Aggregator

Organiser: Research Centre for the History of Transformations (RECET), University of Vienna (Aula, Campus, University of Vienna) Host: Aula, Campus, University of Vienna Funded by: European Commission Postcode: 1200 City: Vienna Country: Austria Takes place: In attendance Dates: 16.11.2026 - 18.11.2026 Deadline: 18.05.2026 Website: https://retlami-see.fpn.unibl.org/eng/call-for-papers-exit-voice-labour-conference-university-of-vienna-16-18-november-2026/  

Building on (and critically updating) Albert O. Hirschman’s classic exit–voice–loyalty framework, the conference invites contributions that explore how migration relates to political circumstances, labour, and agency—across contemporary as well as historical perspectives, and across multiple migration routes (not only “East–West”).

Exit-Voice-Labour: Reassessing Central and Eastern European Migration in a Transnational and Historical Perspective

The spread of global approaches in the study of migration and diasporas at the turn of the century purportedly rendered Albert O. Hirschman’s traditional “exit, voice, and loyalty” model outdated. Nevertheless, this concept has recently gained renewed traction among migration scholars. Applied to the research of the interplay between migration and political circumstances, Hirschman’s original interpretation conceived “exit” and “voice” as irreconcilable options.[1] Citizens of a nation-state could allegedly choose to express dissatisfaction with the authorities by migrating out of their country (exit) at the cost of articulating discontent domestically (voice). Rather than completely dismissing this framework amid criticism of methodological nationalism, scholars have been reviving the model in recent years by emphasizing new forms of transnational political activism, as well as the potential for simultaneity and crisscrossing of traditional analytical categories enabled by novel technologies and enhanced mobilities.[2]

Hirschman himself revised the previously conflicting relationship between “voice” and “exit” while analysing the ongoing 1989 social transformation in the German Democratic Republic, concluding that mass migration abroad had in fact reinforced domestic social movements.[3] Today, scholars of Central and Eastern Europe are increasingly employing updated interpretations of this classic concept to analyse the complex effects of migration – and return –on both host societies and countries of origin. Some recent examples include bifocal research on Russian anti-war emigration or critics of Balkan “stabilitocracies” relocating abroad.[4] However, the potential to apply transnational conceptualizations of “exit, voice, and loyalty” to the study of contemporary and historical migrations from Central, Southeastern, and Eastern Europe remains largely untapped.

We invite scholars from a range of disciplines, including sociology, political science, economics, history, cultural studies, and social anthropology, to submit papers that present innovative and critical perspectives on the study of migrations and migrant agency in relation to political systems in the region. We especially encourage research broadening the state of the art in the following directions:

Exit, Voice, and Labour: Most migration research on Central and Eastern Europe focuses on transnational mobility driven by differences in income levels between peripheral and core regions. Non-economic migration, on the other hand, is usually observed in drastic cases, such as war refugees or forced displacements (i.e. former Yugoslavia, Ukraine, Israel/Palestine). We aim to analytically connect the search for “normal life” with responses to a wide range of political challenges (nepotism, rising authoritarianism, captured institutions, etc.) via labour. How do economic and broader social, political, and cultural concerns rank and interplay within personal or group decisions for migration? How are economic migrants politically socialized in diasporic communities and received by labour movements in the destination countries? How does the possibility of “exit” affect the chances of successful labour and social movement organizing in the countries of origin?

Historicizing Exit and Voice: Transnational migration in Central and Eastern Europe is closely tied to the turn-of-the-century EU expansion and visa liberalization regimes. Indeed, mobility in the region has expanded greatly in recent years, compared to the restrictions on movement imposed by state socialist regimes. Nevertheless, the historiography of “socialist globalization” during the Cold War challenges the historiographic cliches of the autarchic Eastern Bloc and highlights multidirectional East-South exchanges. Going back even further, one can apply the analytical insights of the “transnational turn” to the migrations in the interwar period or the 19th century. To what extent can we talk about return influences of diasporas and the circulation of people in earlier decades and centuries in the face of technological limits and different migration regimes?

