Palimpsests of the Past: Oral History and the Art of Pointillism

Abstract

The use of oral histories is embedded in the interplay of archival limitations and shifting historiographical questions. This essay begins with a preliminary historiography of oral history usage in Asia, exploring its contrasting usages among scholars of China, Japan, India, and Thailand. However, more than filling in archival gaps, oral histories can challenge broader historiographies. Arrested multiple times, Kruba Srivichai (1878–1939) is northern Thailand's most famous monk. Illustrating a pointillist approach that draws upon hundreds of oral histories and dividing the palimpsest of Srivichai's controversial life into four time periods, this essay shows how oral histories challenge four corresponding paradigms and thereby force a reengagement with the overall narrative of Thai nation-state formation. This essay argues for the importance of oral history, not merely in “filling in gaps” in archival sources, but in challenging hegemonic historiographical paradigms.