Social and Labour History News

This issue of Cadernos do Arquivo Municipal seeks to analyse in an interdisciplinary way both the food assistance structures of this era and their human, territorial, and social framing, studied from various perspectives, from history to architecture, from the specific site to the social landscape and territory.

Argument

The call for articles for the thematic dossier of issue 23 of Cadernos do Arquivo Municipal, “Soup Kitchens and social assistance in the 19th and 20th centuries: Spaces and foodscapes of the working world” is open until July 31, 2024.

At the end of the 19th century, the vigorous advancement of industrialization and urban growth brought to the cities a time of profound transformations, whether on an economic, social, spatial, or environmental level, among others. This scenario was characterized by the emergence and expansion of a significant urban working class, which settled in densely populated neighbourhoods, facing challenging, precarious, and unhealthy living conditions. In response to this reality, a new approach to food assistance emerged, essential to meet the basic needs of a growing population, often deprived of adequate food resources.

This movement is part of the broader framework of philanthropy and social assistance, which has been a continuous topic of debate and reform in many Western countries. It is within the framework of philanthropy that numerous support institutions were created, both secular and religious, which at the end of the 19th century acquired a more structured and complex approach to meet social needs. These ideas took shape in the form of kitchens and food assistance points, strategically located near working-class neighbourhoods and industrial areas.

However, the role of these institutions transcended mere food provision. They were also vital elements in shaping the social and urban landscape, reflecting, and responding to the socioeconomic complexities of that era. In addition to fulfilling a practical function of assistance in critical periods, these places also served as a tangible reminder of the existence of individuals in need. The reading and study of these spaces, particularly in terms of operation, aesthetics, and location, highlights the multidimensionality of the soup kitchens and food assistance centres, not only as entities that mitigated an immediate need but also as spaces that reflected and influenced the social and urban fabric of the time.

This issue of Cadernos do Arquivo Municipal seeks to analyse in an interdisciplinary way both the food assistance structures of this era and their human, territorial, and social framing, studied from various perspectives, from history to architecture, from the specific site to the social landscape and territory, namely:

1. Historical analysis of soup kitchens and other food assistance places as social assistance institutions.
2. The role of food assistance structures in the social and urban fabric of industrial cities.
3. The impact of industrial transformations on food supply and access to products.
4. The architecture, design, and functioning of food assistance structures and how they reflect the needs and values of the time.
5. Case studies and comparative perspectives between different regions or countries.

Submission guidelines

The call for articles for the thematic dossier “Soup Kitchens and social assistance in the 19th and 20th centuries: Spaces and foodscapes of the working world” is open until July 31, 2024.

More info.

• Original and unpublished works are accepted, based on research supported by a strong theoretical-methodological component, within the scope of the journal and relevant to a national and international audience.
• The journal accepts submissions in Portuguese, English, French and Spanish.
• All proposals for articles should be sent to am.cadernos@cm-lisboa.pt
• Cadernos do Arquivo Municipaldoes not charge any fees for the submission process, peer review, publication and availability of texts.

Conditions for submission

As part of the process, authors are required to check that the submission complies with all the items listed below. Submissions that do not comply with these standards will be returned to the authors.

• The paper is original, unpublished and the parts that come from other works are duly referenced. It is not under review or for publication in another journal. Otherwise, the author(s) should inform the journal editors.
• Authorship is subject to a grace period of four issues.
• Only one proposal per author and/or co-author will be accepted for a single issue and must be submitted using the submission template.
• The section for which the text is intended must be indicated: Thematic Dossier, Articles or Book Reviews.
• Authors' names, ORCIDs, affiliations (R&D centres, faculties and universities) and email addresses.
• Language of the text: Portuguese (according to the new spelling agreement), Spanish, French or English. Title, abstract and keywords in the language of the text, in English and in Portuguese.
• Limit of 10,000 words for articles and 2,000 for book reviews, including footnotes and bibliographical references.

Follow the Publication Guidelines.

