Social and Labour History News

Organizer: Jelena Jokic (CREE, Inalco) Lucie Raskin (CREE, Inalco) Sarah Bomba (CREE, Inalco) ZIP: 75007 Location: Paris Country: France Takes place: Hybrid From - Until: 14.04.2026 - 15.04.2026 Website: https://www.inalco.fr/en/events/interest-groups-post-socialist-central-europe-cross-analysis-historical-political-economic  

The study day on April 14 and 15, 2026 at INALCO focuses on the transformations of interest groups and lobbying practices in post-socialist Central Europe, considering historical, political, economic, and cultural shifts. It highlights recent developments, such as Ukraine’s 2024 lobbying law aimed at fostering transparent engagement between private and public actors. The event brings together early-career social science researchers examining actors, networks, practices, and regulatory attempts in the region. It also debates the relevance of the term “lobbying” and its analytical value for understanding private influence in politics. Since the end of socialism, new non-state actors (businesses, associations, unions, religious groups) have transformed interactions between the private sector and political power. Contributions are expected to explore historical and institutional dynamics shaping influence relations, the ambiguous role of interest groups in democratic processes, and the transnational dimensions of lobbying in Central Europe. Discussions will address how these groups affect public decision-making, their effects on democratic institutions, and issues of transparency, conflicts of interest, and clientelism. Finally, the study day will examine the impact of European integration on influence practices in the region and the challenges of legally regulating lobbying across various Central and Eastern European countries.

Programm

Please register if you want to participate (videoconference or in presence) : https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSctHqYTBW3JI5mFrJyW6BiF0soGcz0jpCXpRUULPGzYoyWkpA/viewform

Tuesday april 14
Inalco - Maison de la Recherche
Auditorium Dumézil
2, rue de Lille - Paris 7e

9:20am – 9:40am: Welcome coffee
9:40am – 9:50am: Welcome address from partner institutions
9:50am – 10am: Introduction to the Study Days: Sarah Bomba, Jelena Jokic and Lucie Raskin

10am – 11am: Panel 1 – Axis 1: Understanding the Structural and Contextual Factors of Influence Activities Since the 1980s – Part 1
Chair: Anne Madelain

10am – 10:20am: Vit Simral: Imperial legacies and interest group formation in Central and Western Europe
10:20am – 10:40am: Szczepan Pawel Czarnecki: Who protests and why? Organisational and contextual drivers of interest group mobilization in Central Europe
0:40am – 10:55am: Questions and discussion with the audience

10:55am – 11:10am: Coffee break

11:10am – 12:05am : Panel 2 – Axis 1 – Part 2
Chair : Fabio Giomi

11:10am – 11:30am: Lucie Raskin: Researching interest groups as a historian: the case of Yugoslav organisations in the 1980s
11:30am – 11:50am: Michael Dobbins: Impressing De Tocqueville: Analysing interest group mobilization in Ukraine

11:50am – 12:05pm: Questions and discussion with the audience

12:10pm – 1:45pm: Lunch

1:45pm – 2:40pm: Panel 3 – Axis 2: The Impact of Interest Groups on the Economic Sphere: Networks at the Core of Institutional and Sectoral Transformations in Central Europe
Chair: Jean-Michel de Waele

1:45pm – 2:05pm: Magdalena Bernaciak & Aurora Trif: From social partners to lobby groups? Trade unions and employer associations in Central and Eastern Europe
2:05pm – 2:25pm: Rafal Riedel: Conflict of interest regarding the Europeanization of the legal framework for sustainable corporate governance
2:25pm – 2:40pm: Questions and discussion with the audience

2:40pm – 2:55pm: Coffee break

2:55pm – 3:50pm: Panel 4 – Axis 2 – Part 2
Chair: Nadège Ragaru

2:55pm – 3:15pm: Jelena Jokic: Innovation ecosystems as vehicles of economic diplomacy: The case of French Tech Belgrade in Franco-Serbian relations
3:15pm – 3:35pm: Nathan Hourcade: Influence in the Ukrainian energy sector: lobbying or oligarchy? (2010–2025)
3:35pm – 3:50pm: Questions and discussion with the audience
3:50pm – 4pm: Wrap-up of the first day

Wednesday april 15
Inalco - Maison de la Recherche
Salle de Sacy (2nd floor)
2, rue de Lille - Paris 7e

9am – 9:20am: Welcome coffee

9:20am – 10:25am: Panel 5 – Axis 3: Interest Groups and Democracy: An Ambivalent Relationship? – Part 1
Chair: Jana Vargovcikova

9:20am – 9:50am: Aneta Cekikj & Mika Ivanovska Hadjievska: Lobbying strategies in new democracies: Insights from a survey of interest groups in North Macedonia
9:50am – 10:10am: Aneta Pinkova: Regulation, transparency, and influence: Interest groups in Czech electoral politics
10:10am – 10:25am: Questions and discussion with the audience

10:25am – 10:40am: Coffee break

10:40am – 12am: Panel 6 – Axis 3 – Part 2
Chair: Katerina Kesa

10:40am – 11am: Urszula Kurczewska & Agnieszka Vetulani-Cegiel: Lobbying in times of political polarization and democratic backsliding: The case of Poland
11am – 11:20am: Sarah Bomba: title to be finalized
11:20am – 11:40am: Cristian Pîrvulescu: Interest Groups and Populism in Central Europe: A Neo-Institutional Reading Based on the Romanian Case
11:40am – 12am: Questions and discussion with the audience
12am – 12:15pm: Concluding remarks

Partners:
Inalco / CREE (Centre de recherche Europes-Eurasie) / Ecole Doctorale de l'Inalco
Académie Polonaise des Sciences – Centre Scientifique à Paris
Université libre de Bruxelles

Scientific Committee:
Jean-Louis Briquet (CNRS, CESSP)
Anne Madelain (Inalco, CREE)
Nadège Ragaru (Sciences Po, CERI)
Jana Vargovčíková (Inalco, CREE)
Jean-Michel De Waele (Université libre de Bruxelles, Cevipol)

Organising committee:
Sarah Bomba (CREE, Inalco)
Jelena Jokic (CREE, Inalco)
Lucie Raskin (CREE, Inalco)

Contact (announcement)

lucie.raskin@inalco.fr
jelena.jokic@inalco.fr

Organizer: mdw – Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien Venue: mdw – Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien ZIP: 1030 Location: Wien Country: Austria Takes place: In Attendance From - Until: 22.07.2026 - 25.07.2026 Deadline: 30.04.2026 Website: https://www.mdw.ac.at/forschungsfoerderung/isaresearch/   In 2026, the isaResearch summer school in the framework of isa – International Summer Academy invites contributions that rethink the entanglements of the global and the local though postmigrant, decolonial, and intersectional perspectives and how they relate to music, sound, and the performing arts.

Experiences of mobility, displacement, migration, and exile are not exceptional but constitutive of cultural and artistic histories. From touring performers and diasporic communities to digital circulation and forced displacement, music and performing arts have long been shaped by movement across borders. In recent decades, scholarly debates on these dynamics have introduced key concepts such as cosmopolitanism, translocality, and postmigration. When studying music, sound, and performing arts today, how might we reconsider the relationship between the global and the local? Which conceptual tools enable us to grasp contemporary mobilities without flattening their historical and political ambiguities?

In 2026, the isaResearch summer school in the framework of isa - International Summer Academy invites contributions that rethink the entanglements of the global and the local though postmigrant, decolonial, and intersectional perspectives and how they relate to music, sound, and the performing arts. We also welcome reflections on how worlding as a concept and artistic practice can can illuminate the creation of worlds beyond the binary logics of the local and the global.

Taking place in parallel to the isa masterclasses and workshops at the mdw campus in Vienna - a city both historically diasporic and currently postmigrant - the four-day workshop is open to Ph.D. students and other early-stage researchers in the humanities and artistic research, specifically those immersed in the study of music, sound, dance, and film. Participants will be able to present and discuss their research in an interdisciplinary framework. Experts in respective fields at the mdw and beyond will engage in conversations and act as respondents. The programme will also include a lecture by an international expert and site-visits in the cultural landscape of Vienna. The summer school thus sets out to provide participants with an intimate interdisciplinary experience that fosters new networks and perspectives.

Submissions may address, but are not limited to, the following themes:

- Postmigration as concept, method, and critique
- Translocality and digital networks of cultural production
- Exile, diaspora, and historical continuities of displacement
- Climate crisis: ecological displacement and artistic responses
- Cosmopolitanism revisited: class, race, and cultural capital
- Decolonial perspectives on global music history and canon formation
- Worlding and musical world-making: epistemologies and aesthetics
- Translation as method
- Sound, film, performance, and the politics of positioning
- Methodological innovations: How can traveling concepts and critical term analysis offer new analytical tools? (How) can travel, mobility, and movement themselves become (integrated into) methodological premises?

We invite applications from Ph.D. students and other early-stage researchers from disciplines including (but not limited to) Musicology, Dance and Performance Studies, Artistic Research, Queer Theory, Cultural Studies, Music Theory, Indigenous Studies, Music Sociology, Critical Race Studies, Ethnomusicology, Popular Music Studies, Post-Colonial Studies, Art History, and Film and Media Studies. Presentation proposals must be connected to the topic of the participant’s thesis or current research project.

Attendance at the summer school is free of charge, with lunch and refreshments provided on-site by the mdw. Limited funding to help with travel and accommodation expenses is available. The exact amount of funding will be decided according to the requirements of the participant. Application is possible after the acceptance of your proposal with a short description of your situation and academic affiliation (or lack thereof). We are happy to organize childcare for researchers travelling with children of any age and kindly ask to be informed of any such needs as soon as possible after acceptance.

Applications including a title, a presentation abstract, keywords, a statement of motivation, and a short bio must be uploaded via our website. The deadline for applying is 30 April 2026.
Decisions on the acceptance of proposals will be announced by the end of May.

The isa comprises masterclasses, workshops and lectures as well as isaOnStage with public concerts, the music education program isaCommunity and the interdisciplinary academic summer school isaResearch. The mdw campus provides an ideal setting that promotes exchange between disciplines as well as the interplay of artistic excellence, social responsibility, and intercultural community.

Contact: Kathrin Heinrich isaresearch@mdw.ac.at

Websites:
https://www.isa-music.org/de/isaresearch/
https://www.mdw.ac.at/forschungsfoerderung/isaresearch/

Organization: Kathrin Heinrich, Therese Kaufmann, mdw Research Support

Academic Advisory Board:
Ass.-Prof.in Dr.in Anja Brunner, Institute for Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology (ivE)
Ass.-Prof. Scott L. Edwards, PhD, Institute for Musicology and Performance Studies (IMI)
Dr. in Magdalena Fürnkranz, Senior Scientist, Theory and History of Popular Music, Department for Popular Music (iPOP)
Mag. Dr. Juri Giannini, Senior Scientist, Institute for Musicology and Performance Studies (IMI)
Ass.-Prof.in Dr.in Marie-Anne Kohl, Institute for Musicology and Performance Studies (IMI)

Contact (announcement)

Kathrin Heinrich
isaresearch@mdw.ac.at

Organizer: Arbeitskreis Großbritannien-Forschung (German Association for British Studies) und Institut für soziale Bewegungen, Ruhr-Universität Bochum (Institute for Social Movements, Ruhr University Bochum) Venue: Institut für soziale Bewegungen, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Clemensstraße 17-19 ZIP: 44789 Location: Bochum Country: Germany Takes place: In Attendance From - Until: 16.07.2026 - 17.07.2026 Deadline: 30.04.2026 Website: https://www.hgr.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/hgr/isb/   The German Association for British Studies and the Institute for Social Movements at Ruhr-University Bochum are pleased to invite applications for a joint conference, Concepts of Freedom and the Development of Democracy in Great Britain in Historical Comparison, scheduled for July 16 – July 17, 2026 in Bochum, Germany.

This joint conference, organised by the German Association for British Studies (AGF) and the Institute for Social Movements (ISB/ISM) at Ruhr University Bochum, seeks to explore and discuss the emergence and development of freedom and democracy in Great Britain over several centuries, from the Magna Carta in the thirteenth century to the diverse forms of democracy found in the twenty-first century. It considers related political ideas and concepts, social movements and emancipatory aspirations, as well as interpretations and horizons of historical memory as received in different parts of the European continent. These discussions are intended to lay the groundwork for sustained comparisons of the reception of British ideas of freedom and democracy in continental Europe. Since the British Empire and the subsequent Commonwealth are essential to understanding large parts of British history, the conference also welcomes submissions that examine freedom and democracy in Britain and their European reception through the lens of the British Empire and the Commonwealth. The discussions will centre on two fundamental questions: What ideas of freedom and popular sovereignty developed in Britain over time? Which ideas fostered democratic developments and the establishment of liberal democracy as a form of government, society, and way of life in other parts of Europe?

