SUMMARY:

In his introduction to the forum “Freedom, Labor, and Empires: Reciprocal Comparisons and Entanglements” Alessandro Stanziani briefly outlines the scope of each contribution to the forum and formulates their understanding of the method of reciprocal comparisons. At the core of this approach is the idea of relativizing any normative yardstick as an ideal model, against which empirical realities of individual case studies are measured, as those normative models are usually implicitly built upon particular historical experiences of certain western countries. Reciprocal comparison implies that it is done directly, finding some common denominator between the parties selected. Stanziani suggests that by relying simultaneously on reciprocal comparison and connected history, scholars can escape Eurocentrism and any other “centrisms” (Sino-, Russo-, Indian, African, American). The goal is to produce a multipolar, integrated history based upon contingency, rather than determinism, envisioning mobile frontiers rather than ahistorical fixed boundaries of nations, empires, and civilizations.