“Exit, Voice” Beyond “East-West”: Despite the expanded theoretical conceptualization of transnational spaces, the actual geographic focus of research on Central and Eastern European migration remains fixated on the East-West axis, with Western Europe as the prime destination point. This is understandable given the geographic proximity, number of people migrating, unequal economic development, and the political and cultural attraction that the EU core enjoys in its Eastern semi-periphery. Still, there are many other migration trajectories, historically and contemporarily, along the West-East, East-South, North-South, or East-East axes that deserve to be highlighted. Are there new discernible patterns of movement emerging inside the former Eastern Europe in the wake of unequal spatial spread of the EU and the recent war in Ukraine? Can we see any continuity or new trends in Central and Eastern European overseas migration? What are the differences in “voice” across different migration routes?

Submission guidelines:

The application for participation in the conference should include the author’s full name, affiliation, author’s email address, the title of the paper, an abstract (max 300 words), and a short academic bio (up to 200 words). Applications should be sent to the official email address of the conference: exit_voice.recet@univie.ac.at.

The working language of the conference is English. Conference participation is free of charge. The organizers will provide participants with meals and refreshments. Limited accommodation and travel grants will be offered, prioritising early-career researchers without access to institutional funding.

The conference is organised as a collaboration of the University of Vienna – Research Centre for the History of Transformations (UNIVIE RECET) as the host, Faculty of Political Sciences University of Banja Luka (FPN UNIBL), Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Science and Arts – Institute of Culture and Memory Studies (ZRC SAZU) and Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies (IOS) in Regensburg, in the framework of the Horizon Europe project “Enhancing Capacities for Quality and Impactful Research on Transformations, Labour and Migration in Southeast-Europe (RETLAMI-SEE)” funded by the European Commission.

Scientific Committee:
Anđela Pepić, FPN UNIBL
Dalibor Savić, FPN UNIBL
Bojana Vukojević, FPN UNIBL
Tanja Petrović, ZRC SAZU Institute of Culture and Memory Studies
Ana Hofman, ZRC SAZU Institute of Culture and Memory Studies
Nejra Čengić, ZRC SAZU Institute of Culture and Memory Studies
Goran Musić, UNIVIE RECET
Rory Archer, UNIVIE RECET
Ulf Brunnbauer, IOS Regensburg
Jacqueline Nießer, IOS Regensburg

Organizing Committee:
Goran Musić, UNIVIE RECET
Rory Archer, UNIVIE RECET
Tanja Petrović, ZRC SAZU Institute of Culture and Memory Studies
Anđela Pepić, FPN UNIBL
Ulf Brunnbauer, IOS Regensburg

Notes:
[1] Albert O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty. Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States (Cambridge/Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1970)
[2] Bert Hoffmann, Bringing Hirschman Back In: Conceptualizing Transnational Migration as a Reconfiguration of “Exit”, “Voice”, and “Loyalty”, GIGA Working Papers, No. 91 (Hamburg: German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA), 2008)
[3] Albert O. Hirschman, “Exit, Voice, and the Fate of the German Democratic Republic: An Essay in Conceptual History”, World Politics, Vol. 45, No. 2, 1993, 173–202.
[4] Evgeny Roshchin, “Exit as Voice: Implications of Russia’s War for the Understanding of Dissent under Authoritarianism”, Perspectives on Politics, 2025, 1–16; Julia Rone and Tom Junes, “Voice after exit?: Bulgarian civic activists between protest and emigration”, East European politics and societies, Vol. 35, No. 1, 2021, 226-246.