The conference traces the breakthroughs and turning points in the democratisation of Great Britain and Europe, and thus the long-term establishment of modern democracy in the wake of a series of upheavals that included not only successes but also numerous failures. Diachronic and synchronic, inclusive and problem-oriented comparisons (following Charles Tilly, Jürgen Kocka et al.) of various revolutions and reform movements in Great Britain, Germany, and other European countries are intended to capture the complexity and ambivalence of ideas of freedom and of democratic development. Such comparisons may open up new perspectives on the history of democracy up to the present day. Furthermore, the struggles over memory of past actors, and of the freedom and democracy movements they supported, may motivate us to take action against today’s enemies and opponents of democracy in order to prevent its potential erosion and slow “death” (Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt).

Please submit an abstract of up to 300 words, including a title and a brief description of the proposed paper, together with a short CV (no longer than one page). The submission should include your name, institutional affiliation, and contact details. In the spirit of interdisciplinarity, we welcome contributions from the fields of history, political science, law, and the social sciences, as well as from related disciplines. Presentations by early career researchers are particularly welcome. Please send your proposals by 30 April 2026 to: Birgit Bublies-Godau, M.A., birgit.bublies-godau@rub.de, Dr Norbert Fabian, nobfabian@t-online.de, and Dr Mathis Gronau, mathis.gronau@rub.de.

The organising institutions aim to reimburse speakers in full for their travel and accommodation expenses. Publication of the conference contributions as proceedings is planned at a later stage.

Contact (announcement)

Birgit Bublies-Godau, M.A., birgit.bublies-godau@rub.de, Dr Norbert Fabian, nobfabian@t-online.de, and Dr Mathis Gronau, mathis.gronau@rub.de.

Organizer: Doubravka Olšáková, Institute of Political Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University ZIP: 15800 Location: Prague Country: Czech Republic Takes place: Hybrid From - Until: 07.09.2026 - 08.09.2026 Deadline: 19.04.2026  

How did scientists and expert communities challenge Cold War power structures? What role did knowledge, dissent, and moral authority play in shaping transnational interactions?

The conference will explore how scientists, intellectuals, and expert communities engaged with questions of dissent, responsibility, and transnational cooperation across ideological divides, with particular attention to initiatives such as the Pugwash Conferences.

Science, Dissent, and Activism: How Non-State Actors Challenged the Cold War Order

In recent years, science activism has gained renewed visibility, as scientists increasingly engage in public debates on climate change, global security, and democratic governance. These developments invite us to reconsider the historical roots of scientific activism and the longer trajectories through which non-state actors have mobilized knowledge and authority in times of geopolitical tension.

From this perspective, the Cold War emerges as a key historical laboratory for examining these dynamics. Cold War historiography has long been dominated by state-centric perspectives that privilege diplomatic elites, military institutions, and formal international organizations. In recent years, however, growing attention has been paid to non-state actors who operated across, alongside, or in tension with Cold War power structures. Scientists, intellectuals, dissidents, activists, and expert communities played a crucial role in articulating alternative forms of authority, mobilizing knowledge for political ends, and creating transnational spaces of interaction that both reflected and contested the bipolar order.

This conference seeks to advance an analytically grounded discussion of how non-state actors used science, expertise, and moral authority to challenge Cold War logics of sovereignty, security, and ideological loyalty. Particular emphasis will be placed on the interplay between knowledge production and political agency across different institutional settings, including conferences, committees, universities and research institutes, expert networks, and non-governmental organizations. A central point of reference is the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs and related initiatives, understood not only as a peace movement but as laboratories of non-state diplomacy, epistemic authority, and Cold War governance.

In addition, we are interested in contributions that examine hybrid actors occupying the space between state and non-state authority, including intergovernmental frameworks that operated as platforms of expert governance, norm production, and monitoring rather than as traditional diplomatic actors. Institutions such as the OSCE, particularly in its late Cold War and post-Cold War configurations, invite analysis as sites where non-state practices, expertise, and moral authority were institutionalized within formally intergovernmental settings. The conference aims to situate such forums within broader histories of expertise, dissent, and activism across different political systems and world regions.

We welcome empirically rich case studies as well as theoretically informed contributions from the history of science and technology, Cold War history, new diplomatic history, political sciences, international relations, political sociology, area studies, and peace studies. Comparative, transnational, and entangled perspectives are particularly encouraged.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
- Non-state actors and the reconfiguration of political authority during the Cold War;
- Science as a resource for dissent, mediation, and legitimacy;
- Institutional contexts of non-state action: conferences, committees, universities, research institutes, and NGOs;
- Tensions between loyalty, autonomy, and internationalism in scientific and expert communities;
- Informal diplomacy, expert forums, and the politics of “neutral” knowledge;
- Dissenting expertise within socialist, authoritarian, and post-colonial contexts;
- Activism, morality, and responsibility in nuclear, environmental, and peace-related debates;
- Knowledge circulation, surveillance, and control across ideological borders;
- Methodological challenges in studying non-state actors, expertise, and informal power.

Financial support for participants: Thanks to dedicated funding, we will be able to cover accommodation costs in Prague for a limited number of early career researchers and researchers in need. Applicants who wish to be considered for this support are encouraged to indicate this when submitting their proposal.

Submission Guidelines: Prospective participants are invited to submit a short abstract (max. 240 words) and a brief biographical note by 19 April 2026 to doubravka.olsakova@fsv.cuni.cz

Scientific Committee: Carola Sachse (professor emerita, University of Vienna, AT), Katja Castryck Naumann (GWZO Leipzig, DE), Kenji Ito (University of Tokyo, JAP), Doubravka Olšáková (Charles University in Prague, CZ, organizer), Michel Perottino (Charles University in Prague, CZ)

Genealogies of Memory 2026 The Lasting Presence of the Past: How Trauma Lives on Across Generations? When? 23–25 September 2026
Where? Iași, Romania

How is memory transmitted across generations? Through which processes, practices and media does this transmission occur, and how does it become visible? In what ways do the memories of one generation intersect/blend with those of the next to produce new mnemonic constellations and spaces of meaning? The process of transmission from one generation to another encompasses knowledge, memories and their emotional constellations, and is shaped by the surrounding cultural and societal context. This transmission occurs through various mechanisms, including different mnemonic layers and practices, and ranging from a personal level, such as through storytelling within families to cultural practices during commemorations, to historical narratives reinforced by education and in museums. It draws on both tangible and intangible remnants of the past. When disturbing events, due to their traumatic character, shape the memories of one generation, the transmission chain undergoes transformations that affect both the modes of recollecting and remembering the past and its content, as well as pre-established intergenerational connections. In the last century, Central and Eastern European countries experienced many traumatic events – wars, genocides, forced displacements and political repression – that created fertile ground for conflictual memories, which were further amplified globally by traumas generated elsewhere through colonial policies.

Traumas act as multiple distorting mirrors, preventing the smooth transmission between generations, fragmenting and (re)shaping memories, and repeatedly questioning the meaning, validity and significance of these memories, as well as the lives of those caught in this web of traumatic effects. Consequently, the possibility of representing trauma is questioned, and new ways of transmitting and (re)working the past become necessary (LaCapra, 2001).

For the second or third generation – those who did not directly experience the events – a process of reconstruction through collaborative remembering begins to unfold, while gaps in knowledge and memory are filled through the search for stories and remnants of the past and through accessing layers of collective narratives (Mitroiu, 2023). Family and/or community memories are supplemented by documentation processes through which collective registers of memory, such as archives, are used to assemble a shared memory. Active engagement with narrative and the (re)interpretation of past events transforms and shapes collective memory, defining the roles of agents of memory (ranging from institutions and political actors to individuals and private initiatives).

Postmemory is closely associated with the intergenerational transmission of trauma (Hirsch, 1997; 2012), and it is widely used to refer to the reconstruction of past narratives by the second generation (Schwab, 2010). Traumatic experiences are transmitted through the first generation’s recounting of events, creating a fragmentary understanding of the past for the next generation. In response, a reconstructive process based on documenting past traumas helps the second and/or third generation come to terms with the past.

This memory studies conference examines processes of transmission, transgenerational trauma, the different forms and the responses they generate, as well as the absences and silences surrounding these transmissions in different political, cultural and social contexts and through various media. Particular emphasis will be placed on Central and Eastern Europe viewed from a comparative perspective with other regions of the world. By bringing together scholars from diverse disciplines, the conference will critically engage not only with the continuing presence of the past but also with the reappropriation of past traumas, the binary and hegemonic discourse surrounding traumatic histories, the silencing of trauma narratives and the emergence of alternative histories. The academic event will reflect on the possibilities of dialogic histories and memories of trauma (Rothberg, 2009), also considering current challenges posed by antagonistic and echo-chamber dynamics in a digitally mediated memory discourse.

The conference will centre on four main aspects:
1. Processuality of transgenerational trauma transmission: This theme explores the processes, patterns and variations occurring in transmission, including silences and expressions of transgenerational trauma, while questioning generational roles within this process.

2. Hegemonic histories of trauma, counter-memories and dialogic practices: This topic examines, on the one hand, the patterns of memory created by power systems and hegemonic discourses and, on the other hand, the chances of alternative voices and expressions being created, maintained and having an impact in the face of hegemonic discourse, drawing attention to the dangers of silencing traumas and memories.

3. Artistic and reconstructive practices and forms of memory work: This theme examines the role of art within the field of memory work on the one hand, and reconstructive practices and forms on the other hand, through which second- and third-generation individuals engage with traumatic pasts they did not directly experience. It focuses on processes of postmemory, collaborative remembering, documentation and reinterpretation, as well as the use of archives, cultural artefacts and institutional memory registers, while also addressing the risks of reconstruction and representation, including fragmentation, over-identification and gaps in transmission.

4. Digital mediation of trauma and memory: This theme analyses current challenges posed by online media, including the use of past traumas to generate polarised opinions, aggressive speech and echo chambers, while also highlighting the capacity of digital spaces to challenge official narratives, critically examine widely accepted accounts of trauma and produce personal, interconnected stories and interpretations.
By integrating theoretical perspectives with challenging empirical case studies, the conference aims to foster a space for dialogue between past traumas and ongoing traumatic situations in different regions of the world. Comparative and interdisciplinary studies are particularly welcome.

We propose the following thematic blocks for presentations, although other proposals are also welcome:
● The understanding of transgenerational trauma – theoretical aspects
● (In)tangible traces of past traumas: how remnants of the past respond to the present
● Absences, silences and ruptures in trauma transmission
● Agents of memory, memory practices and transgenerational engagement with trauma
● The role of the arts in representing and transmitting trauma
● Digital technologies and new challenges

Deadline for submissions: 3 May 2026

References:
Hirsch, M. (1997) Family Frames: Photography, Narrative and Postmemory. Harvard University Press.
Hirsch, M. (2012) The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust. Columbia University Press.
LaCapra, D. (2001) Writing History, Writing Trauma. John Hopkins University Press.
Mitroiu, S. (2023) ‘Dialogic Memories in Graphic Narratives: Intergenerational Entanglements of Witnessing, Trauma and Vulnerability.’ Parallax, 29(1), 67–83.
Rothberg, M. (2009) Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization. Stanford University Press.
Schwab, G. (2010) Haunting legacies: violent histories and transgenerational trauma. Columbia University Press.

Organisational Information ● To apply, please send your proposal by filling out the following form: Apply for the 16th Genealogies of Memory Conference.
The application deadline is 3 May 2026.
● Applicants will be notified of the results in early June 2026.
● Written draft papers (2,000–2,500 words) should be submitted by 31 August 2026.
● The conference’s language is English. 
● The organisers provide accommodation for accepted speakers.
● There is no conference fee.
● If you have any further questions, please contact us at the following email address: genealogies@enrs.eu Conference convenor and the Academic Committee The convenor of the 2026 edition of the Genealogies of Memory conference is Senior Researcher Dr Simona Mitroiu.
The Academic Committee of the Conference consists of Prof. Florin Abraham, Prof. Leena Käosaar, Prof. Simo Mikkonen, Prof. Ihab Saloul, Prof. Ewelina Szpak, Prof. Catherine Teissier, Prof. Joanna Wawrzyniak and Dr. Małgorzata Pakier.
  About Genealogies of Memory With the “Genealogies of Memory” project we facilitate academic exchange between Central and East European scholars of individual and collective memory, and intend to promote this region’s study of memory among the broader international academic community.
To read more about the conference  click here.

