On Representing the Real

In a legal case a lawyer is a representative. It is the lawyer’s responsibility to inform a jury of the accounts of the case and try and convince the panel that their client is innocent or just in their legal pursuits. Lawyers are quasi-historians with efforts to tell a narrative on the past. With a collection of physical evidence, human accounts, and research, the “historian” presents a picture of the past. What differentiates a lawyer from a true historian is the reward for skewing the “whole” picture of the past. A lawyer’s represents a client but does not “represent the real.”

 

The initial problem of representing history is the almost unavoidable urge to “assume.” With assuming reasons for “why,” we as humans string along a narrative of the past acting more as a lawyer rather than historian. When narrating historical events, we must try (with our best efforts) to avoid using “because” as the link between question and answer. By understanding that a historian can never tell a “complete” story of the past, then the lack of access to information will not alter the usefulness of an account.

 

Our stories about the neighborhoods of Boston are only windows into the broader picture of the city’s history. Our narratives are personal accounts of interacting with the neighborhoods today threaded by research of the past. What “defines” a neighborhood within a city? Have the neighborhoods changed over time? Do the neighborhoods represent the essence of Boston? Can we argue that the “essence” of a place is the “real” we are trying to uncover?