Social and Labour History News

CfP and session proposals for the European Social Science History Conference 2025

2 months ago

Call for Paper and session proposals for the ESSHC 2025, 26-29 March, Leiden, the Netherlands.

The deadline for submitting a proposal is April 15, 2024.

More information on the conference and the link to the submission form can be found on the ESSHC website: https://esshc.iisg.amsterdam

For this edition we are working with a new registration system by Ex Ordo. This system will take some getting used to for all of us. Important to know: All future communication regarding your submission and registration information will be sent from notifications@exordo.com

Even if you are already an ESSHC participant, you will need to register on the new platform and create a new account at

https://esshc2025.exordo.com

You can as before submit a paper proposal or a session proposal or both.

Please note

- On this platform Networks are called Tracks. Some other conferences have different topics for each track, so once you selected a track you will be asked to select a topic. You will notice there is only one topic, the same as the track you just selected. For our conference: Topic = Track = Network

- You can present only one paper at the conference.

- You can submit more than one session proposal.

If you have any questions about the conference, please feel free to contact us at esshc@iisg.nl, should you run into technical issues with the platform, you can contact Ex Ordo support via the link provided on the platform.

Looking forward to receiving your proposals!

With kind regards,
The ESSHC Team

Convegno “Un’altra idea di autonomia: alle origini de La libertà viene prima. Autonomia, autogoverno, democrazia radicale, tra azionismo e marxismi eterodossi” (Italian)

2 months ago
Roma Tre University, 29 January 2024   Si terrà il giorno 29 di gennaio, presso l’aula 15 del Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici dell’Università di Roma Tre, in via Ostiense 234 il convegno dal titolo “Un’altra idea di autonomia: alle origini de La libertà viene prima. Autonomia, autogoverno, democrazia radicale, tra azionismo e marxismi eterodossi”.

Il convegno è promosso dalla Fondazione Giuseppe Di Vittorio, dalla Fondazione Lelio e Lisli Basso, dalla Cgil Roma e Lazio e dall’Iress Lazio, con il patrocinio dell’Università degli studi Roma Tre. 

La giornata, che sarà conclusa dal segretario generale Maurizio Landini, si svolgerà durante quattro sessioni, dalle ore 9 alle ore 16.45, che vedranno un confronto di numerosi e numerose esponenti del mondo accademico e sindacale che discuteranno del concetto di autonomia in un’ottica storico-sindacale.

Una idea di autonomia molto diversa da quella che vive oggi nel dibattito pubblico. L’autonomia come partecipazione democratica diretta opposta a quella dell’autonomia differenziata che produce oltre alla frantumazione del paese una deriva verticista, una involuzione delle istituzioni democratiche. Non a caso viene legata alla proposta presidenzialista. 

Il convegno è parte di un seminario permanente dal titolo “Culture Politiche, culture del lavoro” che nelle intenzioni della FDV vuol essere un continuo confronto, in collaborazione con territori e Camere del Lavoro, attraverso cui produrre pensiero, dibattito ed elaborazione su momenti ed aspetti della nostra tradizione, da noi ritenuti particolarmente rilevanti e fecondi rispetto alle sfide che gli scenari odierni e le trasformazioni contemporanee ci pongono di fronte.
Scopo del convegno anche contribuire a realizzare un ulteriore approfondimento della figura e del pensiero di Bruno Trentin, indagando la genealogia teorica e intellettuale delle sue due opere principali, La città del lavoro e La libertà viene prima.

Ordnungen des Todes. Von Listen, Statistiken und Dunkelziffern über das Sterben und die Verstorbenen (German)

2 months ago

Book Presentation at Schweizerisches Nationalarchiv Zurich, 26 January 2024

Von Listen, Statistiken und Dunkelziffern über das Sterben und die Verstorbenen

Ob Opfer von Genoziden, Attentaten, häuslicher Gewalt, Unfällen oder Naturkatastrophen: Listen sind nie «unschuldig», sondern verfolgen immer bestimmte Absichten. Register suggerieren Kontrolle, sind aber auch Machtinstrumente. Listen von Verstorbenen dokumentieren gesellschaftliches Handeln und erzählen eine eigene Geschichte des Todes.
Die Beiträger:innen des Bandes «Ordnungen des Todes» untersuchen von der Frühen Neuzeit bis zur Gegenwart Zählungen von Gefallenen oder Verstorbenen in kolonialen Kontexten, Unfallstatistiken, Todeslisten in der NS-Zeit, Suizide in der DDR sowie Todesfälle von Geflüchteten. Ihre Analysen fokussieren dabei die Hintergründe und Motivationen der Urheber:innen und liefern damit einen erhellenden Einblick in die Macht der Statistik.

Buchpräsentation mit den Autor:innen Nina Kreibig (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Moisés Prieto (Universität Bern) und Philipp Krauer (Staatsarchiv des Kantons Schwyz)

Freitag, 26. Januar 2024, 19 Uhr
Schweizerisches Sozialarchiv, Medienraum

Trade Unions and LGBT+ Rights: Past Victories, Future Challenges

2 months ago
Date and time Sat, 17 Feb 2024 14:00 - 15:30 GMT Location

Working Class Movement Library

51 Crescent Salford M5 4WX United Kingdom

 

From the first strike action organised by trade union members to save the job of a victimised gay colleague in the 1970s, through the mutual solidarity of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, trade unions have contributed immensely to the successes achieved for LGBT+ equality in Britain. Join Peter Purton and Meg Birchall for a talk that celebrates the past victories for LGBT+ rights in Britain, the significant challenges that LGBT+ people face today and what the trade union movement can do to support and empower its LGBT+ members.

Peter Purton began campaigning for LGBTQ+ equality in the 1970s, participating in all the struggles of those years. Believing that winning the active support of the Labour Movement was vital to achieving both legal and social progress, he played a leading part in the work of the Labour Campaign for Lesbian and Gay Rights (now LGBTLabour) to secure Labour Party support in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1998 he started work as the first LGBT officer for the TUC (Trades Union Congress) and helped secure the successive laws that culminated in the Equality Act (2010). On retirement (2016) he wrote 'Champions of Equality. Trade Unions and LGBT rights in Britain' (Lawrence & Wishart 2018), and has been warning for many years against complacency in the LGBTQ+ communities because rights that have been gained can also be lost.

Meg Birchall (they/them) is a councillor for Delph & Denshaw on Saddleworth Parish Council and one of the first transgender councillors in Greater Manchester. They are activist for trans rights within the labour movement and a member of the Labour for Trans Rights Secretariat.

Note for Attendees

Our events space has a ramp on entry, an accessible toilet and air purifier. If you have any access requirements then please let us know in advance of the event so we can make your visit as comfortable as we can.

Search for the words lots.gosh.vocal on what3words.com to find the entrance that leads to the events space. The events space is through the double gates and can be found on your right.

At the WCML, we are committed to keeping attendees at our events safe. If you are displaying symptoms of Covid-19, please stay at home.

The history of the groups, campaigns and individuals who make up our collection at the Working Class Movement Library has a wide range of positions and the Library is committed to ensuring that this range is available for people to explore for themselves. Although respectful debate is encouraged, we will not tolerate sexism, homophobia, racism, transphobia, nor oppressive language or behaviour based on any structural inequality, including disability, socio-economic status, sexuality, age, education, religious affiliation, or gender expression. All who use our space, both the physical Library and its virtual spaces, share responsibility for maintaining it as a safe and welcoming one.

If you have any questions prior to your visit, then please contact us on – events@wcml.org.uk

Protect Our Rights To Protect Our Patients: Celebrating 50 Years of the Health Professionals and Allied Employees (HPAE), AFT, 1974 - 2024

2 months ago

Exhibit on view January 10th - April 20th, 2024

Featuring labor union memorabilia, union contracts, historic photographs, union publications, strike placards and more from the collection of the HPAE and union members, this exhibit highlights historic events and achievements of the largest union of registered nurses and healthcare professionals in New Jersey.