 

30 April - 1 May 2026, University of Cambridge

Cambridge Intesa Sanpaolo Annual Conference

Convenors: Erica Bellia and Robert Gordon (Italian, MMLL, Cambridge)

 

Day 1: Thu 30 April

Performances

Judith E. Wilson Drama Studio (Faculty of English, Sidgwick Site)

14:45-15: Welcome & Introduction

15-16: Performance Mining Memories, Digging Words

(Elisa Biagini, David Cain, Marta Gentilucci)

16-16:30: Tea & coffee

16:30-18: Book discussion & music

Giulio Carlo Pantalei, Una lingua per cantare. Gli scrittori italiani e la musica leggera (Einaudi, 2025)

[Please note that the Drama Studio is in the basement.

There is a lift but please do get in touch if you have any concerns about accessibility]

 

Day 2: Fri 1 May

Conference

Room SG2, Alison Richard Building (Sidgwick Site) & online

9-11: Panel 1 | Bodies at work, voices at work

Rachel Love

Giovanna Daffini’s Labour in Song

Rachel Haworth

La Biblioteca di Studio Uno (1964) and the Unseen Labour of Bringing

Literature and Music to the Italian Small Screen

Silvia Garzarella

“Practical Instructions” for Poetry and Dance:

Machinic Composition in the Work of Nanni Balestrini

and Valeria Magli

Elisa Biagini and Marta Gentilucci

Exploring Mines, Collecting Memories

11-11:30: Tea & coffee

11:30-12:30: Keynote Lecture

Alessandro Portelli

Roma forestiera. Migrant Music as the New Folk Music of Italy

12:30-14: Lunch break

14-15:30: Panel 2 | Experimenting within and beyond the factory

Jonathan Impett

Music and Class – The Naïve and the Sublime

Olivier Tonneau

Music, Work and Transgression : Christophe Dejours and the

New Italian Musical School

Ilaria Favretto and Nico Pizzolato

Towards an Auditory History of the Factory:

Sonic Experience and Struggle on the Shopfloor

15:30-16: Tea & coffee

16-18: Panel 3 | Material and immaterial archives within and beyond Italy

Salvatore Morra

Foreboding in the Song “Tripoli 1969” as Italian Refugees

Jacopo Tomatis

The Atlas of Antagonist Discography. Italy: 1958-1980

Ed Emery

Understanding my Record Collection:

Italian Political Vinyl of the 1960s and ‘70s

Erica Bellia

Fabbrica––Foresta:

Notes on Work from Nono's Archive

Festa (details to be confirmed)

The event is free of charge and open to all, but please let us know if you plan to attend one or both days in person by registering here:

• Day 1 (30 Apr): https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1984477104440?aff=oddtdtcreator
• Day 2 (1 May): https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1984608538563?aff=oddtdtcreator 

The conference (day 2) can also be attended remotely via Zoom. Please contact theconvenors if you would like to receive the Zoom link. 

Bursaries of up to £100 may be made available to unwaged and postgraduate delegates who are not based in Cambridge. Please get in touch by 1 April if you would like to be considered: Erica Bellia (eb692@cam.ac.uk) and Robert Gordon (rscg1@cam.ac.uk)

These events are generously sponsored by the Cambridge Intesa Sanpaolo Fund, ASMI (Association for the Study of Modern Italy) and the Gulbenkian Early-Career Research Fellowship in the Arts and Humanities at Churchill College. They are organised in collaboration with OBERT (Observatoire Européen des Récits du Travail / European Observatory of Labour Narratives).

Newcastle University, Thursday 3 – Friday 4 September 2026

Children’s social care has been described as being in a state of crisis since at least 2010, with reports of poor quality care and abuse, declining numbers of carers, and a chronic under-funding of services. Yet, it remains a fundamental part of our social fabric: 1 in 4 children in England will receive some kind of service from social care before they are 18 (Jay et al. 2024).
The way we provide and experience care is shaped by a complex mix of cultural, emotional, and economic forces, and in which class, race and gender remain defining factors. Moreover, years of austerity and underfunding have dismantled vital support systems, further marginalising Care-Experienced people and those who support them. Today, families and welfare systems still struggle with the practical and emotional realities of caring for children when biological parents cannot. This involves navigating the delicate, often difficult relationships between foster parents, birth families, and the children and young people themselves, whose own voices, wishes, and identities are are not always heard, understood or valued. Despite its essential role, care roles continue to be undervalued, insecure and subject to intense scrutiny. Meaningful transformations to the current system of care cannot happen without a deep understanding of how these contexts have shifted over time.
We are particularly interested in cultural and emotional histories of care and this conference prioritises the voices, views and experiences of those often excluded from these histories – especially those with lived experience. We will foster connections between those interested in, and affected by care, and use lessons from the past to open up new conversations about what care today means and how it might look in the future. These collaborations will continue beyond the conference, resulting in a published edited collection spanning new themes and ideas emerging from these discussions.
We encourage diversity in methodological approaches, geographical scope, and religious/spiritual background. We welcome proposals for 15-minute contributions from Care-Experienced individuals, community researchers or practitioners outside of academia, in addition to abstracts from academic researchers at all career stages and across disciplines.We also invite proposals that feature creative or participatory methods, including engagement and co-production workshops, and roundtables of up to 1 hour. Please submit individual proposals, or proposals for panels of 3-4 contributions.

We are keen to address the following five themes:

1. Relational care: families, kinship and identity

Exploring the ‘human’ side of care and diverse experiences, including adoption, kinship care, fostering and institutionalisation, and how the impacts of this care is felt, remembered and negotiated within and beyond the biological family.  

2. Structures of care: class, economy and power

Exploring how macro forces like deindustrialiation, neoliberalism, and class struggle shape care provision and experience.

3. Care and labour: professionalism and practice

Exploring the history and lived reality of paid and unpaid care work, care-giving and caring, professional identity, and the ‘dark side’ of care.

4. Care environments: space, place, and the senses

Exploring the physical and sensory contexts of care, from the ‘home’ vs ‘institution’ to the material history of archives.

5. Methods and ethics

Exploring the prioritisation of sidelined voices, perspective and experiences through innovative, participatory and creative methods, reflections on care concepts, lived experience and expertise, alongside ethical reflections on sensitive research and archives.

This list is not exhaustive and we encourage proposals that speak to themes outside of these suggestions. Please send abstracts of c. 300 words and a short biography to caring.communities@newcastle.ac.uk by 24 April. Please indicate in your email if you will not be available on one of the two dates the conference is set to run: 3 and 4 September 2026.

The event will run largely as an in-person event due to limited capacity for hybrid attendance. If you would be like to contribute but can only be present online, or have other accessibility requirements or questions, please do get in touch with the team at caring.communities@newcastle.ac.uk

The conference is supported by a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship: Caring Communities: Rethinking Children’s Social Care, 1800-present (ref: MR/X034968/1) and is organised by Claudia Soares, Jade Shepherd, Jim Hinks, and Kate Wilson (Newcastle University).

Website: https://caringcommunities.co.uk/conference/

Special Issue of «Genesis»
Journal of the Italian Society of Women Historians
No. 2/2026
Edited by Marica Tolomelli and Anna Nasser

Genesis intends to dedicate a special issue to the theme “UN Conferences on Women and the Global Growth of Feminism: Tensions and Interactions.” We invite researchers at all career stages who engage with this theme to submit original articles that advance new perspectives, sources and methodologies.
The major UN Conferences on Women held between 1975 and 1995 marked significant milestones in thedevelopment of feminist movements on a global scale, building on pre-existing trajectories of international relations among women’s movements while also marking significant phases in the UN’s role as an interpreter of demands for social justice and respect for human rights. 
Despite the limitations imposed by its status as a supranational body, the UN indirectly contributed to stimulate the emergence of women’s liberation movements in various parts of the world by strengthening networks – albeit heterogeneous and fragmented – that were increasingly aware of the global interconnections binding them.
This perspective aims to provide an overview of the development of feminism/feminisms in the last quarter of the 20th century, focusing on the following thematic areas:

1. The United Nations as a subject, actor, interpreter, promoter and also regulator of social change, with particular regard to the issue of the oppression of women. In this sense, it seems important to shed light on the decision-making processes that governed the 
organization of the Conferences, with a focus on the interaction between bodies and figures of particular significance operating within the UN, and the demands expressed by civil society, often through the channels of accredited NGOs and to some extent involved in UN initiatives.

2. The programmatic points discussed within the individual Conferences, seeking to highlight:
a. whether and how they related to the prevailing contexts (which differed greatly between 1970s and the mid-1990s) in which the Conferences respectively took place;
b. whether and how the programs adopted directed government policies and movements aimed at overcoming the conditions of women’s oppression. Equality, Peace, and Development were the three watchwords that shaped the ten-year Action Plan resulting 
from the work of the first Conference Mexico City in 1975. The issue of international development, in a context that saw the launch and subsequent rise of the neoliberal agenda on a global scale, proved highly controversial. Felt most acutely by women in 
Latin America and the Global South, it was the subject of critical analysis and innovative approaches that guided the formation of new strands of transnational feminism;
c. the paths and dynamics that emerged around the themes of peace, equality, rights, with particular attention to reproductive rights. 

3. Criticisms and Reactions. Historiography and testimonies have documented some of the main criticisms of the Conferences from a feminist perspective, expressed often, but not exclusively, by activists from the Global South. Particularly lively contexts of criticism and debate were represented by the women’s forums that took place in parallel with the meetings of official delegations. From the Mexico City Tribune (1975), in which some six thousand women from numerous associations from all over the world took part, participation in the Forums that brought together the voice of NGOs, feminists, pacifists, activists in cooperation and volunteer work, etc., grew progressively, so much so that it had more than quintupled by the time of the Houairou Forum, the “counter-summit” that accompanied the Beijing Conference in 1995. Particular attention must be paid to the factors that, against the background of the geopolitical, economic, and social changes that occurred during the twodecade period under consideration, had the greatest impact on feminist movements on a global scale, in terms of both unifying and divisive forces, starting with the choice of 
strategies.

4. Continuity/Discontinuity in the dialogue between feminisms and “feminists of a single world,” entangled in the web of intersectional relationships that gave rise to quite heterogeneous positions. While in 1975 the limits and difficulties of a presumed “universal sisterhood” seemed to depend on the asymmetrical relationships between the “three worlds” in which the geopolitical space was perceived, from the late 1990s to the present day, awareness, theoretical elaborations, and experiences have accounted for the fragmentation of the feminist universe, stemming from the complexity of the multiple dimensions—social, cultural, economic, and political—present in the configuration of gender relations.
This special issue draws inspiration from the discussions that took place during the conference “Tensions and Interactions between the UN Women’s Conferences and the Global Growth of Feminism,” organized by the Department of History, Culture, and Civilization at the University of Bologna, held on October 16–17, 2025.

Call for Papers with a deadline of April 25, 2026. 
Abstracts (max 450 words) and a brief CV (max 2 pages) must be submitted by the deadline to: 
marica.tolomelli@unibo.it and anna.nasser@sant.ox.ac.uk .
Proposals must include first name, last name, affiliation, and institutional contact information. 
Selection results will be announced on May 8, 2026.
The deadline for submitting papers is October 15, 2026.

Lisbon/Portugal

Este dossier pretende reunir estudos originais que contribuam para o conhecimento aprofundado do fenómeno associativo nas suas múltiplas dimensões, privilegiando abordagens que combinem rigor metodológico com amplitude empírica e analítica. Acolhem-se propostas que, partindo de casos de estudo concretos ou de análises comparativas, problematizem a natureza do associativismo e os seus impactos nas sociedades contemporâneas. São particularmente bem-vindas contribuições que mobilizem fontes primárias inéditas ou que proponham releituras inovadoras de corpora documentais já conhecidos.

Apresentação

Este dossier pretende refletir sobre o associativismo, articulando perspetivas historiográficas, arquivísticas e dos estudos da memória. Procura-se analisar, através de estudos académicos originais, o fenómeno associativo – nas suas múltiplas configurações e funções sociais – valorizando processos transnacionais de circulação de modelos, ideias e práticas. Pretende-se igualmente dar visibilidade aos arquivos das associações e aos desafios da sua preservação, organização e acessibilidade, bem como às dinâmicas de construção da memória coletiva em torno do associativismo.

