Micro-spatial history brings together the analytical perspective of microhistory and the methodology of global history. It views historical processes as the outcomes of multiple social practices across time, and across singular, yet connected places. This article argues that a micro-spatial approach implies the rejection of the concept of ‘scale’ and is based on the avoidance of the standard conflation between the type of analysis (micro/macro) and its spatial scope (local/global). Grounding social processes opens up historical studies to views that are alternative to the local/global, the agency/structure and the short-term/long-term divides. Moreover, it allows seeing the construction of scales as an object of historical research. An invitation to self-reflexivity on the epistemology and methodology of history, the micro-spatial perspective also offers new visions of the social role of the historian, foregrounds ‘usable pasts’ that subvert contemporary common places and accentuates the importance of scholarly co-operation.

This essay was included as part of a collected volume under the title Global History and Microhistory, which was published as a supplement volume of Past & Present in November 2019. The whole volume is available open access at the following link: https://academic.oup.com/past/issue/242/Supplement_14

In the first section, this article introduces the three main litigants of the Pietro v. Franchi hard case, namely Murād Bey, Anton Marco Pietro and Simone Francesco Franchi. Their short biographies provide an account of the Corsican merchant milieu, family ties and networks, and systems of patronage across multiple sites in the western Mediterranean (especially Tunis, northern Corsica and Livorno). The second section investigates the role of written documentation and oral proof in a context of jurisdictional pluralism. One follows the multi-sited hard case in different magistracies and appeals courts, from Tunis to Pisa, focusing on the role of enforcement as a key issue to understanding long-lasting litigation in different jurisdictions. The third section deals with the social uses of law as a constitutive and endogenous dimension of the hard case: emotion, humiliation and anger will take centre stage as a way to analyse the transformation of disputes and the question of legal qualifications. Hostility between litigants reveals mechanisms of political and economic intimidation in order to influence and even corrupt judges. Finally, the fourth section focuses on the translation of Muslim rules of succession between Tunisia and Tuscany: special attention is paid to the role of witnesses and merchants’ knowledge of practices and customs, but also to the vocabulary of religious antagonism as a way to discredit the opposing side.

The article identifies an imbalance in the attention given to global history’s two fundamental objectives, the focus hitherto having fallen more on the study of cross-border connections than on the vaunted decentring of historiographical perspective. The example of the modern history of the prison serves to illustrate some basic problems faced by efforts to identify cross-border transfers and assess their historical significance for local, national or regional developments. The need for a decentring of historiographical perspectives is illustrated firstly by reference to the fact that, contrary to the established narrative, the globalization of the prison was a process characterized by a multiplicity of shifting centres. To help grasp such global processes it proposes the concept of a multiple “frame of references”. Secondly, the article emphasizes the importance to global historical research, alongside attention to transfers, of the comparative approach. Deploying the distinction between “hard” and “soft” versions of global history, it finally distinguishes between polycentric global history and global history still written from the standpoint of area history, only the former properly engaging with the globality of historical phenomena.

Este artículo se pregunta por los posibles límites de la historia local dentro del paradigma de la historia global. A partir de criticar la ecuación que hace de la relación entre local y global una analogía de aquella entre micro y macro, el trabajo intenta reconstruir las implicaciones metodológicas del denominado “giro espacial” y analizar las contradicciones de un análisis metafórico del espacio. En particular, el rechazo de las explicaciones endógenas por parte de la historia global permite subrayar los límites analíticos del paradigma de la circulación, sobre el cual esta se funda. * This paper discusses the possible local history boundaries within the paradigm of global history. Based on the questioning to the existing equation between local and global, by means of an analogy between micro and macro levels, the current research attempts to rebuild the methodological implications of the so-called “Spatial turn”. Likewise, it analyzes the contradictions of the metaphorical analysis of space. Particularly, this research will focus on the rejection to the endogenous explanations of global history. This, in turn, contributes to the highlighting of the analytical boundaries of the circulation paradigm on which this is, likewise, based on.

In my previous work I have established a theoretical framework called ‘the Singularization of History’by criticizing the way social, cultural and microhistorians have practiced their scholarship in the last two or three decades. I have paid particular attention to one element common to the theoretical orientations of all microhistorians, viz. the connections between micro and macro. Microhistorians of all persuasions emphasize the importance of placing small units of research within larger contexts. I refute this principle and demonstrate its inherent contradictions. I encourage historians to cut the umbilical cord that ties them to what has been called ‘a great historical question’. The challenge of my paper will be to consider whether this research focus excludes the global perspective from historical inquiry. If that is not the case, what is the best possible approach to gain that vision?

This interview was made in March 2018 and published in Estonian in the Estonian edition of Sebastian Conrad’s "What is Global History?": Sebastian Conrad, "Mis on globaalne ajalugu?" Tallinn: Tallinn University Press, 2018, pp. 243–256. This is the original English version of the interview, made available with the kind consent of the interviewee.

Microhistory is a relative recent approach in history, dating back from the late 1970's. Nevertheless, considering its evolutive features and the developments that it has experienced since its first introduction by historians, any analysis thereon includes the prerequisite to roughly define the notion as I intend to use it in my developments to follow. I would then suggest that such a definition includes the ideas of (i) scope, (ii) historiographical background and (iii) relationship with sources .