Beyond Norms and Categories: Towards a History of Sexual Practices, 1850–1960

2 months ago
Conference at the University of Bremen, 20-21 February 2024 Beyond Norms and Categories: Towards a History of Sexual Practices, 1850–1960

The international workshop "Beyond Norms and Categories: Towards a History of Sexual Practices, 1850-1960" at the University of Bremen on February 20 and 21, 2024 will discuss the century before the so-called "sexual revolution" – without seeing this period as a prehistory – and pay special attention to the history of social practices rather than the history of sexual norms.

Beyond Norms and Categories: Towards a History of Sexual Practices, 1850–1960

Sexuality is at the center of contemporary social movements. The #MeToo movement against sexual abuse, harassment, and violence since 2017 and the LGBTQ movements advocating for equal rights, benefits and protection from harm for queer people have gained momentum worldwide, sparking also a growing interest in the history of sexuality. Recent work has mainly focused on the second half of the twentieth century, examining moral norms and social practices in the decades which are commonly – and certainly not entirely unfairly – referred to as the sexual revolution.

This workshop will look at the period that preceded it – without seeing this period as a prehistory to sexual liberation. Instead, it aims to discuss notions of temporality, of progress and regression, as contingent phenomena. We invite papers that explore the relationship between pleasurable, reproductive and violent practices of sexuality since the mid-nineteenth century. The overarching question of the workshop is: What do concrete practices of pleasure/displeasure, procreation/contraception, and sexual violence reveal about the organization of society?

Registration
Participation at the workshop is free of charge. It is also possible to ttend the workshop online via Zoom. Please e-mail lisa.hellriegel@uni-bremen.de until 10 February 2024 to register.

Programm

Tuesday, 20 February 2024

12.30 pm: Arrival, welcome

1.00–3.00 pm: Race, Racism and Sexuality
Chair: Norman Aselmeyer (Universität Bremen, Germany)

Lucy Debus (Gedenkstätte Lager Sandbostel, Germany):
Forbidden Relationships between Germans and Prisoners of War or Forced Labourers during the Second World War
Alexander Maxwell (Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand):
Lustful Doctors in the Orient. Foreign Women and Sexual Respectability in the 1820s and 1830s
Loong Dien Min (University of Cambridge, UK):
Beyond the Law of ‘Unnatural Offences’. Uncovering Experiences of (Il)legitimate Intimacies in British Malaya’s Plural Legal and Normative Landscape (1860–1938)

3.00–3.30 pm: Coffee Break

3.30–6.30 pm: Religion and Reproduction
Chair: Birgit Aschmann (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany)

Jessica Albrecht (Universität Bonn, Germany):
Religion, Sexual Education and Eugenics
Pauline Mortas (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France):
Writing the History of Sexualities Through Objects? What Contraceptive Devices Can Teach Us About Sexual Practices and Sensibilities (France, 1880s–1930s)
Katerina Piro (Universität Mannheim, Germany):
Reproduction and Sexuality and the Ambivalent Protestant Clerics in Germany around 1900
Alina Potempa (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany):
Playing „Vatican Roulette“ – Catholicism and Contraception after 1930
Veronika Settele (Universität Bremen, Germany):
Secularizing Pleasure and Reproduction among Church Personnel and Lay People in Germany and France, around 1900

7.30 pm: Dinner at bellini, Universitätsallee 14, 28359 Bremen

Wednesday, 21 February 2024

9.00–11.00 am: Sexual Violence and Law
Chair: Julia Reus (Universität Bayreuth, Germany)

Lisa Hellriegel (Universität Bremen, Germany):
Between Consent and Violence. What Court Files Tell Us About Sexual Practices in German Cities, c. 1900–1935
Chifundo Kamba (Stellenbosch University, South Africa):
Towards the Making of the Legal Culture. European Conceptualisations of Sexual Violence among the Local Population of Malawi, c. 1891–1920
Sabina Mompó (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain):
Rape in Franco's Spain through Medical Reports and Legal Proceedings. Sexed Violence, Infanticide and Moral-Catholic Judgment

11.00–11.30 am: Coffee Break

11.30 am–1.30 pm: Deviance and Control
Chair: Andrea Rottmann (Freie Universität Berlin, Germany)

Paul Durand (EHESS Paris, France):
Exploring the Boundaries of Intimacy and Sexuality. Gender as a Tool for Homosexual Encounters and Police Arrests in Public Toilets between the Two World Wars in Angers
Jens Elberfeld (Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Germany):
„Liederlich, raffiniert und mannstoll“ (“Dissolute, Refined and Man-Mad“). Welfare Education and Adolescent Sexuality in Early 20th Century Germany
Daniel Gerster (Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte in Hamburg, Germany):
“We Found Individual Relief in Masturbation.” Towards a History of Onanism from below

1.30 pm: Lunch (optional)

Kontakt

veronika.settele@uni-bremen.de
lisa.hellriegel@uni-bremen.de

https://www.uni-bremen.de/institut-fuer-geschichtswissenschaft/epochen-und-bereiche/neuere-und-neueste-geschichte/forschung/fokusprojekt-sexualitaetsgeschichte

CfP: Use and Reuse of Paper in the Pre-Industrial World

2 months ago

University College Cork, 27-28 August 2024

After the material turn in the Arts & Humanities, the use and reuse of objects has gained more scholarly attention. We would like to strengthen the change of focus to later stages in the life cycle of paper and to non-text-bearing objects by hosting the colloquium "Use and Reuse of Paper in the Pre-Industrial World" in Cork, Ireland, 27-28 August 2024.

Use and Reuse of Paper in the Pre-Industrial World, Cork, 27-28 August 2024

After the material turn in the Arts & Humanities, the use and reuse of objects has gained more scholarly attention. In book history, the production and reuse of material has long been researched, but traditionally the focus was on the production of paper and the reuse of parchment, particularly on watermarks and on fragments used in bindings or as scraped-off and newly-written-on palimpsests. In recent years the research has shifted to include the wider afterlife of parchment manuscripts, including societal and historical contexts. We would like to expand these new approaches to handmade paper, including paper manuscripts, in the pre-industrial world.

We would like to strengthen the change of focus to later stages in the life cycle of paper and to non-text-bearing paper objects by hosting a colloquium. We thus invite you to investigate various approaches towards the use and reuse of pre-industrial paper. Possible research questions include, but are not limited to:
- To what uses was paper put, apart from books and manuscripts? What historical sources and artefacts bear witness to such uses?
- Did paper replace other materials or did it create new needs?
- How did the use and reuse of paper spread through our world? How widespread was the use of paper in society? Are there differences of use and reuse with regard to geographical or social aspects?
- When did the reuse of paper start, when did it stop and were there specific events that led to the reuse of paper?
- Does the reuse of handmade paper give us general clues about the age, or ‘life expectancy’ of paper? For how long was paper in circulation?
- What manuscripts and books were prone to be recycled and to contain recycled materials?
- To what new uses was recycled paper put, apart from manuscripts and books?

Topics are not limited to book history, codicology or fragmentology, and suggestions from other disciplines are particularly welcome. We especially encourage scholars, librarians, archivists, conservators and other interested parties from outside Europe to send us an abstract and to attend our colloquium.

The colloquium will convene at the University College Cork, Ireland, on 27-28 August 2024 and will be free of charge, however, attendants and speakers are responsible for their own travel and accommodation. We envisage the publication of conference proceedings and will inform the speakers about details. The colloquium is jointly organised by the University College Cork, Ireland, and the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies in Reykjavík, Iceland.

Please send your abstract of 200-300 words until 31 March 2024 to silvia@hi.is.

Please feel free to circulate this call for proposals!

Kontakt

Silvia Hufnagel
silvia@hi.is

https://papertrailsiceland.wixsite.com/papertrails

Borderland Capitalisms Reconsidered: Economic Practices and Contested Resources in (Post-)Imperial Siberia and Central Asia (1822–1929)

2 months ago

Hybrid Workshop, 1-2 February 2024

Central Asia, Siberia, and the Far East still hold a subordinate role in the economic history of the Russian Empire. This scarce attention paid to the economy of these regions is, however, striking. An examination of the Asiatic peripheries reveals complex dynamics deriving from the variability of economic practices. Consequently, the study of peripheries as areas of economic interdependence and competition in a comparative perspective serves as a point of departure for our workshop.