Contact

exit_voice.recet@univie.ac.at

Submissions accepted from June 1st to 19th 2026
Publication: December 2026
Instructions to authors: SciELO Brazil
 

The study of collective identities related to labour has flourished remarkably in Brazilian historiography, achieving significant regional and institutional scope in recent decades. Challenging traditional frameworks of national history, research on the worlds of labour has not only continued the shift towards the lived and perceived experiences of the working class, expanding the theoretical and methodological provocations brought about by history from below, but has also deepened this perspective. Broadly speaking, what unites these studies is the emphasis on the capacities and forms of agency of workers—whether in political struggle, associative practices, social movements, acts of protest, leisure activities, daily life, power relations, or within multiple workplaces and arrangements—and on the socio-legal, ethnic-racial, class, regional, age, gender, and sexuality intersections that historically shape them. The emerging horizon seems to inscribe a type of framework that simultaneously extrapolates, challenges, and repositions explanations based on binary oppositions, such as slavery and capitalism, waged and non-waged labour, modern and archaic, urban and rural, authoritarianism and democracy.
This progressive affirmation of the world of labour as a fertile field for historiographical research, now endowed with indisputable institutional importance, paradoxically coincides with a process of profound capitalist transformation. The prominence of financial capital, deindustrialization, and structural precariousness seem to call into question, in Brazil and in much of the globe, the centrality of work as an organizing element of life. Reaffirming the
importance of the historical struggles of workers is, in this sense, also a way of counteracting in the present an exclusion that is not only economic, but also political and cultural. More than ever, the deepening of capitalist exploitation accentuates inequalities and is associated with the resurgence of political authoritarianism, xenophobia, and fascism. For the success of this exclusionary project, it is necessary to make the working class, its achievements, and its rights invisible.
In contrast, this thematic dossier takes as its reference point the current state of historiographical criticism and the advance of precarious labour and attacks on rights within the framework of global capitalism, punctuated by the acute alteration in ways of living, producing, consuming, and desiring, resulting from the reconfiguration of global commodity chains, the invention of other forms of exploitation of human labour via digital platforms, the algorithm economy, deindustrialization, imminent environmental collapse, and the recent shift of some Latin American governments towards the conservative right.
Thus, we invite researchers to submit unpublished and original articles, in Portuguese, Spanish, or English, that aim to reflect on the historical elements that structure, justify, and legitimize, politically and ideologically, the production and reproduction of racial, regional, class, and gender inequalities. The proposal is to observe how such inequalities affect democracy and democratic experiences across different time periods, giving rise to specific processes of social exclusion, repression, and coercion of labour, while at the same time being historically and customarily affected by the reinvention of class struggle, and the construction and transformation of collective identities. We are also interested in the analysis of contemporary initiatives to promote reparation policies for injustices committed from above against entire multitudes of workers subjected to mass enslavement and regimes of exception.
It is strongly recommended that articles address experiences beyond national borders or seek to construct comprehensive theoretical approaches that aim to cross, compare, connect, and integrate multiple spaces and temporalities, seeking to understand and vary the local, transnational, and global dimensions inherent to their objects of analysis.

Organiser: Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ) Munich; École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) Paris (IfZ Munich) Host: IfZ Munich Postcode: 80636 City: Munich Country: Germany Takes place: In attendance Dates: 07.10.2026 - 09.10.2026 Deadline: 01.05.2026  

Final conference of the Leibniz Junior Research Group Project “‘Man hört, man spricht’: Informal Communication and Information ‘From Below’ in Nazi Europe” (INFOCOM) at the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ) in Munich.

Informal Communication in Nazi Europe: World War II, Occupation, and the Search for Meaning in Societies at War

Over the course of World War II, over 200 million Europeans became subjected to Nazi rule. From the Baltic States to the Balkans, from the coasts of Normandy to the banks of the Black Sea and beyond, Nazi Germany and its allies unleashed previously unfathomable projects of ethnic cleansing and genocide, transforming European societies in ways that reverberate to the current day. These transformations, however, were not merely the product of colossal ideological visions and policies of conquest implemented “from above.” Rather, they were the continuously negotiated and tenuous result of millions of acts of introspection, self-emplacement, and action vis-à-vis myriad new and terrifying realities. Crucial to these negotiations was communication, which occurred in a very particular environment. Across Europe, wartime conditions and Axis rule devastated established sources of information and public spheres, while censorship, propaganda, and dictatorship went to unprecedented lengths to constrict, mold, and (re-) direct public opinion. As a result, World War II became a breeding ground for alternate, informal information channels, in which rumors, gossip, and tall tales helped shape individuals’ actions and sense of reality.

