooks focuses on three core narrative devices: (1) the chronopolitics of representation; (2) the paradigm of the (democratic) national state; and (3) the definitive bond between concepts and historical processes. Keywords: EurocentrismraceracismPortugaleducationhistory textbooks Notes 1. The project 'Race' and Africa in Portugal: A Study on History Textbooks (2008–2011) is funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (ref. FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-007554, within the EU programme COMPETE). 2. We are aware that textbooks have a multiplicity of readings and are used in different ways within the pragmatics of history teaching. Yet our focus in this paper is not on everyday teaching practices but on how textbooks embody specific politics of representation. 3. Selection of the textbooks in most common usage in schools was based on information provided by the Ministry of Education. 4. Key Stage 3 is the only stage in compulsory schooling in which history is taught separately as a subject, even though officially there has been a call for its merger with geography. Currently, history teaching has a ninety-minute time slot. 5. The correction of misrepresentations through the use of multi-perspectivity has been often uncritically endorsed in the field of inter/multicultural education. For instance, Borg and Mayo (2006 Borg, Carmel and Mayo, Peter. 2006. "Toward an Anti-Racist Agenda in Education: the case of Malta". In The Globalization of Racism, Edited by: Macedo, Donaldo and Gounari, Panayota. 148–64. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers. [Google Scholar], p. 151) treat Eurocentrism as a matter of 'misconceptions', 'lack of basic knowledge' and 'distortions', despite recognizing the limits of such an approach and alluding to the operation of 'Western regimes of truth' (Borg and Mayo 2006 Borg, Carmel and Mayo, Peter. 2006. "Toward an Anti-Racist Agenda in Education: the case of Malta". In The Globalization of Racism, Edited by: Macedo, Donaldo and Gounari, Panayota. 148–64. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers. [Google Scholar], p. 153). Therefore, the challenge is perceived as a matter of re-centring the 'subaltern' to achieve multicentred curricula (Borg and Mayo 2006 Borg, Carmel and Mayo, Peter. 2006. "Toward an Anti-Racist Agenda in Education: the case of Malta". In The Globalization of Racism, Edited by: Macedo, Donaldo and Gounari, Panayota. 148–64. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers. [Google Scholar], p. 158). 6. For a detailed discussion on the difficulties in formulating alternative epistemologies, see Grosfoguel (2009 Grosfoguel , RamÓn 2009 'A decolonial approach to political-economy: transmodernity, border thinking and global coloniality' , Kult 6 – Special Issue: Epistemologies of Transformation: The Latin American Decolonial Option and its Ramifications , Fall, pp. 10–38. Available from: http://www.postkolonial.dk/artikler/grosfoguel.pdf Accessed 25 July 2011 [Google Scholar]). 7. Regarding this, the processes of transformation in textbooks and curricula are usually framed as an issue of the representation of the 'other' (i.e. minorities and immigrants) and its effect on the (national) dominant narrative, in an 'either/or' perspective (e.g. Soysal and Shissler 2005 Soysal , Yasemin and Schissler , Hanna 2005 Introduction. Teaching beyond the national narrative , Yasemin Soysal and Hanna Schissler The Nation, Europe and the World. Textbooks in and Curricula in Transition , London : Berghan Books , pp. 1 – 9 [Google Scholar], p. 7), rendering Eurocentrism as the aforementioned condition of adjective or foregone conclusion. 8. Salazar's regime partially drew on Gilberto Freyre's work, enunciated as Lusotropicalism in 1952 (Castelo 1998). 9. From the Latin coaevus, referring to people and things that exist at the same time, that coexist. 10. All translations are our own. 11. It is important to note that the history of western social sciences, and more specifically of sociology and political science, is tied to the configuration of the modern national states; therefore, the conceptualization of 'the social' has been equated to that of the national state (Wolf, 1997 Wolf, Eric R. 1997/1982. Europe and the People without History, Berkeley, CA: California University Press. [Google Scholar]). For a discussion of the crisis of this mode of categorization in the field of sociological theory and analysis, see Pérez-Agote (1996 Pérez-Agote, Alfonso. 1996. "La sociedad se difumina, el individuo se disgrega. Sobre la necesidad de historizar nuestras categorías". In Complejidad y Teoría Social, Edited by: Pérez-Agote, Alfonso and Sánchez de la Yncera, Ignacio. 11–32. Madrid: CIS. [Google Scholar]). 12. We have found only one map that represents processes of political organization in Africa, registered with terms such as 'African states', 'Kingdoms' or 'Empires' (H8, p. 38). 13. The numerous symposia and conferences organized by the Council of Europe on the teaching of history and history textbooks since the 1950s have stressed the importance of promoting the 'European dimension of education through history' (Council of Europe 1995 Council of Europe. 1995. Against Bias and Prejudice. The Council of Europe's Work on History Teaching and History Textbooks (Recommendations on History Teaching and History Textbooks Adopted at Council of Europe Conferences and Symposia 1953–1995), Strasbourg: Council for Cultural Co-operation. [Google Scholar], pp. 10–11). 14. As Lentin (2008) underlines, in the footsteps of Goldberg's analysis of Hobbes' theory of the state (Goldberg 2002: 39–45), '[the modern state] stood in contrast to the chaos represented by statelessness. In the context of the "discoveries", the territories inhabited by racial others were representative of statelessness. The fathers of European philosophy all referred to the lives of "natives", "savages", "Indians" or "Negroes" to exemplify their conceptions of the State of Nature' (Lentin 2008, p. 25). 15. In this sense, we consider that some literature seems excessively concerned with the emergence of the idea of race (as fixed biological differences between human groups) and, therefore, they confine the 'modernity of racism' to the eighteenth-century Enlightenment (e.g. Lentin 2004 Lentin, Alana. 2004. Racism and Anti-racism in Europe, London: Pluto Press. [Google Scholar]), disregarding the particularities of racial governmentality before that period. 16. See also van Dijk (1993 Van Dijk, Teun. 1993. Elite Discourse and Racism, Newbury Park, CA: Sage. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). 17. We make a distinction between empathy – imagining another's emotions or perspectives ('walking in one's shoes') – and sympathy – a shared emotion, including a feeling of pity or contempt that does not require empathic understanding. Some authors (e.g. Schaap 2001 Schaap, Andrew. 2001. Guilty subjects and political responsibility: Arendt, Jaspers and the Resonance of the "German Question" in politics of reconciliation. Political Studies, 49(4): 749–66. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) use the concept of sympathetic identification as an equivalent to empathy. 18. The Sofia Symposium on 'History, democratic values and tolerance in Europe' organized by the Council of Europe, recommended that 'attitudes such as empathy and acceptance of diversity' should be encouraged within history curricula (Council of Europe 1995 Council of Europe. 1995. Against Bias and Prejudice. The Council of Europe's Work on History Teaching and History Textbooks (Recommendations on History Teaching and History Textbooks Adopted at Council of Europe Conferences and Symposia 1953–1995), Strasbourg: Council for Cultural Co-operation. [Google Scholar], p. 64). 19. Boltanski (2007 Boltanski, Luc. 2007. l'amour et la justice comme compétances. Trois essais de sociologie de l'action, Paris: Gallimard. [Google Scholar], p. 90) stressed how this 'reflexive device' on humanitarian discourses envisages constructing the 'moral spectator' (le spectateur moral) through the inclusion of his/her feelings within the description of the other's suffering. See also Sontag (2004 Sontag, Susan. 2004. Regarding the Pain of Others, New York: Picador. [Google Scholar]). 20. Hespanha was the Committee's chief commissioner from November 1995 to February 1999.