Borderland Capitalisms Reconsidered: Economic Practices and Contested Resources in (Post-)Imperial Siberia and Central Asia (1822–1929)

The Workshop is organized by the Institute for East European Studies at Freie Universität Berlin in cooperation with the Junior Research Group "Peripheral Liberalism" of the Cluster of Excellence "Contestations of the Liberal Script".

Programm

Thursday, 1 February 2024

13.30 – 14.00 Welcome and Introduction

Robert Kindler, Ruslana Bovhyria, Aleksandr Korobeinikov

14.00 – 15.00 Keynote

Beatrice Penati (University of Liverpool): Peripheral or Global? Turkestan’s Place in Old and New Histories of Capitalism

15.30 – 17.00 Panel I Borderland Encounters and Spatial Visions
Chair: Stephan Rindlisbacher

Niccolò Pianciola (University of Padua): States of Economic Exception: Entangled Sovereignties and Cross-border Trade in the Russian Far East-Manchuria Borderlands, 1906–1929

Aleksandr Korobeinikov (CEU Budapest/Vienna and FU Berlin): Natural Resources and Border Making in the Postimperial Yakut Region

Ruslana Bovhyria (FU Berlin): Perilous Waters: The Caspian Sea and the Maritime Dimension of Central Asian Frontier Economies

17.00 – 18.30 Panel II Colonial Actors and Economic Practices
Chair: Emre Tegin

Lilija Wedel (University of Bielefeld): Russian-German Entrepreneurs in Turkestan: Marketing Strategies and Contributions, 1870s–1914

Thomas Loy (HU Berlin): Haim Abraham Borderland Encounters and Economic Practices of a Jewish Merchant between Afghanistan, Iran, and Central Asia

Aleksandr Turbin (University of Illinois at Chicago): “European Consumption” in the Chinese Shop: Consumption, Consumers, and Competing Visions of “Proper” Commerce in the Far East of the Russian Empire in the 1880s–1890s

Friday, 2 February 2024

9.00 – 10.30 Panel III Knowledge and Power in Central Asia
Chair: Natasha Klimenko

Ian Campbell (University of California-Davis): Envisioning Settler and Local Economies: Knowledge Production and Resettlement in the Late Imperial Era

Alisher Khaliyarov (American University of Sharjah): Borderland Transformation: The Process of Currency Change in Khiva (online)

Jörn Happel (University of Hamburg): The Aral Sea as an Economic Space in the 19th Century

11.00 – 12.30 Panel IV Imperial Dynamics and Contested Resources in Siberia
Chair: Aleksandr Korobeinikov

Sergei Glebov (Smith College and Amherst College): Goods and Bodies: Race and the Invention of Chinese Commerce in Late Imperial Far East

David Darrow (University of Dayton): The Spread of Empire: Towards a Comparative History of Siberia’s Cooperative Creameries

13.30 – 15.00 Panel V: Empire and Human-Animal Relations
Chair: Robert Kindler

Takahiro Yamamoto (Singapore University of Technology and Design): A Japan Ground Redux? Marine Animal Hunting Around the Kuril Islands in the Late Nineteenth Century

Chechesh Kudachinova (Bonn University): The Production of Velvet Antler: Frontier Industry and Resource Knowledge in South Siberia (1880s–1920s)

Timm Schönfelder (GWZO Leipzig): Tracing the Fur Trade. On the Globalization of Resource Exploitation across the 1917-Divide

15.00 – 16.00 Final Discussion and Outlook (Roundtable)
Chair: Martin Wagner

Alun Thomas, Stephan Rindlisbacher, Robert Kindler, Ruslana Bovhyria, and Aleksandr Korobeinikov: Borderland Capitalisms Revisited

Kontakt

ruslana.bovhyria@fu-berlin.de
aleksandr.korobeinikov@fu-berlin.de
robert.kindler@fu-berlin.de

https://www.oei.fu-berlin.de/geschichte/index.html

God, Taxes, and Societies: Exploring Intersections of Religion and Taxation in History

2 months ago

Liborianum Paderborn and online, 29 February - 1 March 2024

Disputes over taxes take us to the heart of a society's structures and conflicts: How much equality and redistribution is necessary or possible? All major religions have spoken out on the legitimacy of tax systems. In this interdisciplinary conference, experts from the fields of theology, history, law and political science will discuss theological and religious positions on tax payments in the past and present in order to better understand the underlying social utopias in different religions.

God, Taxes, and Societies: Exploring Intersections of Religion and Taxation in History

Discussions about paying taxes (honestly) always concern the core of social order: Who must contribute how much to the community? Which groups are relieved? How much equality and redistribution is necessary or possible? What constitutes a "just" tax system, how can the state legitimize its tax demands - and what does a “just” society look like accordingly?
It was not only statesmen, lawyers, party politicians, lobbyists or journalists who have therefore discussed and continue to discuss tax issues; religious communities also had their say, bringing their ideas of just distribution and social structure into the discourse. Indeed, all major religions have spoken out on issues of "fair" taxation, the legitimacy of government demands, tax liability, and possible sanctions for evaders. Our interdisciplinary conference asks about the positions of different theologies toward state taxes: did they affirm or negate their adherents' tax obligations to the state? How did they legitimize their position theologically, but also in very practical terms in a concrete historical setting? What fundamental relationship between the state and the faith community is expressed in this position? What role did the financing of their own faith community play for it?
The aim of the conference is to bring firstly different religions (Buddism, Islam, Judaism, Protestant and Catholic Christianity) into conversation about the topic of taxation and in this way to make an important contribution to the history of ideas on taxation. Secondly, we want to discuss the question from an interdisciplinary perspective on theological tax disputes of the past, including contributions from the fields of theology, law, history and political studies.

Programm

Thursday, Feb 29th 2024

Welcome and Introduction (9.00–9.30 am)

Eva-Maria Seng (Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at Paderborn University): Welcome on Behalf of the Faculty

Korinna Schönhärl / Idris Nassery (Paderborn University): Introduction and Opening Remarks to the Conference

1st Session: Buddhism & Judaism (9.30–12.45 am)
Chair: Gisela Hürlimann (TU Dresden)

Fabio Rambelli (University of California Santa Barbara: digital):
The Buddha's Dues: Taxation in Historic Buddhist Societies in East Asia, with Special Focus on Japan
Commentator: Sven Altenburger (Goethe-University Frankfurt a.M.)

Elisa Klapheck (Paderborn University):
Taxes and the Positive Role of Debts in Rabbinic-Talmudic Discourse
Commentator: Ekkhard Reimer (Heidelberg University)

Yoram Margalioth (Tel Aviv University: digital):
Recent Legislative Regulation of Interest-Free Loans in Israel's Ultra-Orthodox Communities: A Case Study of Government Involvement in Communal Finance
Commentator: Lars Döpking (DHI Rom: digital)

2nd Session: Christianity (2.30–6pm)
Chair: Christin Hansen (Paderborn University)

Jörg Althammer (Catholic University Ingolstadt):
Religion and the Welfare State
Commentator: Regina Ortmann (Paderborn University)

Allen Calhoun (Emory University Atlanta):
The Re-enchantment of Taxation: Protestantism, Divine Sovereignty, and 'Responsive' Taxes
Commentator: Gisela Hürlimann (TU Dresden)

Korinna Schönhärl (Paderborn University): Tax Morale and the Church. How Catholic Clergies Adapted Norms of Paying Taxes to Secular Institutions (1940s–1950s)
Commentator: Sebastian Huhnholz (Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen)

Friday, March 1st 2024

3rd Session: Islam (9–12.30am)
Chair: Martin Schmitt (Paderborn University)

Idris Nassery (Paderborn University): The Islamic Ethics of Tax Evasion: Interdependence of Law, Theology, and Practice
Commentator: Marc Buggeln (European University Flensburg)

Emanuel Schäublin (ETH Zurich): Zakat Without the State: Giving as a Social Duty in Nablus (Palestine)
Commentator: Abdul Rahman Mustafa (Paderborn University)

Antonis Hadjikyriacou (Panteion University Athens):
Ottoman Fiscal Records, Practice, and the ‘Circle of Justice’
Commentator: Christine Osterloh-Konrad (Tübingen University)

Final Remarks (12.30am–1.15pm)
Idris Nassery/Korinna Schönhärl

Kontakt

Please register by February 20 with Ismahan Debbali (ismahan.debbali@gmail.com).