Taking a multidisciplinary, transnational approach, this conference explores the role of informal communication under conditions of World War II occupation and Nazi rule. Bringing together specialists on diverse European societies, the conference examines informal communication’s relationship to official state communications on the one hand, and its embeddedness in specific social realities and wartime mentalities on the other. More broadly, it asks how individuals employed various communicative and interpretative strategies to make sense of and act upon ever-changing landscapes of destruction. As such, the conference welcomes contributions that examine the following (non-exhaustive) questions:
- What role did informal communication play in particular World War II contexts? Among which populations, in which situations, and for what purposes did certain forms of informal communication become particularly salient?
- What do the forms, contents, and modes of informal communication reveal about social relations, the creation of identificatory categories (delineated by gender, ethnicity, age, language, etc.), or the possibilities for agency in conditions of violence and upheaval? How are these related to practices of accommodation or opposition to particular regimes, especially vis-à-vis Nazi Germany and its Axis allies?
- How did soldiers and/or civilians try to explain a world turned upside-down by the global conflict? What role did experiences of previous conflicts (e.g. World War I, colonial wars) play in these processes? How did Europe’s ongoing colonial contexts shape communications and expectations about World War II?
- How did informal communication enable new kinds of knowledge, especially in relation to ongoing Nazi atrocities? What can an examination of rumors, jokes, or prophecies reveal about the emergence of knowledge on the Holocaust?
- What was the role of neutral countries (e.g. Switzerland, Sweden) or transnational networks (e.g. the Catholic Church) in spreading informal knowledge of ongoing Nazi crimes? How did state actors, including Nazi Germany or the Allies, draw on informal communication to help disseminate or obscure this nascent knowledge?
- How did states react to informal spheres of communication? What efforts did the Nazi and other dictatorial regimes mobilize to monitor their societies, counteract rumors, and demarcate informal communication as “deviant” behavior? How does this compare to the surveillance practices of democratic states during World War II (e.g. Great Britain or the USA)?
- What kinds of parallels can be drawn between the communicative ecosystems of different political regimes and the communicative practices that these fostered? To what degree can we compare Nazi Germany, Vichy France, the Soviet Union, or Europe’s various aligned or occupied territories? What can be said about the specificity of informal communication under dictatorial rule in comparison to democracies?
- How do we reconstruct the informal communicative practices of the past? What kinds of sources lie at our disposal? How do we problematize and contextualize these? How do our methodological challenges relate to larger questions of credibility and veracity, both in regard to our historical actors and our current position as social scientists?
- To what extent did wartime informal communicative practices reverberate into the postwar period? How did these shape more global efforts of postwar reconstruction and Europeans’ reckonings with the crimes of their immediate past?
- What kinds of perspectives can a historical exploration of informal communication, “fake news,” and “postfactuality” contribute to current debates on these issues?

To examine these questions, this conference welcomes perspectives from scholars of various disciplines (such as history, communication and literary studies, sociology, and anthropology) who work on World War II, its precursors and immediate aftermath, and its more long-term memorial and historiographic reverberations. It seeks studies on diverse geographic contexts, with a special emphasis on different European societies that experienced Nazi occupation and dictatorial rule. However, to encourage explicitly comparative insight, it also welcomes contributions on other societies, including Nazi Germany’s non-European collaborators (e.g. Japan) or the Allied states and their efforts surrounding informal communication. Ultimately, in exploring these subjects, the conference aims to establish a modern, transnational approach to communications in conditions of war and occupation, while historicizing ongoing debates on media, postfactuality, and truth.

Practical Information:

This is the final conference of the Leibniz Junior Research Group Project “‘Man hört, man spricht’: Informal Communication and Information ‘From Below’ in Nazi Europe” (INFOCOM), conducted at the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ) in Munich. For more information, please see: https://www.ifz-muenchen.de/en/news/topics/man-hoert-man-spricht.

The conference will take place at the Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ) in Munich, from October 7 to 9, 2026.

Conference participants will be asked to submit an extended abstract (ca. 500 words) for internal circulation prior to the workshop. Presentations will last 20 minutes to allow for ample discussion time. The working language is English.