Linhas orientadoras / temáticas :

Este dossier pretende reunir estudos originais que contribuam para o conhecimento aprofundado do fenómeno associativo nas suas múltiplas dimensões, privilegiando abordagens que combinem rigor metodológico com amplitude empírica e analítica. Acolhem-se propostas que, partindo de casos de estudo concretos ou de análises comparativas, problematizem a natureza do associativismo e os seus impactos nas sociedades contemporâneas. São particularmente bem-vindas contribuições que mobilizem fontes primárias inéditas ou que proponham releituras inovadoras de corpora documentais já conhecidos. Considerando as potencialidades e desafios do objeto de estudo, propomos a submissão de propostas que abordem, mas não se limitem, aos seguintes temas :

• Raízes e Emergência do Associativismo Moderno : o Legado Pré-Liberal e a Adaptação ao Liberalismo
• Diversidade Tipológica e Funções Sociais do Associativismo
• Associativismo e Massificação da Participação Política
• Associativismo sob Regimes Autoritários e Totalitários : Resistência, Contracultura e Resiliência Comunitária
• Associativismo em Processos Revolucionários e Transições Democráticas
• Memória, Património e Arquivos do Associativismo
• Perspetivas Comparadas e Transnacionais do Associativismo

Submissão de propostas

A enviar antes de 31 de julho para o seguinte endereço: https://cadernosarquivo.cm-lisboa.pt/index.php/am/about/submissions

Scientific coordination : Joana Dias Pereira (NOVA FCSH)

Equipa Editorial

Diretora

• Helena Neves (Câmara Municipal de Lisboa, Portugal)

Editora-Chefe

• Marta Gomes (Câmara Municipal de Lisboa, Portugal)

Editores Executivos

• Ana Ribeiro (Câmara Municipal de Lisboa, Portugal)
• Nuno Martins (Câmara Municipal de Lisboa, Portugal)
• Rui Paixão (Câmara Municipal de Lisboa, Portugal)
• Sandra Cunha Pires (Câmara Municipal de Lisboa, Portugal)

Conselho Consultivo

• André Pinto Dias Teixeira CHAM, FCSH, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa e Universidade dos Açores, Portugal
• Armando Luís Gomes de Carvalho Homem Faculdade de Letras, Porto, Portugal Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa, Portugal
• Dejanirah Silva Couto Section Sciences Historiques et Philologiques, École Pratique des Hauts Études, França
• Hélder Alexandre Carita Silvestre IHA, FCSH, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Portugal
• Jorge Manuel Rios da Fonseca CEPESE – Centro de Estudos da População, Economia e Sociedade, Portugal
• José Manuel Louzada Lopes Subtil Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa, Portugal
• Maria Fernanda Baptista Bicalho Departamento e Programa Pós-Graduação em História, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brasil
• Maria Raquel Henriques da Silva IHA, FCSH, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Portugal
• Sílvio de Almeida Toledo Neto DLCV, Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas, Universidade de São Paulo, Brasil
• Teresa Leonor Magalhães do Vale ARTIS, Faculdade de Letras, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal

Contacto

• Marta Gomes
  courriel : marta [dot] gomes [at] cm-lisboa [dot] pt
• Nuno Martins
  courriel : nuno [dot] martins [at] cm-lisboa [dot] pt

Marburg/Germany

Organizer: Herder-Institut für historische Ostmitteleuropaforschung – Institut der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft ZIP: 35037 Location: Marburg Country: Germany Takes place: Digital From - Until: 23.04.2026 - Deadline: 23.04.2026 Website: https://www.copernico.eu/   The online portal “Copernico. History and Cultural Heritage in Eastern Europe” (https://www.copernico.eu/de/start) is calling for submissions for its focus topic “Many Faces of Populism. Forms and Dynamics of Populist Movements in Historical Perspective”. The aim of this focus is to explore and present historical and present-day forms of populism and diverse populist movements in Eastern Europe from the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century.

About Copernico

The new research, topic and transfer portal "Copernico. History and Cultural Heritage in Eastern Europe" brings history to life. It provides attractive and scientifically based information about the joint history and the shared cultural heritage in Eastern Europe. In addition to a thematic magazine it also offers a research database in which the services and activities of more than two dozen partner institutions from the fields of science and cultural heritage can be searched.

The portal's thematic magazine is aimed in particular at the wider public: it presents articles and content that make scientific topics and research results accessible to beginners and are attractively presented. Complex scientific apparatus and technical language are avoided, necessary technical terms are explained via infoboxes, places and countries are presented via slide-in windows with maps.

The portal covers the countries, landscapes and regions between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea.

Many Faces of Populism. Forms and Dynamics of Populist Movements in Historical Perspective

The current political rise of authoritarian populist regimes is posing a threat to democracies in various parts of the world. The support these regimes receive from significant segments of the public is the result of complex processes of political mobilization, which are driven by polarization and sustained by crises. Right-wing populism in particular appeals to the desire to restore an “authentic self,” allegedly lost through the hostile interference of an imagined cultural “Other” that must be confronted and defeated.
Alongside the promotion of traditional values and lifestyles (for example, through the “tradwife” phenomenon, which has gained international popularity), racism and anti-gender movements have contributed to the political mobilization of the so-called “political center.” Through these dynamics, attempts to curtail political rights are framed as matters of cultural politics. In this context, “gender” has become both a code word and a unifying force within these movements.
Building on these contemporary observations, this thematic issue seeks to explore historical and present-day forms of populism in Eastern Europe from the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century. We welcome both analytical background articles and focused case studies that illuminate specific facets of populism. Contributions may, for example, center on the interpretation of a photograph, poster, film excerpt, or other artifact/object as a lens through which broader developments can be examined.
The aim is to present diverse populist movements and attitudes in Eastern Europe in a way that is accessible to a broad readership. We invite submissions addressing the region as a whole, including its transnational entanglements. Topics of particular interest include:

- Restrictions on women’s rights
- Anti-gender politics
- Anti-LGBTQAI+ policies
- Racism as a mechanism of exclusion
- The revival and promotion of “national” values within authoritarian regimes
- Anti-globalism and antisemitism
- “Progressivism” as a constructed enemy image
- Fake news, conspiracy theories, and disinformation as instruments of populist politics

Formal requirements

We invite the submission of proposals in a variety of formats and genres, ranging from introductory pieces aimed at a wider audience to in-depth analytical articles addressing specific research questions. The maximum length for submissions is 12,000 characters (including spaces). Other formats—for example, short portraits of historical figures, object-based narratives, or focused discussions of selected primary sources—may be considerably shorter (4,000–6,000 characters).
Contributions exceeding 10,000 characters will additionally be published on the Herder Institute’s publication server and assigned a DOI. All contributions published on the portal include a recommended citation format, permanent links, and licensing information. All texts will be published bilingually and translated into English (if required, submissions may also be made in English and translated into German). Each contribution must include at least one compelling, high-resolution illustration, accompanied by a caption and confirmation that all necessary usage rights have been secured. Submitted articles will undergo editorial review as part of an internal evaluation process. Authors retain full usage rights to their own texts. Further guidelines for contributors, including information on illustrations and keywords, are available on the portal or upon request at copernico@herder-institut.de. The principles of good academic practice apply.
This thematic focus is partly initialized and processed through Cost Action 23149 “Democratization at Stake? Comparing Anti-Gender Politics in CEE and NME”. Respective texts will also be published as part of the action's dissemination and outreach activities (OERs).

Deadlines and Schedule

Please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words, briefly outlining the proposed contribution, to copernico@herder-institut.de by April 23, 2026. You will be notified by May 22, 2026 whether your proposal has been accepted for inclusion in the thematic focus. The deadline for submitting the completed article is September 15, 2026. The review process will take place after this.

The editors Heidi Hein-Kircher and Hans-Christian Petersen are looking forward to all submissions!

Contact (announcement)

E-Mail: copernico@herder-institut.de

Organiser: "In Global Transit: International Standing Working Group to Explore Spatial and Temporal Dimensions in Global Migration", Technische Universität Braunschweig Event format: Online talk by Dolores Augustine (St. John’s University), moderated by Stefanie Schüler Springorum (Technische Universität Berlin) and introduced by Simone Lässig (Technische Universität Braunschweig) Registration: https://queensu.zoom.us/meeting/register/PiY2mcKWSruMsGO39fe6Zw#/regist… Postcode: 38106 City: Braunschweig Country: Germany Date: 05.05.2026 Website: https://transit.hypotheses.org/permanently-in-transit  

Making a new home in a foreign country is difficult for those who have been forced to emigrate. The refugees of the Spanish Civil War, which ended in 1939, proved particularly resistant to accepting their exile as long-term, or possibly permanent, in nature. Many Spaniards lived for years in a state of liminality, to use Arnold van Gennep’s term. Keeping a proverbial packed suitcase next to the front door, they long remained emotionally in transit, as examples from France and Mexico show. The emotional geography of exile in France was molded by various factors: the suddenness with which they had to flee Spain; the geographical proximity of Spain; the desire to cross back over the Pyrenees into Spain to sow an uprising against General Francisco Franco’s regime; and the emergence of Toulouse as a center of Spanish life. Poor and under-educated exiles clung with tenacity to their insular community in France, while communists and anarchists infiltrated their homeland clandestinely. However, the better-off Spanish refugees who escaped during the Second World War to Mexico also remained in a state of limbo for a long time, awaiting Franco’s death and the possibility of return to Spain. A post-colonial studies framework can help explain their attempts to reconstruct Republican Spain in Mexico.

May 5, 2026, 6:30-7:30 PM (Central European Summer Time)

Online, registration:
https://queensu.zoom.us/meeting/register/PiY2mcKWSruMsGO39fe6Zw#/registration

Contact

Swen Steinberg (Swen.Steinberg@queensu.ca)

Bern/Switzerland   Veranstalter: Agnes Gehbald, Historisches Insitut, Universität Bern / Eva Eßlinger, Literatur-, Kunst- und Medienwissenschaften, Universität Konstanz Veranstaltungsort: Universität Bern PLZ: 3012 Ort: Bern Land: Switzerland Findet statt: In Präsenz Vom - Bis: 08.10.2026 - 10.10.2026 Deadline: 01.05.2026   Die interdisziplinäre Tagung an der Universität Bern thematisiert narrative Verfahren und Darstellungslogiken der Rückkehrerzählungen vom 19. bis zum 21. Jahrhundert. Sie soll das Spannungsfeld ausloten, das aus der komplexen Trias von Migration, Text und Macht im Brennpunkt der biographischen Schwellenerfahrung der Rückkehr entsteht.

«Remigration» wurde 2023 zum Unwort des Jahres erklärt. Die Jury befand, dass es als Kulturkampfbegriff zur Verschleierung einer menschenunwürdigen Abschiebepraxis benutzt werde. Gegenüber dieser politischen Funktionalisierung ist daran zu erinnern, dass Rückwanderungen seit jeher ein Bestandteil von Migrationsprozessen und als solche Gegenstand einer breiten Erzählpraxis sind. Rückkehrerzählungen haben individuelle Lebensläufe strukturiert, kollektiven Erinnerungen zum Ausdruck verholfen und gesell-schaftliche Narrative geprägt, und sie tun dies noch heute.

Doch wer erzählt von der Rückwanderung? Wie wird das migrantische Erleben narrativ gefasst und wie wird es sozial, politisch und kulturell gedeutet? Unter welchen Bedingungen werden die entsprechenden Erzählungen tradiert oder marginalisiert? Welche Rolle spielen dabei Gattungen, Medien und Diskurse? Unter der Prämisse einer kritisch reflexiven Migrationsforschung gilt es zu hinterfragen, in welche historische Konstellationen sich die betreffenden Erzählpraxen einfügen, inwieweit sie bestehenden Macht- und Deutungsregimen gehorchen und wo sie ein Unruhepotential entfalten, das auch auf die Selbstwahrnehmung der Sesshaften zurückwirkt.

In den letzten zwei Jahrhunderten ist die Geschichte Europas von Migrationsbewegungen geprägt. Halb vergessen wurde dabei, dass der Kontinent, der sich heute von Migrant:innen bedrängt glaubt, zumal in Phasen gesellschaftlicher und politischer Umbrüche von Emigrationen gezeichnet war: von Revolutionären und Dissidenten, Kolonialisten und Siedlern in Übersee, globalen Arbeitsmigrierenden bis hin zu Vertriebenen und Kriegsflüchtlingen. Viele von ihnen träumten oder planten ihre Rückkehr. Einige traten sie auch, zumindest temporär, an.

