Challenging Traditional Ways of Constructing Local/Regional History Research in South Africa: Some Global Learning and Sharing

Abstract Formal regional/local history research practice in South Africa is very nearly 50 years old. In many ways, its development was closely associated with trends in Europe and elsewhere. This research was intuitively, or perhaps intentionally, produced under the umbrella of a variety of rural and urban developments, themes and phenomena; and some of these international influences on historians and other academics that surfaced in the humanities and social sciences in South Africa are analysed in this article. However, well-organised integrative research in a regional environment may be the only way to progress towards inclusive regional histories. In this regard, historians dealing with regional history can frame their research contribution more “historically” in the spirit of regional research, rather than “thematic-politically”, with geographies that either appears to be accentuated or peripheral. Historians in this field have also been accused of operating without a philosophical base and a sound epistemology. These challenges should be given some renewed critical thought by regional historians all over the world. In this article, ideas for rethinking this field of history are put forward in an effort to progress this debate. The article also informs this process through the historiography of local/regional history in South Africa, but within a global context. Some new thinking on place and people in regional history, with regard to research methodologies, unified as “historical regionalism”, is also offered for further debate.