Essential Counter Histories

What are counter histories? Like counter discourses, they do more than just 'counter' or oppose or contradict a dominant discourse or history; that is, they're not just a derivative reaction or refusal. They're not an optional add-on you 'should' include for diversity because they can't be assimilated or fit into the dominant framing. THat's why they're 'essential', not 'optional' or 'additional'.

Counter histories are discourses or narratives told from the distinct, autonomous position, experiences, worldviews, self-definition, and ways of knowing and being of one group who also happen to be marginalized by a dominant group. This 'view from below' sees what isn't visible or even thinkable from above: it makes all the silences and contradictions of the dominant narrative fall apart. For example, what contradictions in Canada's sesquicentennial celebrations were opened up by #Unsettle150 movements? See the photo of Wahsay Pyawasit below from 2017:

(Tijerina, 2017)

Assignment Instructions (here)

As you research and write your counter history, consider:

  • How to visually represent this history (groups might remember events happening in linear time, or in spirals or layers in space or place...)
  • How are you periodizing? How far in the past and future are the significant events for this group?
  • Can the same event have different significance for different groups?
  • Can the significance, importance and meaning of an event change over time or be remembered for different reasons?
  • Which events are most consequential, ushering in new chapters for the group, with different conditions, consciousness, relationship? Ie. which are watershed events and what periods do these events mark?