German Historical Institute Washington DC; Convenors: Christina Lubinski (GHI Washington), Christina May (Göttingen) and Warren Rosenblum (St. Louis)
08.03.2013-09.03.2013, Washington DC, German Historical Institute
Deadline: 31.08.2012
Ideas for social improvement are not confined by national boundaries.
Innovations in industry, medicine, hygiene, technology, etc. have addressed social problems caused by events as diverse as industrialisation, the two World Wars, and the economic crises of the 1970s. Many of these problems had an international character and were experienced in different countries around the world.
Instead of trying to solve these issues only within their own national borders, reformers, social policy makers and other people involved have often looked abroad, forming "transnational advocacy networks" (Keck and Sikkink 1998). There they found attempts at ameliorating the problems they perceived at home - and sometimes even solutions. There are several pioneer studies that have investigated these exchange processes and the adaptation of social ideas mainly/for example in Europe and the US (e.g. Kloppenberg 1986, Rodgers 1998). In this vein, the workshop aims at embedding national agendas for social improvement within the transnational exchange processes that shaped them.
The areas in question were as varied as social work, health care and social policy, city planning and social housing. In observing and imitating social innovations across continents, the actors involved often formed international networks of experts or intellectuals that operated at a more global level. However, as countries sometimes differed decisively both culturally and politically, the implementation was not always achieved swiftly and easily. Reformers often met resistance to the new ideas within their home countries, and consequently were forced to alter their projects or give them up altogether.
The conference tries to address the following questions: How were social reforms transferred across borders and who were the actors involved? Why were some reform models successfully exported while others failed to work in a different environment? How did the actors manage to incorporate the new ideas into their own cultural context? Did they face resistance and if so by whom? How did cross-national networking enable and facilitate the implementation of new ideas?
Paper proposals are welcome from both young and established scholars. We invite abstracts from humanities and the social sciences and especially welcome papers in global history and regional studies as well as interdisciplinary approaches. Proposals should include an abstract of the paper (approx. 600 words) and a curriculum vitae in English. The proposals should be submitted via e-mail (preferably in pdf format) by 31 August 2012, to the organizers: cmay [at] gwdg.de and lubinski [at] ghi-dc.org.
Decisions will be announced by 31 October 2012. The organizers will pay the cheapest possible airfare and local costs for all participants.
Bibliography
-Keck, Margaret E. / Sikkink, Kathryn (1998): Activists beyond borders. Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Ithaka: Cornell University Press.
-Kloppenberg, James (1986): Uncertain Victory. Social Democracy and Progressivism in European and American Thought, 1870-1920. Oxford University Press.
-Rodgers, Daniel T. (1998): Atlantic Crossings. Social Politics in a Progressive Age. Cambridge: Belknap Press.
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Christina Lubinski
GHI Washington (lubinski [at] ghi-dc.org)
Christina May
Institut für Soziologie, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
(cmay [at] gwdg.de)
[Cross-posted, with thanks, from H-Soz-u-Kult]