In einem weiten interdisziplinären Spektrum – Geschichte, Literaturwissenschaft, Ethnologie und Soziologie – bildet deshalb die Rückwanderung in die (oft nur imaginierte) Heimat ein wiederkehrendes Motiv. Zugleich ist Rückkehr jedoch eine schwer fassbare analytische Kategorie. Die Migrationsforschung hat eine Vielzahl verflochtener Dimensionen zu untersuchen: Verbindungen und (transnationale) Netzwerke von Migranten, Bedingungen für Entscheidungsprozesse zur Rückkehr, sowie nicht zuletzt Dynamiken des Ankommens und der konfliktreichen Wiedereingliederung in die Herkunftsgemeinschaft.

Rückkehrprozesse sind außerdem in hohem Maß krisenanfällig und von Ambivalenzen geprägt. Es ist deshalb kein Zufall, dass sie in verdichteter Weise narrativ bearbeitet werden: in Reiseberichten, Tagebüchern, (Auto-)Biographien, Memoiren, journalistischen Texten, Essays, Briefen, Briefnovellen, Romanen oder auch Dramen. Um der Schwellenerfahrung der Heimkehr eine Struktur zu geben, sind Formen und Muster der Erzählpraxis zentral.

Eine migrantische Grunderfahrung ist in diesem Zusammenhang, dass die Rückkehr nicht zirkulär zum verlassenen Ausgangsort zurückführt, dass sie vielmehr oft einen Moment des Verfehlens markiert. Wie alle Schwellenerfahrungen wirkt sich dies zugleich rückwirkend aus: Sie nötigt dazu, auch die Vergangenheit neu zu bestimmen, und macht aus der Biographie der jeweiligen Akteure statt einer linearen Lebensbeschreibung einen diskursiv und narrativ geformten Verhandlungsgegenstand. Das Gleiche gilt für den sozialen Raum, in dem sie sich positionieren.

Die interdisziplinäre Tagung thematisiert narrative Verfahren und Darstellungslogiken der Rückkehrerzählungen vom 19. bis zum 21. Jahrhundert. Sie soll das Spannungsfeld ausloten, das aus der komplexen Trias von Migration, Text und Macht im Brennpunkt der biographischen Schwellenerfahrung der Rückkehr entsteht.

Themenkomplexe
- Migrantische Texte: Selbstzeugnisse und Erzählstrategien der Rückkehr
- Absenz, Erwartungsstörung, Enttäuschung
- Erfahrungswissen der Heimkehrenden. Perspektivwechsel, Irritation und Innovation
- Intendierte Funktion und soziale Antwort auf Rückkehrerzählungen
- Sinnstiftendes Narrativ versus Disruption
- «Remigration» zwischen materiellen und diskursiven Realitäten

Auf der interdisziplinären Tagung, die vom 8. bis 10. Oktober 2026 an der Universität Bern ausgerichtet wird, möchten wir Beitragsideen des skizzierten Themenkomplexes Zurück. Remigrieren zwischen Geschichte und Literatur diskutieren und weiterentwickeln.

Die Initiatorinnen der Tagung, Agnes Gehbald (Universität Bern) und Eva Eßlinger (Universität Konstanz), laden alle Interessierten ein, bis zum 01. Mai 2026 Vorschläge, zusammen mit einem Kurz-CV, einzureichen. Die Abstracts sollten 500 Worte nicht überschreiten. Im Anschluss an die Tagung ist an die Publikation ausgewählter Beiträge gedacht, die Texte dafür sind bis Anfang 2027 fertigzustellen.

Die Unterbringung während der Tagung und Reisekosten können gemäß universitären Richtlinien übernommen werden.

Kontakt

agnes.gehbald@unibe.ch

Veranstalter: Verband deutscher Archivarinnen und Archivare e.V. - Landesverband Hessen (Verband deutscher Archivarinnen und Archivare e.V. - Landesverband Hessen; Institut für Stadtgeschichte Frankfurt am Main) Ausrichter: Verband deutscher Archivarinnen und Archivare e.V. - Landesverband Hessen; Institut für Stadtgeschichte Frankfurt am Main Veranstaltungsort: Institut für Stadtgeschichte im Karmeliterkloster Frankfurt am Main Gefördert durch: Die Veranstaltung wird ermöglicht dank der freundlichen Unterstützung durch das Institut für Stadtgeschichte im Karmeliterkloster Frankfurt am Main und das Hessische Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung, Kunst und Kultur. PLZ: 60311 Ort: Frankfurt am Main Land: Deutschland Findet statt: In Präsenz Vom - Bis: 16.06.2026 - Website: https://www.vda.archiv.net/lv-hessen/hessische-archivtage/47-hessischer-archivtag-2026.html   Unter dem Rahmenthema Migrationsgesellschaft(en) im Archiv. Ansätze zur Überlieferungsbildung und Vermittlung wird der 47. Hessische Archivtag 2026 in Frankfurt am Main veranstaltet, und zwar im Institut für Stadtgeschichte im Karmeliterkloster am 16.06.2026.

Unter dem Rahmenthema "Migrationsgesellschaft(en) im Archiv. Ansätze zur Überlieferungsbildung und Vermittlung" wird der 47. Hessische Archivtag 2026 im Institut für Stadtgeschichte im Karmeliterkloster Frankfurt am Main am 16.06.2026 veranstaltet. Mit Beiträgen aus hessischen Archiven aber auch von nichtarchivischen Forschungs- und Vermittlungseinrichtungen sollen Stand und aktuelle Projekte der archivbezogenen Auseinandersetzung mit dem Phänomen der Migration insbesondere nach 1945 in den Blick genommen werden.

Programm

Ab 09:00 Uhr Eintreffen und Registrierung

10:00 Uhr Eröffnung durch Dr. Peter Quadflieg (Landesvorsitzender LV Hessen des VdA e.V. )

10:15 Uhr Grußworte: Mike Josef (Oberbürgermeister der Stadt Frankfurt am Main) und Dr. Michael Ruprecht (Vorsitzender des Verbands deutscher Archivarinnen und Archivare)

10:45 Uhr Eröffnungsgespräch mit Dr. Armin von Ungern-Sternberg (Leiter Amt für multikulturelle Angelegenheiten Frankfurt a.M.).
Das Gespräch führt Dr. Mirjam Sprau, ISG Frankfurt a.M.

11:15 Uhr Kaffeepause

11:40 Uhr Sektion 1 (Moderation Dr. Stephan Schwenke)
Vortrag Arbeitsmigration in Hessen nach 1945. Aufbau einer digitalen und publizierten Quellenedition mit anschließender Diskussion
Dr. Wilfried Rudloff (Hessisches Institut für Landesgeschichte, Marburg)

Vortrag Migrationsgeschichte in amtlichen Unterlagen: Ein Blick in die Überlieferung des Stadtarchivs Wiesbaden mit anschließender Diskussion
Dr. Peter Quadflieg und Dr. Katherine Lukat (Stadtarchiv Wiesbaden)

13:00 Uhr Mittagspause

14:00 Sektion 2 (Moderation Julia Schneider)
Vortrag Erinnern, Erzählen, Vermitteln: Der Lern- und Erinnerungsort Notaufnahmelager Gießen als Brücke in die Migrationsgesellschaft
mit anschließender Diskussion
PD Dr. Florian Greiner (Lern- und Erinnerungsort Notaufnahmelager Gießen)

14:40 Uhr Runder Tisch: Migrationsgeschichte im Archiv: Aufgaben und Herausforderungen. Moderation: Julia Schneider

15:40 Uhr Kaffeepause

16:00 Uhr Aktuelle Stunde, u.a. Archivberatung Hessen, VdA-Landesvorstand, Bundeskonferenz der Kommunalarchive beim Deutschen Städtetag (BKK)

16:30 Uhr Mitgliederversammlung Landesverband Hessen des VdA
Hierzu ergeht eine gesonderte Einladung an die VdA-Mitglieder

ca. 16:45 Uhr Ende der Veranstaltung – Möglichkeit zur Teilnahme an einer Führung durch das Institut für Stadtgeschichte

by Pablo Scotto

Despite its broad legal recognition, many do not consider the right to work to be a genuine right. The reason: its identification with the public promotion of full employment, a goal that is probably unattainable in capitalist societies. The right to work therefore appears as a sort of pious wish, if not a dangerous idea: taken seriously, guaranteeing it would require a state that has little respect for private economic initiative. This book recovers an alternative conception of it. Coined by Fourier in the early 19th century, the ‘right to work’ is reinterpreted in 1848 by a new type of socialism, heir of the republican and democratic thought of the French Revolution. This socialism does not expect the state to control the entire economy, but rather that the world of work be governed by the same egalitarian principles that regulate the political sphere.

Keywords

• right to work,
• republicanism,
• socialism,
• French Revolution,
• history of political thought

Geneva/Switzerland

30 octobre 2026, Maison Internationale des Associations (MIA) – Genève
Journée d’études organisée par Lestime et les Archives contestataires

Avec le soutien de :
Service Agenda 21 – Ville durable, Ville de Genève
Maison de l'histoire, Université de Genève

La journée d’études sera introduite par une conférence d’honneur de Paola Bacchetta, professeure et directeure au Département de Gender and Women’s Studies à l’Université de Californie à Berkeley, organisée la veille, le 29 octobre, à l’Université de Genève, à l’occasion de la parution de son livre Co-Motion: Re-Thinking Power, Subjects, and Feminist and Queer Alliances (Duke University Press, 2026). Cette intervention constituera la première présentation du livre en Suisse et offrira un cadre privilégié pour engager une réflexion qui se poursuivra lors de la journée d’études.

Le 31 mars 1986, une grande manifestation en faveur du droit d’asile politique « pour les lesbiennes de tous les pays » se tenait dans les rues de Genève. Rassemblant environ 500 lesbiennes venues, entre autres, de Suisse, d’Espagne, de France, d’Italie, du Brésil, du Chili, de Thaïlande, d’Inde, du Kenya et de Slovénie, cette mobilisation se voulait le couronnement de la 8ème Conférence internationale de l’International Lesbian Information Service (ILIS), évènement qui marque un moment charnière, tant dans la trajectoire du réseau que, plus globalement, dans l’émergence d’un mouvement lesbien transnational dépassant le seul cadre euro-occidental. La participation inédite d’un nombre aussi important de lesbiennes, venues de toutes latitudes, se traduit, lors de la manifestation, par un large éventail de revendications et de prises de position, allant de la dénonciation des systèmes d’oppression – patriarcat, hétérosexualité obligatoire, colonialisme, racisme et capitalisme – à la critique des régimes fascistes et militaires, des guerres impérialistes et des politiques restrictives en matière de migrations.

À l’occasion des quarante ans de cette conférence, cette journée d’études propose de porter un regard nouveau sur l’histoire des réseaux, des espaces et des luttes qui ont façonné l’internationalisme lesbien des années 1970 aux années 2000. Celui-ci se déploie à travers un vaste répertoire d’actions collectives : participation à des conférences internationales, construction de réseaux transnationaux, pétitions, communiqués de presse, campagnes, marches, sit-in et autres actions solidaires destinées à soutenir et relayer des luttes menées dans d’autres contextes. Malgré leur importance et leur forte résonance avec les enjeux contemporains, ces mobilisations demeurent très peu documentées ; leurs archives sont dispersées sur plusieurs pays et continents, et ne sont conservées que partiellement au sein de circuits archivistiques institutionnels ou communautaires, dans un contexte marqué par la disparition progressive de leurs actrices et la fragilisation des mémoires militantes.

Afin de dresser un état des lieux des recherches et des projets de documentation et de transmission engagés dans la relecture de ces histoires, nous invitons des contributions portant sur les trois champs thématiques suivants, proposés à titre indicatif ; d’autres propositions sont également bienvenues.

