History, Policy and Public Purpose by Alix R. Green

Author:Alix R. Green
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK, London

Weaving Context

‘Context’ is derived from the Latin, contextere, meaning to weave together. Weaving is an act of composition, in which threads are interlaced in a pattern to create the final woven product. From this original meaning we can grasp the importance of context to different disciplines. Context allows meaning-making; we ‘place’ or ‘locate’ the individual thread or pattern within the fabric as a whole in order to interpret and understand it. Thus, context has an important explanatory function. Anthropologists, given credit for leading an intellectually substantial contextualist turn in the 1960s and 70s, take care not to isolate the text or the practice under observation—a ritual, musical form or narrative, for example—from the original site of production.16 In policy science, context is ‘a conceptual device to compensate for the lack of behavioral rules and methods to compare behavior across time, space, organizations, and functions’.17 More recently and more positively, attention has been given to the complex cultural practices embedded in policy contexts, a recognition that explanations of political activity are enriched by contextual understanding.18

For historians, the weaving of context is essential to the historical account. If our accounts are to be more than chronicles, we must rely on contextual analysis to interpret sources, assess their significance, identify continuity and change, make valid distinctions or comparisons and so on. Contextual analysis also serves to authenticate our accounts and we provide a guide to our intellectual labour in the scholarly apparatus. ‘Context’ is therefore much more than its usual synonyms, such as setting, environment, milieu and background, suggest.19 In terms of history in government, however, ‘context’ tends to be understood in these more limited senses: preface rather than policy. Articulating the power of contextual thinking for policymaking is therefore an important task.

The weaving of context involves asking questions that create connections between ‘present knowledge’ and the ‘circumstances of the past’. The process is a form of oscillation between past and present, which incrementally builds up a map or image representing the historian’s understanding of the past in the present. Questioning allows the historian to ‘get a fix on’ what is not known; once gaps are identified, a new focus for the enquiry is gained.20 The value of such skilled questioning to the collective puzzling of policy learning is clear. The historian on the inside can, of course, acquire ‘knowledge of historical specifics’ relevant to a task pursued in the mixed unit but such ‘content’ cannot substitute for contextual thinking.21

History’s ability to inspect assumptions critically is a recurring theme; here we can focus on how the weaving of context helps the policy team to understand the people and organisations on whose attitude or conduct an intervention may depend. Attention should be given not only to political allies and agencies involved as collaborating or delivery partners, but also, and perhaps more importantly, potential sceptics and adversaries, interest groups with a stake in the policy agenda and influential observers (such as the domestic media and international audiences). ‘Placement’ would involve the historian reviewing ‘discernible items

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