The Role and Limitations of a Research Handbook in Historiography

The Role and Limitations of a Research Handbook in Historiography

Prof. Aziz Çelik

Dig Where You Stand: The Role and Limitations of a Research Handbook in Historiography

INTRODUCTION

Sven Lindqvist’s book *Gräv där du står* (Dig Where You Stand), written in Sweden in 1978, was published in Turkish nearly half a century later. It had also taken 45 years for the English translation, *Dig Where You Stand*, to be published. Lindqvist offers a practical handbook for workers—whom he refers to as “barefoot researchers” across various fields—to investigate their jobs, the companies they work for, the towns they live in, and the schools they attended. The book had a wide-reaching impact in Sweden and Northern Europe; the Growing Dig Movement between 1975 and 1985 mobilized tens of thousands of participants and inspired similar movements in Germany and the United Kingdom.

Lindqvist’s book focuses on workers researching their own workplaces and writing their history. It argues that workers can challenge the authority of both employers and academic researchers. The image of the “barefoot researcher” describes a research practice carried out by ordinary people based on their own experiences and surroundings, independent of academic titles. The book serves as a practical research guide for utilizing a wide range of source types—from companies to unions, libraries to city halls, archives to museums, and letters to court records.

THE AUTHOR’S BACKGROUND AND THE BOOK’S ORIGINS

Sven Lindqvist (1932–2019), a journalist, traveler, historian, and activist, produced groundbreaking works on Sweden, China, Latin America, and Africa. *Dig Where You Stand* is the result of Lindqvist’s extensive research on the Swedish cement industry in the 1970s. During his research, he realized that most texts on factory history had been commissioned by companies or shaped by the interests of academic circles, while the workers’ conditions, the dangers they faced, and their experiences with organizing remained invisible. From this, he arrived at the following proposal: Factory history can and must be written by the workers themselves, with a fresh perspective.

Lindqvist calls on workers to investigate the history of their own workplaces and living environments. This approach, which he associates with the motto “Dig deep where you stand!” bears the traces of Marx’s understanding of worker research and surveys, as well as the Workers’ Inquiry movement in Italy during the 1950s and 1960s. This call to “dig” suggests conducting research from a social rather than a geographical standpoint: Workers can and should act as researchers within their own sphere of experience, their industry, and the history of their factory.

Lindqvist advocates for workers to place their workplaces, neighborhoods, and daily living conditions—particularly the experiences of the working class—at the center of historical research. In doing so, he embraces the concept of “history from below” rather than the classical “history from above.” While academic historians, companies, and industrial museums have produced industrial history, workers’ perspectives and expertise have been largely overlooked. Lindqvist’s handbook aims to address this gap and enable workers to examine their professions and social environments through documents and sources.

THE EXCAVATION MOVEMENT: SPREAD, TRANSFORMATION, AND INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT

The Excavation Movement (Grävrörelsen), which took shape following the book’s publication, drew tens of thousands of people into research groups in Sweden between 1978 and 1985. Union branches, workers’ educational associations, and local libraries served as meeting places for these groups. Among the movement’s tangible outcomes are numerous published testimonies regarding the lives of the working class.

Its counterpart in Germany, the History Movement (Geschichtsbewegung), reached numerous local and regional working groups in West Germany during the 1980s. The excavation of the ruins of the former Gestapo headquarters in Berlin by amateur archaeologists laid the groundwork for the subsequent establishment of the Topography of Terror museum. In the United Kingdom, the History Workshop movement, founded by Raphael Samuel, while having independent roots, was directly influenced by the Swedish movement. Within the British context, the approach evolved into a broader framework that also encompassed women’s history and local history research.

Lindqvist’s book is both a research handbook and a methodological guide describing thirty different types of sources. It is neither a purely academic text nor an essay with mass-market appeal. This formal ambiguity limited the book’s circulation in English for many years to unofficial translations and oral transmissions distributed at History Workshop seminars.

SCHOOLS OF HISTORIOGRAPHY AND “DIG WHERE YOU STAND”

Lindqvist’s epistemological stance differs from traditional historiography. The Ranke tradition has focused on state archives, diplomatic documents, and the actions of prominent figures, often rendering the experiences of ordinary people invisible. Dig Where You Stand challenges this tradition by democratizing the subject of history, making workers the subject of research. It proposes the examination of a wide variety of sources alongside official documents, the transformation of the researcher’s subject from an academic to a worker, and the redefinition of the purpose of knowledge as understanding and questioning power relations.