1. S'organiser en réseaux

En assurant des missions de coordination et de liaison, les réseaux transnationaux ont constitué des infrastructures politiques, matérielles et affectives centrales de l’internationalisme lesbien. Une attention particulière sera portée à l’histoire de l’ILIS, qui constitue la première et la plus importante organisation internationale lesbienne, active de 1981 à 1998, année de parution de son dernier bulletin d’information. Dans ses presque vingt ans d’existence, l’ILIS a organisé plusieurs conférences internationales en Europe et soutenu la tenue de conférences lesbiennes en Amérique latine et en Asie par le biais de ses réseaux régionaux (Topini 2023, Wilson 2022, Mabut 2022, Dear 2018).  Plusieurs axes de réflexion pourront être explorés, parmi lesquels :

• la genèse de l’ILIS et ses relations avec d’autres organisations internationales, notamment l’International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) (Belmonte 2021, Ayoub et Paternotte 2016) : lancé au sein de l’ILGA en 1980, l’ILIS s’en détache dès l’année suivante, lorsque les groupes lesbiens affiliés décident d’en faire une organisation autonome.
• l’histoire de ses conférences internationales et des débats qui s’y sont tenus ;
• le rôle des groupes locaux ayant assumé le secrétariat de l’ILIS dans la co-construction de son projet internationaliste ;
• l’évolution de sa géographie entre 1981 et 1998 : d’un réseau initialement ancré en Europe occidentale à une expansion progressive vers l’Europe centrale et orientale, accompagnée de la constitution de réseaux régionaux en Amérique latine et en Asie ;
• les apports critiques des militantes racisées, migrantes et/ou issues des Suds globaux dans le décentrement et la reconfiguration de l’agenda, des priorités et de la structure du réseau.
• la continuité et les reconfigurations contemporaines du projet internationaliste lesbien, à travers des réseaux tels que l’European Lesbian* Conference (EL*C)
• la fin des activités de l’ILIS coïncide avec l’émergence de la Marche mondiale des femmes qui se structure entre 1998 et 2000 (Alba & Olavarria 2021). Y a-t-il dès lors une reconfiguration des rapports entre féminisme et lesbianisme au niveau des organisations transnationales ? Si tel est le cas, quelles en sont les modalités ?

2. Rencontres et espaces

Les espaces ont joué un rôle tout aussi crucial dans la circulation transnationale des savoirs, des pratiques et des imaginaires lesbiens. Les conférences internationales constituent à cet égard des lieux privilégiés d’échanges d’expériences et de stratégies. En parallèle des conférences organisées par l’ILIS, ces échanges se sont déployés plus largement dans le cadre d’autres rencontres féministes internationales, telles que la Conférence féministe de Francfort (15–17 novembre 1974) (Eloit 2018), le Tribunal international des crimes contre les femmes, tenu à Bruxelles du 4 au 8 mars 1976 (Le Goff 2024), ainsi que les conférences mondiales sur les femmes organisées par l’ONU. Celles de Nairobi (1985) et de Pékin (1995) se distinguent par une forte participation lesbienne, notamment dans le cadre du Forum des ONG (Levenstein 2020, Bunch & Hinojosa 2000, Wilson 1996). D’autres conférences, bien que régionalement ancrées, ont également porté une forte dimension internationaliste, à l’instar des Rencontres lesbiennes-féministes latino-américaines et des Caraïbes (RLFLAC). Celles-ci ont attiré de nombreuses militantes européennes et états-uniennes, contribuant ainsi à dynamiser les échanges Sud/Nord et à opérer un déplacement des centres épistémiques au sein de l’internationalisme lesbien (Bastian Duarte 2012, Mogrovejo 2000). L’idée des RLFLAC s’inscrit d’ailleurs dans l’histoire de l’ILIS : le projet prend forme en 1986, lorsque neuf lesbiennes latino-américaines participent à la 8ème rencontre de l’ILIS à Genève et décident alors de créer leur propre réseau (Falquet 2002).

De Femø à Eressos, en passant par l’Oregon, les camps de vacances et les terres lesbiennes ont constitué de puissants catalyseurs de l’internationalisme lesbien, offrant des espaces de vie propices à la construction de liens transnationaux (Flamant 2015). Les festivals de films et de musique – du Michigan Womyn's Music Festival aux éditions parisiennes du festival Quand les lesbiennes se font du cinéma – ont également constitué, aux côtés des librairies et des maisons d’édition indépendantes, des infrastructures centrales de cet internationalisme, permettant la venue d’autrices, d’artistes et de réalisatrices étrangères, ainsi que la mise en circulation de pensées politiques et littéraires lesbiennes (Hogan 2016, Enke 2007, Morris 2000). Enfin, les médias développés par et pour les lesbiennes (presse, radio, etc.) ont joué un rôle clé comme vecteurs de l’internationalisme lesbien de cette période, contribuant à la circulation d’appels à la solidarité (Archives contestataires 2025, McKinney 2020). Cet axe invite à interroger l’histoire de ces espaces, non seulement à partir des connexions puissantes qu’ils ont contribué à forger, mais aussi à l’aune des frictions, des conflits et des exclusions qui les ont traversés.

3. Luttes, revendications, coalitions

L’internationalisme lesbien s’est construit au croisement de multiples luttes politiques, en dialogue – mais parfois aussi en tension – avec les combats (trans)féministes, LGBTQ+, antiracistes, anti-impérialistes, anticoloniaux, antifascistes et antimilitaristes. Il s’est également structuré autour de revendications plus spécifiques, telles que les luttes des mères lesbiennes pour la garde de leurs enfants et la reconnaissance de leurs droits reproductifs (Griffin & Mulholland 1997); les initiatives en faveur d’espaces plus inclusifs et accessibles aux lesbiennes handicapées (Corbman 2018); les actions menées par des lesbiennes migrantes et exilées contre les régimes répressifs dans leurs pays d’origine et contre le racisme dans les pays d’accueil (Falquet 2021, Bacchetta 2009); ou encore, les mobilisations liées à l’épidémie de VIH/sida et au breast cancer activism, qui ont constitué des leviers majeurs de reconfiguration des solidarités féministes et LGBTIQ+ à l’échelle transnationale (Sullivan 2017).

Les propositions pourront notamment explorer : la solidarité internationale comme travail politique pratiqué au quotidien (campagnes de soutien, collectes de fonds, accueil de militantes en exil, traduction, etc.); les stratégies développées pour mettre en place des alliances « potentiatrices » (Bacchetta 2025, Bacchetta 2010) et pour penser un internationalisme lesbien non hégémonique, attentif aux contextes locaux, aux formes de résistance situées et aux rapports de domination (hiérarchies Nord/Sud, asymétries de ressources, de visibilité et de circulation, etc.) (Jong 2017, Curiel 2016, Reinfelder 1996); les défis et les apprentissages qui ont accompagné ces coalitions; les tensions entre les tendances autonomes et les processus d’institutionnalisation et de professionnalisation des réseaux militants, qui connaissent un tournant dans les années 1990 et 2000 (Neveu 2020); la manière dont ces mobilisations continuent de nous inspirer aujourd’hui, dans un rapport dynamique entre luttes passées et luttes présentes.

Modalités de soumission

Merci d’envoyer un résumé (300 mots maximum) ainsi qu’une courte biographie (150 mots maximum) à l’adresse suivante : ilis86@archivescontestataires.ch. La date limite d’envoi est fixée au 8 avril 2026. Les décisions de sélection seront communiquées le 22 avril 2026.

Bibliographie

Alba, Carmen Leticia Díaz, and Margot Olavarria. 2021. “The World March of Women: Popular Feminisms, Transnational Struggles.” Latin American Perspectives 48 (5): 96–112.

Archives contestataires (ed.). 2025. Nous ne nous tairons plus: pratiques féministes de la radio et leurs contextes (1975–2000). Genève. https://radio.archivescontestataires.ch/.

Ayoub, Phillip M., and David Paternotte. 2016. “L’International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) et l’expansion du militantisme LGBT dans une Europe unifiée.” Critique Internationale, 70: 55–70.

Bacchetta, Paola. 2009. “Co-formations : des spatialités de résistance décoloniales chez les lesbiennes “of color” en France.” Genre, sexualité & société 1 (printemps).

———. 2010. “Réflexions sur les alliances féministes transnationales.” In Le sexe de la mondialisation. Genre, classe, race et nouvelle division du travail, 259–274. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.

———. 2026. Co-Motion: Re-Thinking Power, Subjects, and Feminist and Queer Alliances. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Bastian Duarte, Angela Ixkic. 2012. “From the Margins of Latin American Feminism: Indigenous and Lesbian Feminisms.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 38: 153–178.

Belmonte, Laura A. 2021. The International LGBT Rights Movement: A History. London: Bloomsbury.

Bunch, Charlotte, and Claudia Hinojosa. 2000. Lesbians Travel the Roads of Feminism Globally. Report. New Brunswick, NJ: Center for Women’s Global Leadership, Rutgers University.

Corbman, Rachel. 2018. “Remediating Disability Activism in the Lesbian Feminist Archive.” Continuum 32 (1): 18–28.

Curiel, Ochy. 2016. “Rethinking Radical Anti-Racist Feminist Politics in a Global Neoliberal Context.” Meridians 14 (2): 46–55.

Dear, Belinda. 2018. Learning from the Past: Retrieving the Herstory of International Lesbian Organizing: The International Lesbian Information Service, 1980–1998. Amsterdam: IHLIA LGBT Heritage.

Eloit, Ilana. 2018. Lesbian trouble: feminism, heterosexuality and the French nation (1970–1981). PhD thesis,

London School of Economics and Political Sciences.

Enke, A. Finn. 2007. Finding the Movement: Sexuality, Contested Space, and Feminist Activism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Falquet, Jules. 2021. “De la lutte contre le racisme au soutien aux demandeuses d’asile lesbiennes : expériences lesbiennes féministes en France depuis la fin des années 1990.” Recherches féministes, 33 (2): 129–148.

———.  (réal. et trad.). 2002. “Entretien avec Neusa Das Dores Pereira et Elizabeth Calvet. Lesbianisme noir au Brésil. Autour de la 5e Rencontre lesbienne féministe latino-américaine et des Caraïbes (Rio de Janeiro, mars 1999).” Nouvelles Questions Féministes 21 (1): 110–124.

Flamant, Françoise. 2015. Women’s Lands: Construction d’une utopie, Oregon, USA 1970–2010. Paris: IXe Éditions.

Griffin, Kate, and Lisa A. Mulholland, eds. 1997. Lesbian Motherhood in Europe. London: Cassell.

Hogan, Kristen. 2016. The Feminist Bookstore Movement: Lesbian Racism and Accountability. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Jong, Sara. 2017. Complicit Sisters: Gender and Women’s Issues across North–South Divides. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Le Goff, Milène. 2024. ““J’aime les femmes. Et vous ?” Se dire lesbienne au Tribunal international des crimes contre les femmes (1976).” Clio. Femmes, Genre, Histoire 60 (2): 159–171.

Levenstein, Lisa. 2020. They Didn’t See Us Coming: The Hidden History of Feminism in the Nineties. New York: Basic Books.

Mabut, Thibaud. 2022. Construction d’un transnationalisme lesbien : le Service international d’information lesbien (ILIS). Mémoire de bachelor en relations internationales, Global Studies Institute, Université de Genève.

McKinney, Cait. 2020. Information Activism: A Queer History of Lesbian Media Technologies. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Mogrovejo, Norma. 2000. Un amor que se atrevió a decir su nombre: La lucha de las lesbianas y su relación con los movimientos homosexual y feminista en América Latina. México: Plaza y Valdés.

Morris, Bonnie J. 2000. Eden Built by Eves: The Culture of Women’s Music Festivals. Boston: Alyson Books.

Neveu, Érik. 2020. “Institutionnalisation des mouvements sociaux.” In Dictionnaire des mouvements sociaux, 2e éd. mise à jour et augmentée, 314–321. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.

Reinfelder, Monika, ed. 1996. Amazon to Zami: Towards a Global Lesbian Feminism. London: Cassell.

Sullivan, Mairead. 2018. “A Crisis Emerges: Lesbian Health between Breast Cancer and HIV/AIDS.” Journal of Lesbian Studies 22 (2): 220–34.

Topini, Carolina. 2023. Voyages, rencontres, traductions. La fabrique d’un féminisme transnational dans les années 1970–1990 (Italie, Europe, États-Unis). Thèse de doctorat, IGEND, Université de Genève.

Wilson, Anne Marie. 2022. “Dutch Women and the Lesbian International.” Women’s History Review 31 (1): 126–153.

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Throughout all its manifestations, the structure of enslavement is designed to maintain control over people through the privation of rights. As such, privacy may seem a distant concept to enslaved people both past and present. What is private in a setting of constant surveillance? Can a kinship bond be private whilst commodified? And how is it possible to raise questions about the privacies of those who leave very few records of their own and live much of their lives under the control of others? In this conference, we invite artists and academics to engage with these and similar questions by convening in a spirit of open-minded curiosity and creative approaches to knowledge production. We hope to produce new ways of thinking about slavery that may generate awareness about this ancient and sadly also contemporary phenomenon in ways that could alter its future.

