Microhistory is conventionally a way of seeking knowledge and story that focuses on a small scale. Such focus on a small scale leads to forms of connectivity and political relation more often associated with less recognized and represented fragments of history. The approach gives a certain freedom to pay attention to and survey events at close range. This emancipation, in turn, works to infuse a new curiosity into global political history and its inter-political, transcultural and transnational characteristics. It thus represents an effortless plan to bring forth an alternative, multiple historicisms.

Carlo Ginzburg defines microhistory as “a form of research that goes beyond the normal characteristics of history and transforms it into a new phenomenon.” This new phenomenon is not necessarily strange or bizarre, but simply a different way of seeing the characteristics of common inclinations. This difference can, at times, appear contradictory. The relationship between the micro and macro is present in all power structures and historical forms of domination. We need to consider what sort of historical determinacy leads to such a scaling down of tangible essence of life and initialisation of what is a macro history. The prosopagnosia of macro history leads us to understand the power behind naming things. For whom and from what position are micro and macro scales of history distinct? Microhistory challenges the existence of the macro level of historical narration, which has previously presented itself as the sole narrator of more repeated history. The micro, on the other hand, names “something else”; it suggests an alternative history that poses arguments, proportionally, about the vast majority of proletarians in the world, whose history and desires are not necessarily invisible but have been invisibilised. The micro-histories take place within a wider geography; Quantity-wise, they are, in fact, macro levels of understanding of the world in which we live. Our use of the term “micro” is without regard to size and scale but rather serves as a reminder of other possibilities of history.

The micro has the capacity to activate otherness. It presents “the others”; the others that, in this context, could be understood as life that has been permanently marginalised or hidden behind powerful narratives. By weaving tales about obscure individuals about whom no one has yet written, micro-history has the capacity to use various levels of evidence to fill in the story of how the past was lived. Thus, it is a malleable form of practice open to further transformation. Microhistory is a transformation that brings the “other” into the narrative. Its aim is not to kill historical relevance but rather to question it by telling the stories that lie in between the lines of political struggles—stories we not only do not know but do not know that we do not know.

For us, microhistory is the connection between life and history in which life experiences shock and irresolution; the quality of “being something else” at the core of microhistory could hold an appealing potential as it intersects with what we have learned from history. This intersection generates a space for critical rethinking, a rebellion of history, as Santos suggests, and the destabilisation of what is known as history in order to revive the multiplicity of history that inheres in its micro/ macro relationalities. In Sarazad, micro-history has become an expository practice. It has grown to encompass multiple case studies, through which we, in the vein of Ginzburg’s depiction of the concept, have tried to build up more substantial, more abundant generalisations.

History must provide a sense of historical justice, whereby the past—however selective our memory may be—is acknowledged, and the truth is finally served. There is some kind of interconnection between a repetition of events, a succession of social systems, and the gradual development of social conditions. In other words, it is possible to make sense of history by posing the question, “What will happen to our collective past in the future?” It is a question I solicitously and apprehensively re-peat, again and again, without giving a clear answer. Or, the answer could be a new rhetorical question: Could you even imagine a future without a collective past? I propose that our microhistories hold the promise of solidarity in a fragmented, hyper-politicized condition.