Paper short abstract:

Writing histories of the everyday requires methodological creativity. Using empirical examples on the lives of ordinary people, this paper discusses approaches inspired by historical cultural analysis in order to bring a variety of different sources into a critical dialog with one another.

Paper long abstract:

Writing histories of Africa that reveals the everyday lives of people beyond the public eye remains a challenge. It requires methodological flexibility and creativity to bring a variety of different sources into a critical dialog with each other. This paper provide an insight into methodological approaches inspired by the perspective of historical cultural analysis (Lindner/Wietschorke). Empirical examples from my own research on the colonial history of Africa are used to present readings and the interplay of different types of sources and materials. Looking at sources on unregistered “associations” and urban culture in Belgian Congo, we get an idea how ordinary men and women playfully usurped the posturing of the educated elite and formulated own subjectivities and claims. Furthermore, the combined analysis of notebooks and letters in personal archives, administrative documents, police records, novels and various media articles enables us to trace the lives of individuals and their attempts to overcome everyday hurdles and boundaries. The numerous documents on the recruitment, repatriation and forged papers of African seamen in the French Empire enable us to grasp the daily room for manoeuvre and the biographical trajectories of ordinary, yet mobile, workers. Police reports and court cases can reveal that bullets smuggled by seamen were not necessarily used for anti-colonial rebellion, but to earn a living for the family who remained ashore or to exhibit their social status.