Studies within the emerging field of historical privacy studies have shown that, historically, both privacy and privacy-related phenomena such as intimacy, secrecy, family, and domesticity existed and mattered in surprising contexts and ways. Is this also the case today? Although conventional ideas of privacy might seem almost intuitively opposed to life under enslavement and other forms of subjugation, this does not mean that enslaved people simply submit to doing without it. Across history, privacy is perceived as both a quality and risk: too little may threaten the individual while too much may ruin society. In this conference, we wish to examine how no­tions and practices of privacy shape relations between individuals and communities when the exploitation of enslaved labour, in its historical and contemporary forms, is part of the social status quo.

By using historical privacy studies as a lens on practices of enslavement, we begin to understand the intersection of societal macro- and microstructures. We can study the ways enslaved people manage to carve out pockets of privacy, what occurs when that privacy is breached, and how privacy-curbing and -enforcing methods are used and perceived by authorities as means to enforce social hierarchies.

The privacy perspective raises an array of urgent questions: When does privacy curb the freedom of individuals, and when does it protect it? Should privacy under slavery be seen as a form of resistance, or are private spaces controlled and defined by the oppressors? Under what circumstances does privacy contribute to practices of enslavement and the privation of rights? When does domestic spaces, for instance, enable bonds of servitude such as trafficking, forced marriage, and debt bondage? Do the privacy rights of companies and states contribute to industrial slavery? What do the private spaces of enslaved people look like? How are they produced? What is their agency? How can we study them? And how can artistic and academic practices inform each other in producing knowledge about these and similar questions? 

In this three-day conference we invite artists and academics dealing with slavery past and present to convene around the topic of privacy. We wish to generate new knowledge about practices of enslavement and the ways in which privacy has been, and continues to be, used as a means of social resistance and control. 

We aim for a global perspective spanning all time periods and welcome papers from a wide range of fields to foster cross- and interdisciplinary approaches to the topic. We are interested in aesthetic engagements and representations, conceptual definitions, and practices of slavery/enslavement and privacy/the private that are represented and interpreted through artistic performances, artworks and research. Themes of interest include (but are not limited to):

• The materiality and spatial organization of enslaved peoples’ privacy
• Symbolic dimensions of privacy within contexts of slavery and enslavement
• The lived experience of enslaved peoples’ privacy
• Privacy as resistance against practices and structures of enslavement
• Privacy within the infrastructures of slavery and vice versa
• Religious and spiritual dimensions of privacy and slavery as justification, resistance and practice
• Privacy as a threat or as a quality in relation to practices of enslavement and notions of slavery
• Archival, ethical, and methodological issues relating to the study of privacy and slavery

Before the conference, on 14-15 September 2026, we will arrange an online workshop where participants will be invited to share early drafts of papers, presentations, and project ideas, as well as giving and receiving peer feedback. This pre-event is very much a matter of presenting works-in-progress in a spirit of open-minded curiosity. Participants may simply present empirical material, initial research questions or methodological questions. The aim of the workshop is twofold: on the one hand, we wish to encourage crosspollination and thematic resonance between the individual contributions to the final conference; on the other hand, we wish to explore the productive tensions arising in the encounter between academic and artistic approaches to knowledge production.

The event takes place on 21-23 October 2026 at the Centre for Privacy Studies, University of Copenhagen and is organized by Assistant Professors Bastian Felter Vaucanson (PRIVACY), Francis Ethelbert Kwabena Benyah (PRIVACY), Felicia J. Fricke (PRIVACY), and PhD Student Hannah Katharina Hjorth (PRIVACY), as well as curator and postdoc Anne Julie Arnfred (PASS) and Professor Mikkel Bogh (PASS).

For more information about PRIVACY and PASS please visit: https://teol.ku.dk/privacy/ and https://pass.ku.dk/.

Submission guidelines 

Abstracts should be no more than 300 words, accompanied by a short bio (max 150 words) and submitted by 1 April 2026 to Bastian Felter Vaucanson (bva@teol.ku.dk) and Anne Julie Arnfred (aja@hum.ku.dk). Accepted papers will be notified by 1 June 2026. We look forward to reading your proposals! 

Travel bursaries for non-funded artists and PhD students may be offered, pending the results of our funding applications. Those interested in applying for a bursary should indicate this when submitting their abstract and specify the location from which they will be traveling. To ensure as diverse and globally representative an event as possible, priority will be given to applicants traveling from non-Western countries.

 

Potsdam/Germany   Veranstalter: Christian Stachelbeck / Frank Reichherzer / Pierre Köckert / Martin Schulz, Zentrum für Militärgeschichte und Sozialwissenschaften der Bundeswehr Veranstaltungsort: Zeppelinstraße 127/128 PLZ: 14471 Ort: Potsdam Land: Deutschland Findet statt: In Präsenz Vom - Bis: 07.10.2026 - 08.10.2026 Deadline: 30.06.2026  

Der Workshop „Vom deutschen Kolonialkrieg zur postkolonialen Erinnerung. Transformation und Deutung kolonialer militärischer Gewalt“ lädt zur Einreichung von Beiträgen ein. Im Zentrum steht die Frage, ob und wie sich koloniale militärische Gewalt über 1918 hinaus fortschrieb, transformierte oder in neuen politischen Kontexten gedeutet wurde. Diskutiert werden mögliche personelle, institutionelle und diskursive Anschlussstellen ebenso wie Brüche und Distanzierungen. Willkommen sind Beiträge zur Rolle militärischer Akteure und Institutionen, zu Gewaltsemantiken, Traditionslinien, musealen Repräsentationen sowie zu öffentlichen Narrativen kolonialer Militärgewalt.

Vom deutschen Kolonialkrieg zur postkolonialen Erinnerung. Transformation und Deutung kolonialer militärischer Gewalt

Mit dem dritten Workshop tritt das Forschungsprojekt „Deutsches Militär im kolonialen Einsatz 1880–1918. Ein Kontinuum der Gewalt“ in seine abschließende Phase ein. Während die ersten beiden Veranstaltungen theoretische Grundlagen, organisatorische Strukturen und konkrete Einsatzpraktiken kolonialer militärischer Gewalt untersucht haben, richtet sich der Blick nun auf deren mittel- und langfristige Nachwirkungen bis in die Gegenwart.

Im Zentrum steht die kritische Prüfung der im Projekt entwickelten These eines „Kontinuums militärischer Gewalt“. Ist dieses Kontinuum über 1918 hinaus analytisch tragfähig, oder stößt das Konzept bei genauerer Untersuchung an seine Grenzen? Das Kontinuum wird dabei ausdrücklich als heuristisches Prüfmodell verstanden. Ziel ist nicht die Konstruktion linearer Fortsetzungslinien, sondern die Analyse möglicher Anschlussstellen ebenso wie klarer Brüche.

Gefragt wird insbesondere nach Transfers exzessiver Gewaltformen, nach Übertragungen alltäglicher militärischer Routinen und Organisationsmuster, nach personellen und institutionellen Anschlussstellen sowie nach Rückkopplungseffekten zwischen Kolonie und „Metropole“. Der Schwerpunkt liegt nicht primär auf militärischer Praxis nach 1918 als solcher, sondern auf deren Verarbeitung, Umdeutung, Institutionalisierung und öffentlicher Rahmung in unterschiedlichen politischen Ordnungen (Weimarer Republik, NS-Staat, Bundesrepublik bis in die Gegenwart).

Der Workshop folgt einer militärhistorischen Perspektive. Beiträge sollten die spezifische Rolle militärischer Akteure, Institutionen, Organisationsformen oder Gewaltpraktiken erkennbar berücksichtigen. Postkoloniale, kultur- oder wissenshistorische Ansätze sind willkommen, sofern sie zur Analyse militärischer Gewalt und ihrer Transformation beitragen. Vergleichende und transimperiale Perspektiven sind ausdrücklich erwünscht.

Mögliche Themenfelder

- Personelle Kontinuitäten und Karrierewege
- Militärische Ausbildungsinhalte und Traditionslinien
- Gewaltsemantiken und Deutungsmuster
- Vergleich militärischer Praxis in unterschiedlichen politischen Systemen
- Traditionsdokumente und Selbstverortungen militärischer Institutionen
- Strategische Distanzierungen oder funktionale Bezugnahmen
- Verhältnis von symbolischer Kontinuität und tatsächlicher Praxis
- Museale Repräsentationen kolonialer Militärgewalt
- Restitutionsdebatten im Spannungsfeld militärhistorischer Kontextualisierung
- Öffentliche Narrative und erinnerungskulturelle Aushandlungen
- Einfluss gegenwärtiger Traditions- und Erinnerungspolitiken auf historiographische Kategorien

Der Workshop ist als diskussionsorientiertes Format konzipiert. Kurze Impulsvorträge von maximal zehn Minuten bilden den Ausgangspunkt für ausführliche Diskussionen.

Zielsetzung

Der Workshop bildet die argumentative Abschlussphase des Gesamtprojekts. Ziel ist es, die Reichweite und die analytischen Grenzen des Kontinuum-Konzepts im Lichte der vorgestellten Befunde zu diskutieren und die Ergebnisse für die geplante Publikation zu bündeln.

Publikation

Ausgewählte Beiträge werden zu einem Special Issue (peer-reviewed) eingeladen, das die zentralen Ergebnisse der Workshop-Serie bündelt.

Kontakt

Bitte senden Sie ein Abstract (max. 300 Wörter) sowie eine kurze biographische Notiz bis zum 30.06.2026 an:

Martin27Schulz@bundeswehr.org

Benachrichtigung über die Annahme erfolgt bis zum 06.07.2026.

Reise- und Übernachtungskosten können im Rahmen des Bundesreisekostengesetzes übernommen werden.
Nachwuchswissenschaftlerinnen und Nachwuchswissenschaftler sind ausdrücklich zur Bewerbung eingeladen.

Konzeptionelle Rückfragen zum Workshop können an Dr. Pierre Köckert (ZMSBw) gerichtet werden: PierreKoeckert@bundeswehr.org

Grenoble/France

How can we fight against the harmfulness of work? The concept of “harmfulness” (“nocività”) emerged from Italian political and trade union reflections in the second half of the 20th century. It refers to the detrimental effects of work on both health and the environment (Feltrin, Sacchetto, 2021) and serves to articulate the relationship between these two. The aim of this conference is to explore the forms of social creativity expressed in workers’ struggles against the health and environmental damage caused by production and reproduction activities.

By strengthening dialogue between research on the “environmentalism of the poor” (Martinez-Alier, 2003, 2023) and recent work on labour environmentalism (Barca, 2015; Bécot, 2015; Davigo, 2017; Thirion, 2024), we seek to shed light on the knowledge and practices generated by social groups at the forefront of the damage caused by work. Previous studies have focused primarily on countries with a long history of industrialization and on the postwar decades. To broaden these perspectives, this conference will propose two kinds of expansion:

• Geographical: toward territories with more recent industrialization, where repertoires of action may be less closely linked to traditional labour movements;
• Chronological: to understand the longer temporalities of certain struggles, and focus the attention on understudied historical moments, such as the interwar period or the decades of deindustrialization.

Using a multidisciplinary approach (historical, sociological, geographical, anthropological, epidemiological, medical, and others), we will examine the diversity of mobilizations while reflecting on the strengths and limitations of the forms they take. At a time when environmental policies tend to result in the “ecological dispossession of the working classes,” the objective is to explore which socio-ecological configurations fostered struggles against harmfulness and how actors confronted with constraints and obstacles. Furthermore, we wish to emphasise that such actions remain a current—and often neglected—component of the ecological condition of social classes (Collectif Classes Vertes, 2024).

Work is understood here in a broad sense: we aim to encompass mobilisations organised in paid sectors—including productive work(agriculture, industry) and services (transportation, public administration, care, etc.)—as well as in reproductive work, covering a range of activities (material, emotional, or educational) that are rarely remunerated (Fortunati, 1982; Sarti, Bellavitis, Martini, 2018; Barca, 2020; Gallot, Harari-Kermadec, 2024). This broad definition of work allows us to grasp how red flags of harmfulness take shape within particular activities, and to better identify the actors who facilitate the transmission of these alerts across the different spheres of work.

In this perspective, we will also consider the production of knowledge and practices that have contributed to reinventing occupational medicine, as well as the mobilisations of scientists and doctors defending occupational and environmental health (Marri, Oddone, 1967; Oddone, 1974, 1978; Laure Pitti, 2009; Marichalar, Pitti, 2013; Centemeri, 2022).