Patrimoines ferroviaires, «Patrimoines du Sud» n° 21 (French)

2 months ago

Épousant l’évolution du patrimoine en général, la patrimonialisation de l’univers ferroviaire a elle aussi connu une diversification : du patrimoine roulant au bâti des gares, les objets d’intérêt patrimonial s’étendent désormais aux dépôts et ateliers, aux ouvrages d’art, aux installations de sécurité, aux cités cheminotes, aux divers objets et outillages nécessaires aux activités ferroviaires, ainsi qu’au patrimoine immatériel qui leur est associé, avec notamment les gestes des métiers cheminots. Cet appel à contributions de Patrimoines du Sud se veut pluridisciplinaire, se prêtant aussi bien à des approches d’inventaire du patrimoine que d’histoire, ou encore d’anthropologie.

Argumentaire

Alors que les recherches sur les liens entretenus par les Français avec l’univers du chemin de fer se multiplient, à l’image du programme de recherche « Attachement populaire au chemin de fer » mené par l’association Rails&Histoire, il apparaît intéressant, pour compléter cette approche, de s’interroger sur des aspects plus concrets des patrimoines et de la patrimonialisation ferroviaire dans les territoires concernés.

Cette démarche semble d’autant plus pertinente qu’un vaste champ d’études s’offre à elle. Le chemin de fer représente en effet un patrimoine conséquent et diversifié. De fait, l’établissement de la plateforme a exigé des terrassements et d’innombrables ouvrages d’art, de l’aqueduc le plus modeste au viaduc le plus grandiose, ainsi que des souterrains. Les bâtiments d’exploitation complètent cette infrastructure linéaire : gares (bâtiments des voyageurs, halles à voyageurs, halles à marchandises), dépôts, ateliers, châteaux d’eau, maisons de garde-barrières, cités pour le logement des agents, installations liées à la traction électrique (usines génératrices, sous-stations, lignes d’alimentation), postes d’aiguillage, entre autres. À ce patrimoine s’ajoute le matériel roulant : locomotives à vapeur, électriques ou diesel, autorails, automotrices, matériel remorqué et engins de maintenance des voies. Enfin, n’oublions pas le patrimoine immatériel, notamment les « gestes du métier ». Ceux-ci sont très nombreux en raison des multiples compétences exigées par le fonctionnement du système ferroviaire. Car le chemin de fer ne se résume pas à conduire et entretenir des locomotives ! 

Le patrimoine ferroviaire se caractérise aussi par ses mutations. Depuis l’origine, les conditions d’exploitation se sont en effet profondément modifiées sous l’influence de divers facteurs et le chemin de fer doit donc s’adapter. Aujourd’hui, le changement climatique impose à son tour ses contraintes. Par exemple, l’inéluctable disparition de la houille engendre pour les chemins de fer touristiques possédant des locomotives à vapeur l’obligation de rechercher un combustible de substitution. Enfin, le stade ultime de ce processus est parfois l’abandon pur et simple de l’exploitation. Le patrimoine constitué par les anciennes voies ferrées pose alors la question de sa conservation et donc de sa reconversion. Cette dernière est plus ou moins heureuse, notamment au regard de la nouvelle donne climatique. Nous songeons ici à la multiplication des « voies vertes ». Quant à la préservation du matériel roulant réformé, et avant même toute remise en état de présentation ou de marche, elle soulève avec une acuité croissante le problème du remisage car les capacités d’hébergement se réduisent comme peau de chagrin au gré des fermetures de gares ou de dépôts.

L’actuelle région Occitanie se révèle un territoire de choix pour une approche patrimoniale. En effet, chronologiquement parlant, la première ligne fut mise en service dès 1839 entre Montpellier et Sète, suivie en 1839-1841 par celle de La Grand-Combe à Beaucaire sur laquelle se distingua Paulin Talabot qui attachera plus tard son nom au PLM. Le temps de la construction ferroviaire n’est d’ailleurs pas révolu puisque la ligne à grande vitesse appelée à relier la vallée du Rhône à l’Espagne avance par étapes. Il est donc possible de suivre, par exemple, l’évolution des techniques constructives, depuis la pierre et le métal jusqu’au béton, ou bien celle de l’architecture des gares. D’un autre point de vue, la concession du réseau ferré qui dessert notre région était partagée jusqu’à la création de la SNCF, en 1937, entre trois compagnies d’intérêt général : PLM (Paris - Lyon - Méditerranée), Midi et PO (Paris - Orléans). Les traces de cette répartition administrative sont encore bien visibles aujourd’hui, qu’il s’agisse de la physionomie des bâtiments ou bien de l’armement de la voie, certaines « petites » lignes étant encore équipées en tout ou partie de rails à double champignon hérités du Midi. Pour être complets, précisons que ce maillage était renforcé par les réseaux secondaires (à voie normale ou étroite) construits à l’initiative des départements tandis que certaines villes possédaient un réseau de tramways électriques. En Occitanie, ce dernier mode, sacrifié après 1945 comme presque partout en France, a d’ailleurs réapparu en 2000 à Montpellier. Enfin, l’Occitanie se signale aujourd’hui par une grande diversité des patrimoines ferroviaires qui y sont conservés, ainsi que par celle des acteurs associatifs ou individuels qui concourent à cette patrimonialisation du chemin de fer.

Les contributions attendues pourront aborder le patrimoine ferroviaire dans toute sa diversité, les patrimoines valorisés aujourd’hui étant loin de se réduire aux matériels roulants. En effet, épousant l’évolution du patrimoine en général, la patrimonialisation de l’univers ferroviaire a elle aussi connu une diversification : du patrimoine roulant au bâti des gares, les objets d’intérêt patrimonial s’étendent désormais aux dépôts et ateliers, aux ouvrages d’art, aux installations de sécurité, aux cités cheminotes, aux divers objets et outillages nécessaires aux activités ferroviaires, ainsi qu’au patrimoine immatériel qui leur est associé, avec notamment les gestes des métiers cheminots. Cet appel à contributions se veut aussi pluridisciplinaire, se prêtant aussi bien à des approches d’inventaire du patrimoine que d’histoire, ou encore d’anthropologie.

L’appel peut aussi intégrer des modalités de valorisation patrimoniale moins évidentes, telles que le « patrimoine perdu », pour explorer des questions mémorielles autour d’éléments disparus, ou encore les représentations du chemin de fer dans l’art et même le modélisme, qui peuvent constituer une forme de patrimonialisation. L’appel est ouvert au patrimoine ferroviaire des transports urbains, trop souvent délaissé dans l’historiographie. Les contributions attendues peuvent aussi concerner des éléments du patrimoine ferroviaire d’Occitanie qui seraient conservés ailleurs, ou encore des approches permettant la comparaison avec d’autres territoires.

Axes

Plusieurs axes d’études peuvent ainsi être envisagés (liste non exhaustive et non cloisonnée) :

Acteurs et instances : vers une histoire sociale de la patrimonialisation ferroviaire

Il s’agit ici de réfléchir à la diversité des acteurs de la mise en valeur du patrimoine ferroviaire. L’action de multiples collectifs de « ferroviphiles » mérite ainsi d’être mise en lumière pour aborder la patrimonialisation ferroviaire en Occitanie dans toute sa diversité. Cela peut aussi constituer un apport à l’étude des politiques du patrimoine (Poirrier et Vadelorge, 2003), par l’analyse des jeux d’acteurs entre ces collectifs et les pouvoirs publics, ou encore les entreprises liées au monde ferroviaire.

Pratiques concrètes de la conservation, patrimoine vivant

les patrimoines ferroviaires et leurs médiations. Ouvert aux approches académiques ou non-académiques, cet axe de recherche vise à questionner la patrimonialisation dans ses aspects matériels et dans sa valorisation auprès du public : des musées statiques aux circulations de chemin de fer à vapeur, en passant par l’utilisation de technologies numériques de médiation, comment conserver et faire vivre ce patrimoine majoritairement technique ?

Liens entre chemin de fer et urbanisme : quelles traces aujourd’hui ?