Macrohistory examines social structures and long-term trends, while microhistory examines a single community, event, individual, or place in detail. Lindqvist explicitly chooses to work on a micro scale: the factory, the workplace, and a single sector. The history produced by the Excavation Movement brings to light occupational diseases, wage histories, and the local dynamics of unionization that macro-narratives overlook. These micro-data are indispensable for either validating or challenging grand structural narratives. Contemporary historiography regards these two scales as complementary perspectives; the best works employ both the telescope and the microscope.

Founded in 1929 by Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre, the Annales School has centered its focus on everyday life and the experiences of ordinary people. In this respect, it shares parallels with Lindqvist; however, while in the Annales School the historian reconstructs the past from an external, expert perspective, in Lindqvist’s work the researcher is the worker living from within the system. In the Annales School, the historical subject is the object of inquiry, whereas in Lindqvist’s work, the subject is the very agent of the research.

E. H. Carr challenged Ranke’s claim to objectivity by arguing that historical knowledge is based on a continuous dialogue between the historian and the facts. This approach supports the worker’s legitimacy as a researching subject; however, Carr ultimately assumes historiography to be an academic and professional practice. Lindqvist asks a more radical question: Is an academic identity a prerequisite for being a historian?

Marxist historiography’s emphasis on historical materialism, class analysis, and the tension between structure and subject stands in both proximity to and at a distance from Lindqvist’s approach. Lindqvist targets class conflict, capital’s domination over knowledge production, and the ideological dimension of historiography; however, he transforms these into a practical methodology rather than a systematic Marxist theoretical framework. British Marxism, as represented by E. P. Thompson, Raymond Williams, and Eric Hobsbawm, is the tradition closest to Lindqvist in terms of shared experience, culture, and the visibility of ordinary people as historical subjects.

The fundamental difference between Thompson and Lindqvist lies in the position of the research subject. Although Thompson adopts a democratic perspective, it is still the historian—an outside observer—who produces knowledge. Lindqvist argues that the production of knowledge itself must be in the hands of the workers. Hobsbawm’s long-term studies of labor history offer a macro perspective that complements Lindqvist’s micro scale; however, Hobsbawm views academic competence as a prerequisite.

Gramsci’s concepts of hegemony and the organic intellectual also provide a fruitful framework for Lindqvist’s project. A worker researching their own factory can challenge dominant narratives as a subject of knowledge produced from their own class position. However, in Gramsci, the organic intellectual is integrated into a collective political project; in Lindqvist’s approach, it remains unclear how individual or small-group research would connect to this collective project.

In light of these assessments, the book can be viewed as a practical manifesto steeped in Marxist intuitions yet consciously distanced from a Marxist theoretical framework. The flexibility of its theoretical framework has enabled the book to reach diverse political circles; however, this lack of a theoretical foundation leaves unanswered the question of through which organizational forms and which collective subject the research will be translated into transformation.

EPISTEMOLOGICAL SUCCESS, POLITICAL FAILURE

Lindqvist’s most significant contribution is the transformation of the research subject. In traditional and critical historiography, the academic or expert who produces knowledge is the subject, while the group under study is the object. Lindqvist reverses this relationship: the group under study conducts its own research. This transformation represents an epistemological difference that determines whose voice is heard and whose past is recorded.

The second contribution is the challenge to the academic monopoly on knowledge. The “barefoot researcher” metaphor opens up a space for knowledge production outside the hierarchies of academic titles and institutional legitimacy. The third contribution is the practical-political instrumental nature of research. Examining a factory archive, gathering evidence for a labor dispute, or finding court rulings on occupational diseases can be a direct political act.

However, this approach assumes that historical research will automatically lead to class consciousness and collective action. The dominant ideology, corporate culture, media discourse, and institutional practices also shape research practices. The assumption that knowledge is liberating cannot automatically overcome these conditions.