We invite researchers from all disciplines to submit original contributions based on concrete case studies to ground reflection in specific territories and give substance to the narratives of struggle. Contributions should rely on a variety of sources (maps, testimonies, documents, photographs, videos, etc.) that help articulate analysis and the materiality of mobilisations. The goal of this call is to build a multidisciplinary research team toward a project for a global atlas of workers’ mobilisations around health and environmental issues, aiming to map, contextualize, and document these conflicts worldwide.

We welcome in particular submissions focusing on non-Western contexts. Such perspectives, still underrepresented in research on health- and environment-related labour mobilisations, provide essential insights for widening analytical frameworks, highlighting the diversity of collective experiences, and fostering a truly global reflection on the relationships between work, health, and environment.

The material dimension of struggles is strictly related with the materiality of sources used to reconstruct their history and stakes. In France, the abolition of Comités d’hygiène, de sécurité et des conditions de travail by the 2017 executive order raises, among other things, questions about the fate and preservation of their valuable archives. The growing use of digitalised sources (such as those from the Centro ricerche e documentazione rischi e danni da lavoro in Italy) reflects a major shift in archival access. Yet the status of digital archives, the sustainability of digitalisation projects, and the future of historiographical research based increasingly on immaterial sources are serious concerns for scholars. Although archives are not the conference’s central topic, participants are encouraged to take these issues into account in their reflections.

Beyond traditional academic presentations, other formats will be especially welcome—such as dialogues between researchers and activists, or presentations by activists or association representatives about past or ongoing struggles.

Our discussions will be guided by several lines of inquiry:

• Building collectives: Who are the actors in these mobilisations? What forms do the groups take? How are they connected to existing collectives? Are they short-lived or long-lasting? How are they organised and how do they function? What ties do they maintain with other collectives or professional figures (physicians, lawyers, etc.)?
• Producing counter-expertise and counter-information: How is knowledge about health and environment produced by those mobilised? How is it disseminated, to what effect, and who are its main audiences (other workers, local residents, public opinion, etc.)?
• Mobilising repertoires of action: How do mobilisations take shape in practice? How do these practices evolve over time? What imaginaries do they draw upon?
• Forging class pride: Through what instruments is socio-professional identity built among participants? How does their social perception of work change through conflict? What forms of commitment have opposed the coercion of the “employment blackmail”?
• Engaging territories: How are the environmental impacts of work conceptualised? How do mobilisations root themselves in specific territories, and on what scales? How do militant practices circulate between territories, and through which actors?
• Resisting green backlash: When mobilisations face repression or institutional dismantling, how do actors reorganise? How are their goals reoriented? What new forms of action emerge in such contexts? Given that such backlash often seeks to erase the history of these mobilisations, how do activists work to preserve the visibility of their causes?

This conference will take place on the 50th anniversary of a conference dedicated to responsibility in workplace accidents and diseases, organized in Grenoble by the CGT, CFDT, and Syndicat de la magistrature (January 31–February 1, 1976). Occurring amid heated debates over occupational legislation, that event marked a significant moment. As professional and environmental contamination remain subjects of recurring controversy and socio-ecological struggle, this conference on the fight against harmfulness will welcome not only academic researchers but also health professionals, prevention key actors, and union or association activists who wish to participate.

Submission Guidelines and Timeline

The conference languages will be French, English, Italian, and Spanish.

Submissions from non-tenured researchers are particularly welcome.

The conference will be held in person.

Proposals should be sent to luttercontrelanocivite@gmail.com and must include:

• A title
• An abstract of the paper indicating the sources analysed (300–500 words)
• A short biographical note (150 words)

All elements (proposal and biography) should be submitted as a single PDF file.

Submission deadline: 30 April 2026
Notification of acceptance or rejection: before the beginning of summer

The organising committee cannot guarantee full coverage of transportation costs for speakers. We invite you to inform us of any potential needs, which we will address depending on the available financial support.

Organising Comittee

-          Estelle Amilien (UGA, ILCEA4)

-          Renaud Bécot (SciencePo Grenoble, Pacte)

-          Elisa Santalena (UGA, LUHCIE)

-          Marie Thirion (UGA, LUHCIE)

Scientific Committee

-          Mikaël Chambru (MCF en sciences sociales, UGA)

-          Emilie Counil (Chargée de recherche en épidémiologie à l’INED)

-          Marie Ghis Malfilatre (Chargée de recherche en sociologie, CNRS, Pacte)

-          Emanuele Leonardi (MCF en sociologie, Università di Bologna)

-          Judith Rainhorn (PR en histoire sociale contemporaine, Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne)

-          Nicolas Renahy (chercheur au Centre d'économie et de sociologie appliquées à l'agriculture et aux espaces ruraux - CESAER, INRAE-Institut Agro Dijon)

-          Amalia Rossi (Fellow Researcher at THE NEW INSTITUTE – Center for Environmental Humanities (NICHE))

-          Dr Borhane Slama (Onco-Hématologue, Chef de pole de Cancérologie Publique de Territoire, Président de la Commission Médicale du Groupement 84)

-          Bruno Strasser (PR en histoire des sciences et de la médecine, Université de Genève)

-          Gilda Zazzara (MCF en histoire contemporaine, Università Ca’ Foscari, Venezia)

Contact Information

Organising Comittee

-          Estelle Amilien (UGA, ILCEA4)

-          Renaud Bécot (SciencePo Grenoble, Pacte)

-          Elisa Santalena (UGA, LUHCIE)

-          Marie Thirion (UGA, LUHCIE)

Contact Email: luttercontrelanocivite@gmail.com

Saint-Denis/France

Ce colloque, qui se tient le 19 et 20 novembre 2026 à l’université de Paris 8 Vincennes-St Denis, entend réunir des chercheurs travaillant sur l’histoire de la migration portugaise durant l’entre-deux-guerres. Il s’agit de créer un espace de dialogue et de débat scientifique fondé sur un regard multidirectionnel et à géographies multiples pour mettre en évidence les apports et les nouvelles approches de la recherche vers lesquelles la communauté scientifique s’est plus récemment orientée.

Ce colloque entend réunir des chercheurs travaillant sur l’histoire de la migration portugaise durant l’entre-deux-guerres. Il s’agit de créer un espace de dialogue et de débat scientifique fondé sur un regard multidirectionnel et à géographies multiples pour mettre en évidence les apports et les nouvelles approches de la recherche vers lesquelles la communauté scientifique s’est plus récemment orientée. 

Les périodes du XIXᵉ siècle et des Trente Glorieuses ont été privilégiées dans l’étude de la migration portugaise. Qu’il s’agisse d’une migration dans les pays transatlantiques ou européens, nous disposons de quelques travaux portant un regard sur l’entre-deux-guerres, mais ceux-ci demeurent lacunaires, fragmentées et parfois obsolètes. Il convient donc de mieux comprendre les caractéristiques de cette migration, ses enjeux et ses impacts, dans un contexte politique national et international marqué par de profonds changements.

L’entre-deux-guerres constitue une période clé de l’histoire de la migration portugaise. Elle est marquée par un renouveau et une intensification des mouvements migratoires internationaux au lendemain de la Première Guerre mondiale ; par une forte attraction exercée sur les travailleurs migrants par des pays transatlantiques tels que les États-Unis ou le Brésil ; mais aussi par l’ouverture vers de nouvelles destinations, comme la France, qui deviendra à partir des années 1960 le principal pays d’installation des migrants portugais. Elle correspond également à un moment où des mesures visant à renforcer le contrôle des entrées et de la présence des migrants sont mises en place, notamment dans le contexte de la crise économique de 1929 et de la Grande Dépression.

Ce colloque vise ainsi à ouvrir la réflexion à différents sujets et thématiques liés à l’histoire de la migration portugaise, en mobilisant aussi bien des approches multidisciplinaires que des perspectives permettant de comprendre et de questionner ce phénomène. Elle s’adresse à des chercheurs travaillant sur la migration portugaise en contexte transatlantique comme européen.

Les thèmes pouvant être abordés sont les suivants :

• Guerres mondiales et migration portugaise
• Exil, opposition et résistance
• Réseaux d’accueil et de soutien
• Engagement politique et syndical
• Émigration irrégulière
• Migration, migrants, gestion policière et administrative
• Politiques d’émigration et d’immigration
• Politiques et pratiques de rejet
• Agentivité des migrants
• Structures communautaires
• Santé et migration portugaise
• Migration, retours volontaires et forcés
• Migration et presse
• Mémoire de la migration portugaise

Tout autre sujet pouvant être considéré d’intérêt scientifique pour la compréhension de l’histoire de la migration portugaise durant l’entre-deux-guerres. 

Soumission des propositions

Les propositions de communication devront inclure un résumé (jusqu’à 250 mots), un titre, le nom de l’auteur, son affiliation institutionnelle ainsi qu’une courte note biographique (jusqu’à 200 mots). Les propositions en français, anglais et portugais sont acceptées.

Les propositions devront être envoyées à l’adresse e-mail histmigport@gmail.com avant le 30 avril 2026.

Organisation

• Cristina Clímaco (Université Paris 8 – LER)
• Yvette dos Santos (NOVA FCSH - IHC-In2Past)

Commission scientifique

• Alberto Pena Rodriguez, chercheur, Université de Vigo
• Armelle Enders, Professeur des Universités, Université Paris 8/IFG Lab; 
• Delphine Diaz, Maîtresse de Conférences, Université de Reims, CERHIC, IUF
• Érica Sarmiento, Professeure Associée d’histoire de l’Amérique- Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ)
• Heloisa Paulo, chercheuse, Université de Coimbra
• Irene dos Santos, chercheuse, CNRS/ URMIS
• Marcelo Borges, Professeur, titulaire de la chaire Boyd Lee Spahr d’Histoire des Amériques, Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvanie
• Marie-Christine Volovitch Tavares, chercheuse indépendante, vice-présidente du CERMI
• Philippe Rygiel, Professeur des Universités, ENS Lyon/INRIA
• Sónia Ferreira, chercheuse, NOVA FCSH/CRIA  
• Sylvie Aprile, Professeure des universités émérite, ISP
• Victor Pereira, chercheur, NOVA FCSH/IHC-In2Past

L’IHC est financé par des fonds nationaux par l’intermédiaire de la FCT — Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., dans le cadre des projets UID/04209/2025 (DOI : https://doi.org/10.54499/UID/04209/2025) et LA/P/0132/2020 (DOI : https://doi.org/10.54499/LA/P/0132/2020).

Lieu

• Université Paris VIII Vincennes-Saint Denis - 2 Rue de la Liberté
  Saint-Denis, Frankreich (93)

Format de l'événementeranstaltungsformat

Date limite

• Jeudi 30 avril 2026

Appendice

• Appel à communication_colloque_Fr_Pt_Eng.pdf

Mots-clés

• migration contemporaine, entre-deux-guerre, migration portugaise

Contact

• Santos Yvette
  courriel : histmigport [at] gmail [dot] com

This project examines the intersections of utopian thought, social experimentation, and colonial practice through case studies in colonial and postcolonial contexts. By foregrounding lived practices and global entanglements, it approaches early socialism not as a prelude to later ideologies but as a dynamic and contested field of social and political innovation. The analysis highlights how ideas of communal labor, association, and reform were tested and transformed under conditions of empire, and how such experiments functioned as spaces of negotiation shaped by material infrastructures, symbolic projections, and unequal power relations.

Combining empirical research with conceptual reflection, the project reassesses the role of colonial settings as laboratories of social reordering and explores the broader implications for the history of utopianism and modern social thought. Its outcomes include peer-reviewed publications, international conferences, and collaborative workshops that bring together scholars across disciplines to reflect on the entanglements of socialism, colonialism, and visions of alternative futures.

The working group has been active since 2017, beginning with a publication in Francia that explored intersections between utopianism, socialism, colonialism, and the history of early socialism more broadly. Over the years, it has provided a framework for student theses, academic conferences, and collaborative publications. Within this broader context, the current project has produced numerous international presentations and publications. 

Conference Announcement 

Revisiting the First Socialisms: Histories, Debates, and Contemporary Resonances

The international conference explores the diversity of socialist thought and practice in the early nineteenth century. Special attention is given to colonial entanglements, alongside conceptual reflections, gender perspectives, and the practices of communities, work, and institutions. Further panels examine political semantics and imaginaries that shaped socialist discourse. The concluding session will address the environmental crisis and the renewed relevance of utopian thinking.

Organisers: Anne Kwaschik (University of Konstanz), Michel Lallement (CNAM, Lise-CNRS, Paris)

Venue: Bischofsvilla, University of Konstanz
Date: 2–4 April 2026

This conference is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

The programme and further information are available here. The poster is available here.