About this journal

Scientific coordination

• Leonor A. Plácido de Medeiros (Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Portugal)
• Philip Carstairs (Independent researcher, United Kingdom)

 

Runs: From 9th May 2024 to 31st Aug 2024

Exhibition Opening takes place on Thursday 9th May from 4-7PM 

Here We Stand: The Art of International Solidarity

An exhibition of international solidarity campaign posters at Working Class Movement Library

This exhibition celebrates the tradition of working class communities standing in solidarity with people all around the world. The exhibition includes posters from campaigns such as the campaign against the war in Vietnam, The Spanish Civil War, Palestinian Solidarity, The Peace Movement and many more. The togetherness and mutual support of these campaigns resonates throughout history with some of the greatest sacrifices and political victories.

Throughout this history, artists have played an important role in bringing people together and communicating the ideas and demands of these struggles. The exhibition features the work of some of the most renowned artists of the last century including Miro, Keith Haring and Peter Kennard.

The exhibition includes posters campaigning for causes in Europe, Asia, North America, South America, Africa and the Middle East. These posters are a window to the incredible archive at the library that documents some of the most extraordinary stories from these campaigns through letters, pamphlets, photographs, clothing, banners, and flags. These are also complemented by a rich collection of books that together complete an amazing resource for anyone wishing to learn more about both these campaigns and how working class people have engaged in them.

 

 

Since its establishment as an academic research field in the U.S. in the late 1970s, public history has grown significantly, serving as a vital tool for examining contemporary issues, community memories, and conflicts at both scholarly and practical levels. In the 21st century, the field has become a prominent platform for “making history with the public(s)”, moving beyond the confines of academia. Despite its popularity, comprehensively defining public history without oversimplification remains challenging. Indeed, in addition to the audience’s centrality and its dual identity as both a scholarly research field and a practice, public history encompasses a variety of methodologies to (co-)investigate peoples’ cultures, memories, and histories. Furthermore, there is a multiplicity of media and organizations through which public history projects can be shared, ranging from participatory initiatives to studies addressing complex topics of public interest. Moreover, recent internationalization processes have added another layer to the epistemological framework of public history. As James B. Gardener and Paula Hamilton noted in the introduction to the Oxford Handbook of Public History in 2017, “Given that both the state and the nation have been central to the development of public history, we ask what we can learn if we engage with the local context within a wider international frame”.

With this call, we aim to investigate the discipline of public history from our unique perspective as a journal focused on American Studies from outside North America. USAbroad seeks to engage with studies and practices of public history concerning US history and politics, whether originating in the United States or elsewhere. As each public history project is influenced by its location, we are interested in comparing studies and practices regarding US politics and history across different countries. For this reason, the call also welcomes contributions that explore the challenges and possibilities of engaging with US history outside the US, as well as articles that question the methodological and epistemological foundation of public history as a discipline per se vis-à-vis US history.  

USAbroad invites public history or public history-related contributions investigating US compelling past(s), heritage, memories and socio-economic fractures. Given the interdisciplinary nature of the field, which benefits from the integration of various research areas and communication methods, contributions may draw from, but are not limited to, the following research areas related to American history:

- Foreign relations (e.g. soft diplomacy actions);

- Postcolonial studies;

- Intellectual history (e.g. international circulation of ideas);

- Global history;

- Cultural studies (e.g. culture wars, Lost Cause);

- Ethnic studies; (e.g. migrant communities, transnational connections)

- Economic politics;

- Media and game studies (e.g. the impact of American products over communities at home and abroad);

- Military history (e.g. historical reenactments, war cemeteries)

- Urban studies;

- Heritage interpretation in museums, libraries, parks, rural or urban settings, etc.;

- Teaching and education (e.g. historical anniversary);

- Memory studies (e.g. analysis and practices over monuments; memories of trauma in communities or families)

Please submit your abstract (500 words max) and your CV (2 pages max) to usabroad@unibo.it by May 5, 2024. Successful applicants will be notified by May 15, 2024, at the latest.