As the Excavation Movement grew, it became institutionalized and lost its political edge. The framework, which initially focused on factory and workplace history and class conflict, gradually shifted toward local history, cultural heritage, and nostalgic documentation. Collaboration with universities, municipalities, and cultural institutions ensured organizational continuity but also brought about conformity.

The movement also relied on the institutional infrastructure of Fordist industrial capitalism and Swedish social democracy. Strong unions, a collective bargaining system, accessible archives, and time available for research were elements of this infrastructure. Neoliberal transformation eroded these elements. Therefore, the movement’s decline is not merely an internal failure but the product of a broader political-economic transformation.

Despite all these setbacks, the epistemological legacy of the Kazı Movement remains significant: the legitimization of oral history, the visibility of labor history, the democratization of archives, and the strengthening of the tradition of history from below are lasting achievements.

LIMITS OF THE APPROACH: A CRITICAL READING

The book’s research methods rely heavily on Sweden’s unique institutional infrastructure. Access to public archives, corporate and municipal correspondence, and an emphasis on institutional transparency give the book a distinctly Swedish character. In Sweden, access to public documents is the product of a long-standing institutional culture; in the rest of the world, however, the right to information does not always guarantee actual access.

A second limitation is its embedding in Fordist labor relations. The model assumes permanent, full-time employment; a long-term relationship with a single employer; a geographically fixed workplace; and the accumulated experience of workers who have been employed at the same factory for years. Precarious employment, fragmented work, platform labor, subcontracting chains, and fixed-term contracts have undermined these assumptions. A change in subcontractor can reset the workplace’s history and erase institutional memory.

Lindqvist’s concept of the “worker” also relies heavily on the male industrial worker. Domestic labor, the service sector, agricultural workers, and care work fall outside this framework. Furthermore, positioning the worker’s experience as the primary source of truth carries the risk of rendering the ideological and power relations that produce that experience invisible. The lack of a theoretical foundation is the most vulnerable point of this practice, which relies on strong political intuition.

In the Turkish context, the book’s epistemological value has not diminished. Questions about who is authorized to write history, who has access to archives, and who writes the history of labor reveal an even more unequal and hierarchical picture. However, practical recommendations may not be directly applicable due to a different legal framework, archival culture, and limited institutional transparency. Today’s workers frequently change jobs, work in short-term positions, and lack the time to devote to research—all of which make the call to “dig where you stand” even more challenging.

HOW SHOULD WE DIG?

The call to “dig where you stand” in its original form belongs to 1970s Sweden, the final phase of Fordist industrial capitalism, and the institutional infrastructure of Swedish social democracy. Applying the book directly to today’s conditions may not be realistic. However, the epistemological challenge it poses is tied neither to geography nor to a specific era: Who should be the subject of research? For whom, by whom, and for what purpose should knowledge be produced? Is the academic monopoly on knowledge legitimate?

The Turkish edition brings these questions into the discussions surrounding the writing of Turkey’s labor history. Rather than offering a ready-made model to be copied, it serves as a reference point and a source of critical inspiration. Keep digging where you stand; but first, recognize the ground beneath your feet, the power relations that constructed it, and the structural and subjective conditions that make the act of digging possible—or impossible.

Üsküdar, May 2026

SOURCES

Carr, E. H. (1987). What Is History? Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları.

Flinn, A. and von Rosen, A. (2023). “An Introduction to the Long-Awaited English Translation of Dig Where You Stand”. Repeater Books.

Flinn, A. and von Rosen, A. (2025). “Dig Where You Stand and International History From Below Movements.” History Workshop Journal, 100(1), 287–296.

Hobsbawm, E. J. (2009). On History. Istanbul: Agora Library.

Lindqvist, S. (2023). Dig Where You Stand: How to Research a Job. Repeater Books.

Sennett, R. (2002) [1998]. The Corrosion of Character: The Effects of Work on the Self in the New Capitalism. Istanbul: Ayrıntı Publications.

Thompson, E. P. (2002). The Making of the English Working Class. Istanbul: Birikim Publications.

Links:

TÜSTAV: http://www.tustav.org

History Workshop Journal DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/dbaf026

Academia.edu: https://www.academia.edu/175438232/Bir_Araştırma_El_Kitabının_Tarihyazımındaki_Yeri_ve_Sınırlılıkları