Omkontextualisering: Det kreativa bygget av sammanhang

Recontextualization: The creative construction of contexts
This chapter deals with ”recontextualization”. It argues that a core analytical function of any history writing is reflecting upon which context a source, actor, or other historical phenomenon is placed within. The chapter draws on the example of the early twentieth-century Swedish geographer Sven Hedin to indicate various contexts that his travels, publications and images can be placed in. Depending upon which context we as historians construct, different narratives about Hedin’s endeavors emerge. More importantly, the choice of context has repercussions on the object of study beyond Hedin as a concrete actor. Accordingly, the chapter indicates how it is possible to reread and recontextualize the work of the geographer as part of a much broader history of planetary scales, produced through travel narratives and imagery going back to the seventeenth century. While Hedin himself did not explicitly claim to be part of such a history, the historian is at liberty to construct such a broader context. Thus, Hedin is recontextualized, and important steps in historical analytical work can be produced.