“Missionaries in the Row Boat”? Ethnological Ways of Knowing as a Challenge to Social History

Abstract

Investigations in social history confront a fundamental methodological difficulty: How is it possible to comprehend and to present the dual constitution of historical processes, the simultaneity of given and produced relationships, the complex interdependence of encompassing structures and the agency of “subjects,” the relationships obtaining among the circumstances of life, production, and authority, and the experiences and modes of behaviour of those affected by these circumstances?