Par les emprises ferroviaires étendues et les initiatives de constructions nombreuses, l’univers ferroviaire dépasse largement les espaces de circulation ou d’entretien des machines. L’enjeu de la redécouverte et de la valorisation patrimoniale de ces éléments que sont par exemple les cités cheminotes ou les infrastructures ferroviaires urbaines est important, alors qu’ils sont dans la majorité des cas oubliés dans les politiques publiques de patrimonialisation.

Pilotage scientifique du numéro Modalités de soumission

Les propositions de contribution n’excèderont pas 3 000 signes, incluant une courte bibliographie et une biographie de l’auteur de quelques lignes. Les propositions sont attendues

avant le 1er mars 2024.

Les propositions sont à envoyer à la rédactrice en chef de la revue :

  • Alice de la Taille (pds@laregion.fr), conservateur du patrimoine, Service connaissance et inventaire des patrimoines, région Occitanie.

Le comité de rédaction rendra un avis courant mars. 

Calendrier et instructions éditoriales

Patrimoines du Sud ne publie que des contributions inédites.

Le présent appel à contributions est publié le 09 janvier 2024. Il s’adresse aux étudiants chercheurs, aux chercheurs, aux professionnels du patrimoine et aux associations. Le territoire de la région Occitanie / Pyrénées-Méditerranée est le périmètre d’investigation de la revue Patrimoines du Sud, mais les approches comparées d’une autre région géographique avec celle d’Occitanie sont les bienvenues. Il n’y a pas de limites chronologiques imposées.

Les contributions sélectionnées devront nous parvenir rédigées avant le 1er octobre 2024. Le numéro paraîtra en ligne le 1er avril 2025. Les contributions sont limitées à 50 000 signes (bibliographie comprise), dans un souci d’accessibilité par un large public.

Pour chaque article de ce numéro, le nombre maximal de caractères s’élève à 50 000 signes. Il est à noter que les auteurs peuvent bénéficier de l’aide d’un photographe professionnel et d’une cartographe. Un soin particulier est attendu pour les illustrations (cf. Recommandations aux auteurs).

Bibliographie
  • Descamps, Florence. Archiver la mémoire: De l’histoire orale au patrimoine immatériel, Paris : Éditions de l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales, 2019.
  • Dufaux, Lionel. « Les collections techniques, source pour l’historien », Techniques, histoire et sciences humaines, 2017, no 5, p. 163175.
  • Fournier, Luc, avec la contribution de Clive Lamming. (2017). Patrimoine ferroviaire, Paris, Éditions du Patrimoine.
  • Lemoine, Bertrand. (2021). Une histoire des gares en France, Paris, Archibooks + Sautereau Éditeur. 
  • Poirrier Philippe et Vadelorge Loïc (2003), Pour une histoire des politiques du patrimoine, Paris, La Documentation française.
  • Simon, Guillaume. (2009). « L’évolution de l’inventaire du patrimoine ferroviaire immobilier en France, des années 1970 à nos jours », Revue d’histoire des chemins de fer, n° 40, 2009/1, p. 155-168.
  • Smith, Paul. (1999). « Le patrimoine ferroviaire en France : soixante-dix ans de protection juridique », Revue d’histoire des chemins de fer, n° 20-21, p. 329-347.
  • Vellay, Olivier (2022), Remarquables postes d’aiguillage, Paris, Rails&Histoire/SNCF Réseau. 
  • Voir aussi les programmes de Rails&Histoire : https://www.ahicf.com/les-postes-remarquables et https://www.ahicf.com/programme-scientifique

CfP: Caring for Ourselves? Writing histories of slavery, colonialism, and race

2 months 1 week ago

 

Workshop: Caring for ourselves? Writing histories of slavery, colonialism, and race 

September 13th, 2024, The University of Edinburgh

In recent years, funding for PhD and postdoctoral research on Britain’s history of slavery, colonialism and race has increased, expanding the profile and breadth of the field. However, the question of how to ethically pursue and undertake this research has largely been left underexplored.[i] Therefore, we ask the following questions: 

1.     How should we engage in these histories with an ethic of care?  

2.     What responsibility do we have to ourselves as researchers, to the subjects of these histories and their descendants?  

3.     What role does our positionality have in this research, and how can we work with self-awareness to enhance our archival practice, writing, and work?  

4.     What is the purpose and politics of this research?  

As four early career researchers engaged in this area of work, Dr April-Louise Pennant (Social Sciences, Cardiff University), Hannah Cusworth (History, University of Hull and English Heritage), Emma Pearce (History of Art, University of Edinburgh) and Siân Davies (History, University of Edinburgh), we would like to invite participants to a one-day workshop at the University of Edinburgh to discuss these questions and propose answers in a collaborative and caring environment.  Moving away from ‘findings’ and results, we want to engage in a reflexive discussion focused on methodology, approach, and the how and why of our research. While focused on the histories of slavery, colonialism, and race, we welcome participants from across the humanities and historical approaches in the social sciences engaged with these topics as we want to make a necessary intervention which challenges the established neglect of these considerations within history as a discipline in Britain.   

We invite participation in three ways. Presentations and papers may focus on any aspect of the questions listed above: 

Presentations: We invite presentations of 15 minutes from PhDs and ECRs on the how and why of their research. Please submit a 300-word abstract of your presentation and a CV. 

Pre-circulated written paper: We invite pre-circulated papers to be submitted, circulated, and discussed as part of the workshop. To apply, please submit a 300-word abstract of your paper and a CV. If accepted, complete papers of 4,000 words will be due one month before the workshop on 13th August.

Attendance: Those wishing to attend but not present or submit writing for discussion should submit a 250-word statement of motivation and a CV. 

We particularly welcome applicants with personal connections to this topic and descendants of the enslaved and colonised.

Please note before submitting that all contributors and attendees will be required to stay for the whole workshop on Friday, the 13th of September 2024, from 9.00 AM to 5.00 PM at The University of Edinburgh, central campus. 

Funding dependant, we hope to contribute to the cost of travel and accommodation. Travel bursary applications from accepted participants will be considered.

Deadline for submission, 31st March 2024 to cfoworkshop2024@gmail.com

i.Existing work on approaches and ethics that we want to be in conversation with include but are not limited to, Tonia Sutherland, ‘Remains’, in Uncertain Archives: Critical Keywords for Big Data, ed. Nanna Bonde Thylstrup (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2021); Catherine Hall, ‘Doing Reparatory History: Bringing “Race” and Slavery Home’, Race & Class 60, no. 1 (1 July 2018): 3–21, https://doi.org/10.1177/0306396818769791; Thora Siemsen, ‘Saidiya Hartman on Working with Archives’, The Creative Independent, 18 April 2018, https://thecreativeindependent.com/people/saidiya-hartman-on-working-wi…; Stephanie E. Smallwood, ‘The Politics of the Archive and History’s Accountability to the Enslaved’, History of the Present 6, no. 2 (2016): 117–32, https://doi.org/10.5406/historypresent.6.2.0117; Joy DeGruy, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing (Milwaukie, Oregon: Uptone Press, 2005); Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development (Cambridge, Mass. ; Harvard University Press, 1982).

CfA: Histories of Migration - Transatlantic and Global Perspectives

2 months 1 week ago

The Young Scholars Forum at the GHI Pacific Office Berkeley is an annual program designed to bring together a diverse group of approximately ten scholars based in Germany, Europe, North America, and beyond to explore new research in the history of migration. The 2024 Forum focuses on the intersection of migration and gender and sexuality studies looking into the potential of gender-based analyses and queer historical perspectives on migration experiences

Histories of Migration - Transatlantic and Global Perspectives

The Pacific Office of the German Historical Institute Washington at UC Berkeley is soliciting proposals for papers to be presented at the Eighth Annual Young Scholars Forum: Histories of Migration, which will be held at UC Berkeley on October 21–22, 2024. We seek contributions from postdoctoral scholars, recent PhDs, and advanced doctoral candidates in the humanities or social sciences.
The 2024 Forum focuses on the intersection of migration and gender and sexuality studies. Exploring gender relations, modes of intimacy, and sexual diversity is crucial to a nuanced analysis of both the causes and consequences of migration and of mobility regimes and practices. Starting from an understanding of gender and of sexuality as constructed within multiple intersecting power relations (including class, age, race, ethnicity, and geopolitical location), we welcome theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions dealing with interconnections between gender studies, sexuality studies, and migration studies. Whereas sociologists and geographers began charting this important territory in the 2000s, historians and researchers in the humanities have lagged behind. As a result, historical approaches to these interconnected subjects are still few and far between. The Forum will explore the potential of gender-based analyses and queer historical perspectives on migration experiences; representations of femininity and masculinity constructed by actors themselves and by receiving societies; heteronormativity and how it shaped migrant histories; labor migration and gendered labor markets; sex work and migration; (im)migrant families, motherhood, and fatherhood; migration and gender-based violence; the mobility of transgender people; the shifting regimes of intimacy in the places people left, traversed, and settled; and other related questions.