A selection of original articles based on the conference contributions will be published in a collective, peer-reviewed volume. In your application to this conference, please specify whether you would be interested in contributing a (previously unpublished) article to the publication.

Invited speakers’ travel and accommodation costs will be paid for by the IfZ.

The conference’s public keynote lecture will be delivered by Jo Fox, Professor of Modern History and Pro-Vice-Chancellor for the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Newcastle University.

To Apply:

Please submit a short biography (max. 150 words) as well as the title and an English-language abstract (max. 250 words) of your intended contribution. Send your application as a single PDF file to the project leader, Caroline Mezger (caroline.mezger@ehess.fr). The submission deadline is May 1, 2026. You will be notified about your participation by the end of June. In case of questions, please contact Caroline Mezger by e-mail.

Scientific Committee:
Caroline Mezger (main organizer, EHESS)
Florent Brayard (EHESS/CNRS)
Thomas Chopard (EHESS)
Johannes Großmann (Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich)
Isabel Heinemann (IfZ Munich)

Contact

caroline.mezger@ehess.fr

Rouen/France

Cette journée se propose d’étudier la typologie des pouvoirs féminins dans un cadre politique, juridique, économique et intellectuel. L’adoption de bornes chronologiques larges embrassant à la fois le Moyen Âge tardif et la période moderne permettra d’aborder les variations des champs d’action féminins sur le temps long. Cette étude entend également interroger les types de pouvoirs s’inscrivant dans les recherches d’histoire par le bas en s’intéressant aux femmes appartenant aux classes populaires.

Argumentaire

« Les femmes sont incapables, par la seule raison du sexe, de plusieurs sortes d’engagements et de fonctions. » écrit, en 1740, le juriste Claude-Joseph de Ferrière dans les premières lignes de son article « Femme ». Cette définition n’est pas nouvelle au XVIIIe siècle et s’inscrit dans un processus juridique d’exclusion des femmes de la vie publique. Une des premières exclusions relève d’ailleurs d’une des lois fondamentales du royaume, la loi salique qui empêche les femmes de monter sur le trône de France. Quels que soient les textes consultés, qu’ils soient religieux, politiques, juridiques, économiques, il se dessine une société patriarcale fondée sur l’inaptitude des femmes à exercer un quelconque pouvoir, ou une autorité sur autrui. Il nous faut regarder au-delà des textes normatifs et si les marges de manœuvre semblent tenues, les femmes sont pourtant nombreuses à avoir gouverné, acquis ou possédé un statut leur accordant une place privilégiée et influente au sein de la société. Elles ont joué des interstices laissés par les normes au-delà des plus hautes sphères de la société qui sont généralement évoqués dans les travaux traitant des formes de pouvoirs. Cela nous amène à réfléchir à l’agentivité, la capacité d’agir des individus, ici des femmes au sein du système de contrainte que représente l’Europe médiévale et moderne.

Cette journée se propose d’étudier la typologie des pouvoirs féminins dans un cadre politique, juridique, économique et intellectuel. L’adoption de bornes chronologiques larges embrassant à la fois le Moyen Âge tardif et la période moderne permettra d’aborder les variations des champs d’action féminins sur le temps long. Par l’étude du motif de la « querelle des femmes », l’historiographie a montré qu’à partir de la fin du Moyen Âge et encore à l’époque moderne, les hommes et les femmes de milieux privilégiés avaient pu revendiquer l’égalité entre les deux sexes. Par le simple fait de prendre la plume, ou de tenir salon, les femmes ont pu remettre en cause les écrits juridiques ou religieux qui cherchaient à les exclure. D’autres ont pris les armes et conduit des batailles, ont tenu boutiques et fait du négoce. D’autres encore sont à l’origine de nouvelles institutions transformant la société. Cette étude entend également interroger les types de pouvoirs s’inscrivant dans les recherches d’histoire par le bas en s’intéressant aux femmes appartenant aux classes populaires.

Au cours de cette journée, plusieurs axes seront abordés permettant de montrer comment les femmes ont obtenu et exercé un pouvoir prétendument inaccessible « pour la seule raison du sexe ». On pourra réfléchir à plusieurs types de pouvoirs et à plusieurs espaces d’exercice.

