Work - Employment - Vocation. The Production of Differences and Hierarchies of Livelihood in the 19th and 20th Centuries

Conference announcement, Vienna, 10 - 11 February 2012

Conf. Ann: Work - Employment - Vocation. The Production of Differences and Hierarchies of Livelihood in the 19th and 20th Centuries - Wien 02/12

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The Production of Work: Sigrid Wadauer; Peter Angerer; Thomas Buchner; Sonja Hinsch; Alexander Mejstrik; Jessica Richter; Georg Schinko; Irina Vana 10.02.2012-11.02.2012, Wien, Campus der Universität Wien, Seminarraum des Instituts für Ethik und Recht in der Medizin (=Alte Kapelle), Spitalgasse 2-4, A-1090 Wien, Austria
Deadline: 03.02.2012

Since the late nineteenth century, work radically changed in its form and content in Western nation states. Paid employment was normalized as the legitimate way to gain one's livelihood. Moreover, employment began to require aptitude, affinity, and training as well as steadfastness and dedication: it required a vocation, profession, MÉTIER, ÈTAT, PROFESSION, BERUF, and so on.

The German term BERUF is perhaps the best example. The idea that a BERUF was more and more necessary or essential for all persons in a given polity emerged as recently as the first half of the twentieth century in a history of various struggles to redefine work. Every occupation was soon supposed to become a particular case of BERUF. Although there still were (and are) diverse possibilities for making a living and the inclusion of some (e.g. housework) was disputed, BERUF emerged as the benchmark for assessing them. Not only were policy-makers, official institutions, political and economic organizations and trade associations involved in the struggles to establish BERUF, but so were individuals who in any number of ways received and/or organized a livelihood. They participated by accepting new offers and demands, by making an effort to attain a life-long vocation - or instead by doing something different, such as pursuing long-standing opportunities like farm or domestic service or new ones like unskilled labour and leisure time.

A history of BERUF can therefore not be written if the manifold ways people sustained and altered their livelihoods are omitted. This holds true for its homologues in other nation states, too.

The workshop will explore how new hierarchies of ways to earn a living were established in national labour markets, focussing on the most legitimate references like vocation, profession, MÉTIER, or BERUF. This includes questions of state policy, professional organization, vocational training and counselling as well as how boundaries towards other (new) institutions as housework, domestic service, unskilled labour, and leisure time were put into practice.

Long version:http://pow.univie.ac.at/aktivitaeten/workshops/work-employment-vocation/kurzbeschreibung/#c325549

If you would like to attend the workshop, please register until February 3, 2012 at http://pow.univie.ac.at/newsletter-anmeldungen/ or send an email to pow.wiso [at] univie.ac.at.

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Friday February 10, 2012

09:00 - 09:30 s.t. Sigrid Wadauer, Alexander Mejstrik (Vienna):
Welcome and Introduction

Chair: Jessica Richter

09:30 - 10:30 Thomas Sokoll (Hagen):
Labour, Vocational Commitment and Modern Capitalism: Max Weber and Beyond

10:30-10:50 Coffee Break

10:50 - 11:50 Tuhina Ganguly (New Delhi):
Conceptualizing Work-Employment in India: A Study of CHAKRI in Colonial Bengal (19th-20th Centuries)

11:50 - 12:50 Irina Vana (Vienna):
Vocation as a Distinctive Feature in the Use of Labour Offices (Austria, 1918-1938)

12:50-14:15 Lunch break

Chair: Sigrid Wadauer

14:15 - 15:15 Wiebke Wiede (Trier):
Vocational Training and the Unemployed Self in West Germany and Great Britain 1964-1990

15:15 - 16:15 David Meskill (New York):
Punctuated Equilibria: Three "Leaps" in the Evolution of the German Vocational Training System

16:15- 16:30 Coffee Break

16:30 - 17:30 Therese Garstenauer (Vienna):
Service to the State: Work, Vocation, Livelihood - or Something Else Entirely?

Saturday February 11, 2012

Chair: Thomas Buchner

10:00 - 11:00 s.t. Georg Schinko (Vienna):
BERUF in Music-Making (Austria, ca. 1900-1938)

11:00 - 12:00 Tanja Paulitz (Graz):
Engineer and Machine: On the Interplay between Professionalization, Scientific Knowledge and Gender in the German-Speaking Area, 1850-1930

12:00 - 13:30 Lunch break

Chair: Alexander Mejstrik

13:30 - 14:30 Mareike Witkowski (Oldenburg):
>From Housemaids to Cleaning Ladies. Domestic Workers During the 20th Century

14:30 - 15:30 Sarah Speck (Berlin):
Professionalizing Motherhood. Love and Care Work in SOS Children's Villages between Naturalization, Vocation and Employment

15:30 - 16:00 Conclusion

Folder with the programme:
http://pow.univie.ac.at/fileadmin/user_upload/proj_pow/Workshop3/pow_ws…

Supported by:
European Research Council, ERC grant agreement No. 200918

Austrian Science Fund (FWF), Project No. Y367-G14

University of Vienna

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The Production of Work

Institut für Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte, Universität Wien
Standort: Maria-Theresien-Straße 9/4, A-1090 Wien, Österreich
+43/+1/4277/41337
+43/+1/4277/40899
pow.wiso [at] univie.ac.at

Homepage http://pow.univie.ac.at/

[Cross-posted, with thanks, from H-Soz-u-Kult]