The Forum approaches its annual theme from a trans-epochal and transregional perspective. We seek to link current developments to both the past and the present. We encourage applications from junior scholars in history, gender studies, sexuality studies, the social sciences, political sciences, anthropology, as well as area studies, ethnic studies, and other related fields. Contributions in other media, such as film and photography, will be considered as well. Papers will be pre-circulated to allow for maximum discussion time with peers and invited senior scholars. The workshop language will be English. The Forum will be hosted by Isabel Richter (GHI Pacific Office Berkeley, contact email: richter@ghi-dc.org) and Benno Gammerl (European University Institute Florence).

Selected participants might have the opportunity to extend their stay in Berkeley (by up to two weeks) through the California Archive Research Award (CARA). CARA funds can be used for research in various libraries and archival collections in the San Francisco Bay Area. These include, for example, the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley, the Hoover Archives at Stanford University, the National Archives in San Bruno, the James C. Hormel LGBTQIA Center at the San Francisco Public Library, and the Bay Area Lesbian Archives in Oakland.

Please indicate in the online application form if you would like to be considered for the CARA grant. We will award the additional funding to up to two applicants. Please upload a brief CV and a proposal of no more than 750 words by March 15, 2023, to our online portal: https://app.smartsheet.eu/b/form/f2d33a417b63443591ab4cefedbbc818.

Please contact Heike Friedman (friedman@ghi-dc.org) if you have problems submitting your information. Applicants will be informed of the outcome in April.

https://www.ghi-dc.org/events/event/date/young-scholars-forum-histories-of-migration-transatlantic-and-global-perspectives

Conference: The Miners’ Strike in Britain in 1984/5 – New Perspectives

2 months 1 week ago

20-21 March 2025, Bochum

Organizing Committee: Jörg Arnold (University of Nottingham), Stefan Berger (Ruhr-Universität Bochum), Marion Henry (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne), and Jim Phillips (University of Glasgow)

The miners’ strike of 1984/5 is regarded as a seminal event of contemporary British history. The strike pitted Britain’s most iconic group of workers, organised in the National Union of Mineworkers, and led by Arthur Scargill, against the Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher. The government drew on the full resources of the state – ranging from the police to the courts to public relations – to ‘contain, isolate and defeat’ the striking miners in twelve gruelling months of attrition..

The international conference, to be held at the Institute for Social Movements in Bochum over two days on 20/21 March 2025, aims to evaluate critically the existing historiography and to sketch avenues for future research. In this call for papers, we invite contributions of original research addressing diverse economic, social, cultural and political dimensions of the strike and its aftermath. These include but are not necessarily restricted to:

 - Political dimensions of the strike: these include the aims and strategies of the National Coal Board, and the Conservative government but also the strategic thinking of the National Union of Mineworkers.

-The role of women in the strike, including gender perspectives on the strike

-The experience of children in the strike

-The role and experience of strike-breakers

-The perspective of people not directly involved in the conflict

-The strike and people from different ethnicities

-Environmental questions and energy politics

-The strike and international perspectives

-How the strike is remembered and memorialized

Please submit a short abstract (c. 200 words) of your proposed paper, and a one-page CV to Stefan Berger at stefan.berger@rub.de.  The deadline for submissions is 15 March 2024. We expect to be able to cover travel and accommodation costs for all invited delegates.

CfP: Labor Migration and Commodity Production in Africa: Global Entanglements

2 months 1 week ago

This Special Issue intends to bring together studies on labor migration that focus on the agency of labor migrants in transforming connections between Africa and elsewhere. Its objective is to pinpoint how the making of these connections often hinged on the circulation of men and women engaged in commodity production/extraction for long-distance trading at a global scale.

Labor Migration and Commodity Production in Africa: Global Entanglements

Human mobility across cultural, political, and social boundaries is nothing new in African History. As people moved beyond their immediate horizons for a variety of reasons, they (un)consciously spurred changes since immemorial times. However, the increasing interconnectedness of African societies with the development of global markets over the past six centuries brought about wide-ranging consequences, gapping inequalities not least among them (GREEN, 2019). The creation of labor markets where workforce ("free" or otherwise) could be procured over long distances to cater for commodity production has been studied for decades. Yet as Samir Amin once put it, many perspectives on labor migration fail to be more than tautologies that explain the phenomena of labor migration by merely indicating the existence of people who are likely to migrate (AMIN, 1995). Further, many scholarly investigations on labor migration in Africa have been deadlocked in describing cases to fit into a typological "spectrum" of coerced labor ranging from chattel slavery to "free" contract labor (MARTINO, 2022).

This Special Issue intends to bring together studies on labor migration that focus on the agency of labor migrants in transforming connections between Africa and elsewhere. Its objective is to pinpoint how the making of these connections often hinged on the circulation of men and women engaged in commodity production/extraction for long-distance trading at a global scale. We thus seek to highlight how labor migrancy in Africa is a fundamental aspect in understanding the increasing interconnectedness of the world through commodity markets such as cotton, hard fibers, coffee, cocoa, palm oil, raw minerals, among many others. Contributions based on written and oral sources collected from African archives are especially welcome.

Papers must conform to ESBOCOS Guidelines.

References:
AMIN, Samir. 1995. “Migrations in Contemporary Africa: A Retrospective View”. In: BAKER, Jonathan; AINA, Tade Akin (Eds.) The Migration Experience in Africa. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, p. 29-40.
GREEN, Toby. A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the rise of the slave trade to the age of Revolutions. London: Penguin Books, 2019.
MARTINO, Enrique. Touts: Recruiting Indentured Labor in the Gulf of Guinea. Oldenbourg: De Gruyter, 2022

Authors are invited to submit original articles that conforms to ESBOCOS Guidelines, and templates.

Guest Editors:
Kerem Duymus was born in Turkey and received his undergraduate education in the department of Sociology at the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in Istanbul. He completed his master's degree in the Global History program at the University of Bayreuth, Germany, with a master thesis on the political-economy of the Sokoto Caliphate. He is currently a PhD candidate at the Africa Institute of the University of Leipzig, within the research program of Global and Area Studies Graduate School. His main research interest is the history of governance and political-economy in West Africa during the 19th century.
Felipe Barradas Correia Castro Bastos is a Brazilian historian. He completed his MA (2018) and PhD (2022) at the Social History of Africa program in the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), researching topics on the making of anticolonial movements and labor migration movements between Mozambique and Tanzania, particularly the formation of the sisal industry in contemporary East Africa (1880-1960). He is currently an assistant professor in Global History at UNICENTRO, Paraná, Brazil.

Contact Information
Jo Klanovicz, Editor Esboços - Histórias em Contextos Globais
https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/esbocos

Contact (announcement)

esbocos@contato.ufsc.br

https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/esbocos

Call for Chapter Submissions – Yearbook for the History of Global Development Volume: Development and Transition: International Organizations and Post-Socialist Eurasia

2 months 1 week ago

The Yearbook for the History of Global Development (YHGD) is inviting submissions for a volume dedicated to the history of international organizations and their role in the post-socialist world. The purpose of the volume Development and Transition is to historicize the period of the “transition” in Eurasia across the 1989/1991 divide.

Call for Chapter Submissions – Yearbook for the History of Global Development Volume : Development and Transition: International Organizations and Post-Socialist Eurasia

The Yearbook for the History of Global Development (YHGD) is inviting submissions for a volume dedicated to the history of international organizations and their role in the post-socialist world.