1. Les formes d’acquisitions du pouvoir

La question de l’acquisition d’une quelconque forme de pouvoir par les femmes influence directement les deux autres axes de recherche proposés lors de cette journée. Il en existe plusieurs formes : un pouvoir qui est obtenu par le biais d’un héritage, d’une succession, construit par le travail ou encore gagné par la force peut influencer directement son exercice par celles qui le possèdent. L’ascendant des femmes, en tant qu’épouse ou mère est interrogé. La sphère d’influence des femmes, souvent reléguées à l’espace privé, sera pareillement explorée, en particulier par l’analyse des registres de comptes et de la correspondance.

2. L’exercice du pouvoir au féminin

Existe-t-il un exercice du pouvoir qui serait spécifiquement féminin ? En quoi la pratique de l’autorité au féminin diffère-t-elle de celle des hommes : les stratégies politiques, économiques, l’usage de la force ou le pouvoir de persuasion seront interrogés afin de mettre en relief un savoir-faire féminin, la manière ou les moyens qu’elles ont utilisés pour exercer cette domination durant un court laps de temps ou, au contraire, de façon pérenne.

La question de l’exercice d’un pouvoir féminin qui prendrait forme dans la sphère familiale et domestique est questionnée. Au sein des familles, la mise en religion d’un grand nombre de filles leur ouvre de nouvelles possibilités d’exercice de pouvoirs dans l’organisation monastique. Cet axe permet également de questionner les destinataires de cet exercice de pouvoir, de domination des femmes sur autrui. Les femmes, qui exercent une autorité acquise ou arrogée, ne le font-elles que sur des hommes ou des femmes de statut social inférieur ?

3. Les enjeux sociaux et culturels du pouvoir au féminin

Le statut juridique des femmes en Europe au Moyen Âge et à l’époque moderne est un véritable enjeu puisqu’il dessine le cadre dans lequel celles-ci ont pu évoluer. On peut se demander dans quelle mesure l’éducation des femmes, sujet de société dont on débat dès l’époque médiévale, a contribué à favoriser leur accession à des responsabilités et leur manière d’exercer celles-ci. Les femmes de ces époques ont pu contribuer ainsi à certains changements sociaux et culturels par la contestation des limites patriarcales, par le biais de leurs activités professionnelles ou par des initiatives individuelles. Le statut matrimonial des femmes ainsi que les formes de pouvoirs exercés aux différents moments de leur vie pourront aussi être interrogés.

Modalités de Soumission

Cet appel à communication est ouvert aux doctorants en histoire médiévale et moderne. Les propositions de communication, d’une longueur de 300 mots, doivent être envoyées aux adresses suivantes : lea.chacon1@univ-rouen.fr ; catherine.hans-menetrier@etu.univ-rouen.fr,

avant le 15 mars 2026.

Elles devront être accompagnées d’une proposition de titre ainsi que d’une courte présentation.

Comité Scientifique

• Anna Bellavitis (Université de Rouen-GRHis)
• Léa Chacon (Université de Rouen-GRHIS)
• Déborah Cohen (Université de Rouen-GRHis)
• Catherine Hans-Ménétrier (Université de Rouen-GRHIS)
• Alexis Grélois (Université de Rouen-GRHis)
• Marie Groult (Archives départementales de la Seine-Maritime)
• Élie Haddad (EHESS-CRH)

Comité d’organisation

• Léa Chacon
• Catherine Hans-Ménétrier

Lieu

• 1 rue Thomas Becket, 76130, Mont-Saint-Aignan
  Rouen, Frankreich (76000)

Format de l'événement

Événement hybride

Date

• Dimanche 15´mars 2026

Mots-clés

• histoire des femmes, histoire du genre,pouvoirs, agency

Contact

• Léa CHACON
  courriel : lea [dot] chacon [at] univ-rouen [dot] fr
• Catherine Hans-Ménétrier
  courriel : catherine [dot] hans-menetrier [at] etu [dot] univ-rouen [dot] fr