In the Beginning: Notes on the Social Construction of

Historical Discontinuity
Eviatar Zerubavel, Rutgers Univesiv

Beginnings are both theoretically and experientially anchored in a distinctively

discontinuous conception of time. This paper examines the conventional nature of
beginnings, calls attention to the politics of establishing official beginnings of historical
narratives, and claims that the way groups (from families to nations) construct their
historical beginnings ought to be at the heart of any study of the development of
collective identity.

One of the most striking features of the way we experience time is the
essentially discontinuous nature we attribute to it (E. Zerubavel 1991,
pp. 9-10, 30-31). Despite the fact that time flows uninterruptedly, we quite
normally carve in our minds out of historical continuums supposedly discrete
periods (adolescence, the Middle Ages) and events (conversations, revolutions).
Yet nowhere is our ability to segment time more clearly evident than in the
way we construct beginnings. The very notion of a beginning, inevitably
associated with some prior void, is the most distinctive manifestation of our
vision of insular chunks of history floating in the ocean of time.
Temporal partitions usually represent other, more elusive mental partitions, and therefore serve to divide more than just time. We thus use the
boundaries of holidays, for example, to help us concretize the mental passage
between the sacred and the profane domains and those of the workday to
separate the states of being on and off duty and thus give substance to the
mental contrast between the private and public domains (E. Zerubavel 1981,
pp. 101-166). In a similar fashion, we often use beginnings to help us articulate
in our minds distinct social identities. After all, social interaction presupposes
a standard orientation in time (E. Zerubavel 1982), and membership in a
group inevitably entails a common perception of when it was born. That is
why groups have origin myths as well as standard chronological dating
frameworks, The foundation of Rome in 753 B.C. (for the ancient Romans),
the birth of Christ (for Christians), the flight of Mohammed from Mecca to
Medina in A.D. 622 (for Muslims)-those and other similar pivots of conventional eras(see also E. Zerubavel 1987, pp. 352-353) are standard points of
Sociological Inquiry, Vol. 63, No. 4, November 1993
1993 by the University of Texas Press, P.O.Box 7819, Austin, T X 78713

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EVIATAR ZERUBAVEL

departure from which groups begin their official histories, implicitly separating
those from what they regard as "prehistory. " Many married couples likewise
use their weddings to mark their official "birth. "
Recent studies of collective memory (Schwartz 1990; Y . Zerubavel 1994)
reveal the remarkably dynamic nature of the past. As our present social
situation changes, so does our perception of our common past. Examining
the way groups construct their beginnings is therefore indispensable to any
study of the development of collective identity.
Furthermore, there is a critical political dimension to the way we construct
our collective beginnings. One of the most important contributions of Alex
Haley's Roots to the development of a proud African-American identity, for
example, was the fact that it challenged the traditional beginning of AfricanAmerican history only with the beginning of slavery, when Africans first
became relevant to Americans of European descent, moving it back to when
they still lived in Africa and had no contact whatsoever with them. The debate
over the actual beginning of America's involvement in Vietnam is likewise
politically explosive, as different versions inevitably implicate different
administrations.
Consider also the political implications of almost any decision as to where
to begin a particular historical narrative. Does the story of the Gulf War, for
example, begin only on August 2, 1990, the day Iraq invaded Kuwait (which
is the standard American version) or much earlier, when both were still parts
of a single political entity (which is the standard Iraqi version)? Similarly, does
life actually begin at conception (which is the version typically adopted by
the pro-life movement) or only at some later point during pregnancy (which
is the version promoted by the pro-choice movement)? By the same token,
does the history of Palestine begin only sometime after the Arab conquest
(which is the version often implied by Arabs) or some two and a half millennia
earlier, when the Jewish patriarchs were first promised that land by their God
(which is the standard Israeli version)? Beginnings are clearly at the very
heart of heated political battles over rights and legitimacy.
The fact that beginnings are so often contested, of course, ought to make
us more aware of their purely conventional nature. After all, history is a single
uninterrupted continuum. Like most acts of drawing lines (E. Zerubavel
1991, pp. 70-80), any segmentation of time is therefore necessarily artificial,
a product of social convention alone.
The discontinuous conception of time, which the notion of beginnings
inevitably presupposes, implies a general view of history as made up of
discrete chunks separated from one another by actual stretches of void. Any
transition, therefore, is necessarily abrupt. Change is never gradual.
Yet such a view of history is but a mere social construction. After all,

THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF HISTORICAL DISCONTINUITY

459

in reality, things rarely change overnight, whether the change is one from
adolescence to adulthood, spring to summer, or night to day. Overlapping
as well as ambiguous intermediate periods are therefore quite common
(E. Zerubavel 1991, p. 72).
And yet, if we are to fully understand how individuals and groups perceive
themselves, we must know where they think their story begins. The study
of perceived origins, therefore, is an absolute must for anyone interested in
identity, whether it be national, ethnic, or personal. It is at the heart of a truly
interpretive sociology.

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