The YHGD is a serial publication centrally dedicated to the study of past developmental theories, policies and practices, including those with a direct bearing on present-day challenges. Thereby, it serves as an arena for fresh research on the history of development, broadly understood, providing a forum for a variety of historical perspectives on and understandings of development. Relevant perspectives include, for instance, development as a long-term process of different countries that determined their trajectories in world history; as a field of international and global political, economic, technological, cultural, and intellectual interaction; as an aspect of North-South and East-West relations in the context of imperialism, decolonization, the Cold War, and globalization; as a significant domain of international, non-governmental, and research organizations; and, most generally, as the study of the entire spectrum of concepts, discourses and policies related to ways in which countries or regions could and should evolve. Its first volume, dedicated to concepts of and perspectives on the history of development, and its second volume, with a focus on health and development, have already been published: https://www.degruyter.com/serial/yhgd-b/html?lang=en#overview. The third volume on international organizations will be published shortly.

The purpose of the volume Development and Transition is to historicize the period of the “transition” in Eurasia across the 1989/1991 divide. Yet just as post-socialist states and international development organizations have been forced to deal with the physical legacies of socialism, their approaches to economic development, welfare provision, and governance have been shaped by the socialist past. After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, former Soviet republics and East European socialist states invited international institutions and foreign donors to help them achieve prosperity and transition to a market economy. At the time, most development institutions and national governments subscribed to the so-called “Washington Consensus” which emphasized financial discipline, minimum state regulation, and open borders. The region under consideration was, and is, heterogenous: institutions like the World Bank and USAID brought their experience of working on the “developing world” to a region whose status seemed ambiguous - developed in terms of infrastructure and levels of education, but, in the case of Central Asia and parts of the Caucasus, predominantly rural with a large informal sector and few institutions to guide a market.

The volume will be organized by the team of the ERC sponsored project Building a Better Tomorrow: Development Knowledge and Practice in Central Asia and Beyond. The purpose of this volume will be to shed light on how development paradigms change over time by following economists, activists, specialists, and government officials who straddled the socialist/post-socialist divide by going to work in national and international development organizations and institutions before and after independence. Studying these individuals and the legacies of their work will allow us toinvestigate how ideas and practices of economic and cultural development and welfare provision were shaped and reshaped at the local and international level. The project will uncover how international development transformed the post-socialist world, and how the encounter with post-socialist states transformed paradigms and practices of international development. We are seeking original submissions grounded in empirical research that will make an innovative scholarly contribution to understanding the legacy of socialism, the history of economic development, and the global history of development.

While Building a Better Tomorrow is focused on Central Asia, the geographical scope of the special issue will be broader, however, and we are actively looking for original, research-based contributions on all of post-socialist Eurasia. We are also open to contributions dealing with earlier efforts at transition, for example in Vietnam or China in the 1980s. Although they proceeded under different circumstances, these transitions from state planning to market-based systems involved dilemmas similar to those later faced by East European and Central Asian states, including that of balancing development and social welfare goals, how to draw on and interpret advice from the IFIs, and how to orient production to the world market.

The Building Tomorrow ERC team will organize a workshop in Amsterdam to review draft papers before submitting the manuscript to the Yearbook. The workshop will take place in March 2025, with the date(s) to be determined. The organizers will cover economy-class travel and two nights at a hotel.

Submission guidelines and timeline:

- Please submit an abstract of 250-300 words, along with a CV, to historicizingtransition@gmail.com not later than January 31, 2024.
- You will be notified of the acceptance or rejection of your submission by February 27, 2024.
- Authors whose submissions are accepted will be expected to submit article-length (approximately 9-12 thousand words) manuscripts by January 30, 2025.
- Final revisions will be due by April 15, 2025. All of the pieces will then undergo peer review.

If you have any questions, please contact the editors, Artemy Kalinovsky and Eva Rogaar, at historicizingtransition@gmail.com.

Contact (announcement)

Artemy Kalinovsky
Eva Rogaar
historicizingtransition@gmail.com

https://www.degruyter.com/serial/yhgd-b/html?lang=en#overview

Götz Langkau (1935–2024)

2 months 2 weeks ago

On 9 January 2024, we received the sad news that Götz Langkau had passed away. Although many people knew that he had not been doing well in recent years, the news came as a shock. Götz belonged to a generation of IISH staff that restored the profile of the Institute, especially through his contributions to scholarly source publications.

He exemplified reliable historical scholarship combined with social commitment. In 1953, Götz fled the GDR at age 17. In 1956, he enrolled at West Berlin's Freie Universität. Majoring in German studies, history, philosophy, and sociology, the young student pursued a broad intellectual scope. During this period, interest in Marx resumed at universities in the West, including Götz's mentor, the philosopher and sociologist Hans-Joachim Lieber. In the late 1950s, initial signs appeared of what culminated in student revolts in all major university cities in the world a decade later in 1968. West-German students were of course specifically affected by the German partition. As this issue was not only military but above all ideological, socialism was a crucial issue for this group. Götz became active in the Sozialistische Deutsche Studentenbund (SDS). This organization gradually drifted away from the encompassing SPD, leading to a rift in 1961. Götz was active precisely during these years and knew many of the activists who later became prominent in the German student movement and in left-wing politics.

In 1963, Götz was working as a student assistant at the Eastern Europe Institute of the Freie Universität, when A.J.C. Rüter, director of the IISH from 1953 until his death in 1965, contacted Lieber to enquire whether he knew of a candidate for a vacancy at the German department of the IISH. This department managed one of the original core collections at the IISH, the Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels archive. Due to the rapid growth of the collection before the war, the removal of the archives to Germany during the German occupation, the messy restitution after 1945, and, moreover, a severe lack of funds, access to all these collections and thus also the Marx-Engels collections was deeply inadequate. In one of his most important achievements, Rüter obtained a grant from the Ford Foundation, making it possible to catch up, thereby ensuring the accessibility this world heritage merited. Götz accepted the offer from Rüter to come work at the IISH, becoming one of the last to work in Amsterdam with Ford project funding. He later said that he was struck by the patriarchal ambience that prevailed under Rüter at the IISH. He had not experienced this at the Freie Universität. In 2013, he wrote an article in Beiträge zur Marx-Engels-Forschung. Neue Folge about the Ford project and its remarkable meanderings at times.

>> Read more

Text: Huub Sanders, 10 January 2024

CfP: Beyond the Fragments: 45 Years On

2 months 2 weeks ago

Friday 28 June 2024
People’s History Museum, Manchester
Keynote speakers: Sheila Rowbotham, Lynne Segal, and Hilary Wainwright

2024 marks the forty-fifth anniversary of the publication of the seminal socialist-feminist text Beyond the Fragments: Feminism and the Making of Socialism. Within its pages, activists Sheila Rowbotham, Lynne Segal and Hilary Wainwright wove sharp political analysis and personal reflections in their respective essays. The text sought to unify the various radical social and political movements of the 1960s and 1970s to forge a new socialist politics for the 1980s. In doing so, the publication inspired wide-ranging discussion across the left, sparking a series of highly attended conferences, and the formation of long-lasting activist networks.

Coinciding with Margaret Thatcher’s 1979 election victory, the text is now a richly insightful historical document, highlighting the often-forgotten radicalism that survived (and in some cases flourished) in the inhospitable climate of Thatcher’s Britain. For historians, Beyond the Fragments challenges pessimistic narratives of socialist decline and neoliberal triumph, and provides a framework for some of the extraordinary solidarity movements (around the miners’ strike, Greenham Common, and latterly the anti-globalisation movement) that followed. For theorists, it raises fascinating questions about the influence of second-wave feminism on political organising, the limits of Leninism, and the value of life-writing for informing political strategy. For contemporary activists, it may also still offer an inspiring and insightful guide to creating a socialist politics that empowers and unifies diverse and fragmentary experiences of oppression.

This conference aims to reflect on the insights of Beyond the Fragments and its wider influence on radical politics (in Britain and around the world) since its publication. It aims to draw upon and consider the wider themes the text directly addressed and more implicitly embodied. Grounding the text in its wider historical context, we also aim to explore how radical political cultures and spaces helped shape both the book’s creation, and facilitated the wider movements that came from it. Thinking more broadly, we hope this conference highlights the value of history and historical experience in informing activism today, opening up dialogues between past and present activists and historians around new ways of radical organising.

We invite submissions for 15-minute papers, chiefly focused on one of the three essays from the original publication, and relevant wider themes:

  1. Sheila Rowbotham, ‘The Women’s Movement and Organizing for Socialism’ – possible themes: feminist political organising and its influence, socialist-feminism and the Far Left, life-writing and activist memoir.
  2. Lynne Segal, ‘A Local Experience’ – possible themes: local feminism(s) and socialism(s), activist spaces, place building and grassroots organising in the community.
  3. Hilary Wainwright, ‘Moving Beyond the Fragments’ – possible themes: networks of solidarity and intersectionality, engagement with the Labour Party and other political/state institutions, organising within local government.

Contributions are welcome from historians, theorists and activists. We are open to all, especially Postgraduate and Early Career Researchers. We also encourage proposals for papers drawing on personal activist experience as well as academic research. Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words, along with a brief biography, to beyondthefragments2024@gmail.com by 1 February 2024.

Thanks to funding from NWCDTP, the Past & Present Society, and the Society for the Study of Labour History, we are able to fund travel and accommodation expenses for speakers whose institutions will not support this. We will prioritise Postgraduate students and Early Career Researchers. Please let us know if you would like to be considered when sending your abstract. There will not be creche provision, but young children are welcome at this event.

Held at the People’s History Museum, the conference will also feature the opportunity to engage with original Beyond the Fragments material, correspondence and ephemera from Hilary Wainwright’s papers archived at the Labour History Archive & Study Centre.

We are also planning a follow-up informal workshop to discuss the wider themes around Beyond the Fragments, which we hope will inspire further projects and networking. This may include the history of socialist-feminism, the Left, and other social movements since 1979, and how Beyond the Fragments has directly or indirectly shaped contemporary forms of political organising. We welcome all early expressions of interest, including proposals for panels, roundtable discussions, and participatory workshops. A separate Call for Papers will be distributed in the coming months.

Contact
Email: beyondthefragments2024@gmail.com                         
Twitter and Instagram: @beyondthefrags

Organisers
Rachel Collett, University of Liverpool, email: Rachel.Collett@liverpool.ac.uk
Alfie Steer, University of Oxford, email: alfie.steer@hertford.ox.ac.uk

Abolition Revolution

2 months 2 weeks ago

Date: 25th Jan 2024

Event time: 18:30 to 20:00

An introductory guide to abolitionist politics in Britain, Abolition Revolution explores how the history of imperialism, racism and class struggle has led to the carceral systems that we see today and how abolition should be seen as a key component of revolutionary politics, linking it with materialist feminisms, anti-capitalist class struggle, internationalist solidarity and anti-colonialism.

Shanice Octavia McBean is an activist and writes on race, class and feminism. She is the co-author of Abolition Revolution, and a co-founder of the UK based radical collective Black-Jewish Alliance.

Aviah Sarah Day can be found teaching and researching at Birkbeck, University of London when working, and organising in her East London community the rest of the time. She is involved in Sisters Uncut, a national direct-action collective fighting domestic and state violence as well as Hackney Cop Watch and Black Jewish Alliance. She is co-author of the book Abolition Revolution by Pluto Press.

The talk will be chaired by Zara Manoehoetoe, a youth worker and community organiser from Manchester.

Follow the link to book your ticket. 

„Der andere Sozialstaat“. Jahresworkshop 2024 der Gesellschaft für Historische Sozialpolitikforschung (German)

2 months 2 weeks ago

Workshop at ZZF Potsdam, 14-15 March 2024

Der Workshop fokussiert den Beitrag von Akteuren außerhalb der gesetzlichen Sozialversicherung zur Wohlfahrtsproduktion, etwa freigemeinnützig-caritativer Träger und Anbieter privater Sicherungsformen.

Im Zentrum stehen Fragen nach dem Wandel sektoraler Governance, von Professionalisierungs- und Organisationskulturen sowie die Kooperation und Konkurrenz zwischen staatlichen und nichtstaatlichen Akteuren.

„Der andere Sozialstaat“

Jahresworkshop der Gesellschaft für Historische Sozialpolitikforschung

Für angemeldete Teilnehmerinnen und Teilnehmer entstehen keine Kosten. Dort wo die Heimatinstitution keine Reisemittel bereitstellt (etwa bei Nachwuchs:wissenschaftlerinnen, Kolleg:innen im Ruhestand) können die Reisekosten innerhalb Deutschlands und die Übernachtungskosten durch das DIFIS übernommen werden.

Im Anschluss an den Workshop findet die Mitgliedsversammlung der GHS statt.

Damit wir planen können, bitten wir um eine Teilnahmeanmeldung bis zum 19.1.2024 an sebastian.stahl@zzf-potsdam.de.

Programm

14.3.2024 (Donnerstag)

13.30-14 Uhr Ankunft/Kaffee

14-14.15 Uhr
Heike Wieters (Berlin), Winfried Süß (Potsdam)
Begrüßung/Einführung

14.15-18 Uhr
Ambivalenzen der Wohlfahrtsproduktion
- Moderation: Christoph Lorke (Münster)
- Jan Neubauer (Köln): Armes Augsburg. Nationalsozialistische Sozialfotografie zwischen Dokumentation, Fürsorge und Verfolgung
- Uwe Kaminsky (Berlin): Fürsorge und Gewalt als konfessionelle Wohlfahrtsproduktion

Pause
- Moderation: Christiane Kuller (Erfurt)
- Helge Jonas Pösche (Berlin): Kinderkuren in der alten Bundesrepublik
- Carsta Langner (Jena): Das ambivalente Agieren der Wohlfahrtsverbände im Umbruchjahr 1990

Im Anschluss Buffet

15.3.2024 (Freitag)

9-10 Uhr
Migration und Sozialstaat
- Moderation: Cornelius Torp (Bremen)
- David Templin (Osnabrück): Migration und Sozialpolitik in historischer Perspektive. Forschungsbefunde und -perspektiven für die neuere deutsche Geschichte
- Kommentar: Jenny Pleinen (Hagen)

10-11.30 Uhr
Private Akteure im Wohlfahrtsstaat
- Moderation: Winfried Süß (Potsdam)
- Milena Guthörl (Zürich): Soziale Sicherheit jenseits von Grenzen. Emil Schönbaum, Robert Myers und Antoine Zelenka als Akteure eines globalen Expertennetzwerks
- Heike Wieters (Berlin): Alex Möller als Wandler zwischen den Welten. Vom „Genossen Generaldirektor“ zum Bundesfinanzminister und zurück

Pause

12-13.30 Uhr
Jahresversammlung GHS

Kontakt

sebastian.stahl@zzf-potsdam.de

ONLINE & ONSITE BOOK LAUNCH: Global Neo-liberal Capitalism and the Alternatives: from social democracy to state capitalism

2 months 2 weeks ago

The twentieth century was an era of socialist revolutionary transformations and significant social-democratic reforms. By the twenty-first century, these socialist inspired movements have largely disappeared, their ideology had been disavowed, and their institutions dismantled. In the first part of the book, David Lane explains which social forces drove them and why, initially, they were successful. He considers how they were consequently reversed in the context of global neoliberal capitalism which became a dominant ideology driven by political and economic elites with significant social support and political legitimacy.

Underlying these developments, he describes the changing economic and social structure of capitalism and the geo-political consequences of globalisation.  He defines the key areas in which neoliberal capitalism can be faulted. In the second part of the book, he considers current social and political movements and points to alternative forms of capitalism, notably state capitalist formations, as well as its replacement.  Here he summarises the merits and limitations of proposed social-democratic reforms, or reversals of globalisation, proposals for self-sustaining autonomous communities, the limits of ecological reforms, and ideas about a globalised form of socialism.

Finally, he outlines his own proposals to move to economic and political coordination predicated on combining market socialism and statist forms of planning.

Join author Professor David Lane and discussants Andrew Murray and Radhika Desai; refreshments provided

Thursday, 8 February 2024 - 7:00pm , 37A Clerkenwell Green, London, EC1R 0DU   Contact
Email: m.jump@marx-memorial-library.org.uk Phone: 02072531485

 

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