The selection of abstracts will be based on a range of criteria including scientific originality, clarity of the proposal submitted, use of primary sources and adherence to the themes of the call for papers. Please highlight in the abstract whether your contribution will offer a scholarly analysis of public history, explore a specific case study/practice of public history, or it will do both. Abstracts that do not clearly address these criteria will not be considered for publication.

Please note that, if your application is successful, you will need to submit a full 7000-word article by August 31, 2024.

More info can be found at http://usabroad.unibo.it/  

Après l’exode massif du début de l’année 1939 qui mène vers la France plusieurs centaines de milliers de républicains espagnols, ces derniers connaissent tout au long de la Seconde Guerre mondiale des itinéraires marqués par le travail – souvent forcé –, par des engagements militaires et par diverses formes de résistances contre l’occupant de leur pays d’exil. Ils sont prestataires de l’armée française ou soldats incorporés dans des unités étrangères de celle-ci. Et, ce qui est encore relativement méconnu, ils contribuent massivement à l’économie de guerre tout au long de la période en France mais aussi en Allemagne et en Espagne.

Comment la IIIe République puis l’État français dirigé depuis Vichy ont-ils conçu, géré, l’utilisation de la main-d’œuvre abondante que représentaient ces « étrangers indésirables », d’abord dans les Compagnies puis dans les Groupements de travailleurs étrangers (CTE et GTE) ? Comment les autorités nazies ont-elles puisé dans le vivier des GTE pour leurs besoins industriels en Allemagne et en France occupée, notamment pour la construction du Mur de l’Atlantique ? Et aussi, comment la dictature franquiste a-t-elle fait du travail esclave effectué par ses opposants un pilier économique du régime ?

Les études historiques sont suivies d’articles sur le travail accompli par des associations mémorielles œuvrant pour rappeler l’histoire des travailleurs forcés des bases sous-marines allemandes et honorer leur mémoire. Deux exemples particulièrement éclairants reflètent la vie des « Espagnols rouges » – Rotspanier – ayant travaillé pour la construction des bases sous-marines de Bordeaux et de Brest.

Ce numéro double comprend également la rubrique « La fabrique des archives », un aperçu sur de nouvelles recherches – femmes galiciennes émigrant seules en Catalogne sous le franquisme – et des notices de livres – sur des GTE dans le Sud-est français et sur la guérilla antifranquiste dans le León et en Galice.

The conference will take place in Warsaw at the Faculty of Modern Languages ​​at the University of Warsaw
(ul. Dobra 55) on 25-27 September 2024 in a hybrid format with possible online participation.    The vital and complex role of the landowning elites in the political, economic, and cultural history of Europe has been extensively researched, resulting in a wealth of literature. However, the question of how this role has been remembered since the dissolution of these elites as a social class, and what the implications of this memory and legacy are for contemporary European societies, has only recently been addressed by sociologists, historians, and anthropologists.

The opening hypothesis of the conference is that post-feudal social structures, which were a consequence of the power dynamics between the landowners and peasants, can be examined through a perspective of the longue durée. The existence of landowners as a class was brought to an end by political decisions and revolutionary movements, or gradually transitioned into social and political systems based on more democratic principles. This led to various legacies from the past, modes of remembrance, and finally, legal and economic circumstances. These diverse trajectories serve as a reminder of the East-West dichotomy in Europe, as in part of Central and Eastern Europe the end of the landowners' domination came with bloodshed and violence, as part of the making of the ‘Bloodlands’. However, our aim is to go beyond this dichotomy and see whether schemes other than East-West can be employed to understand the diversity of the gentry, nobility and aristocracy history in Europe.

An illustration of this diversity is also the multitude of terms used to describe the phenomena we discuss and its internal stratification. While we use the ahistorical terms "landowners" or the „landowning elites” as the overarching terms for the purpose of this call for papers, we acknowledge that in different regional contexts, more specific categories such as gentry, nobility, and aristocracy are relevant. We also welcome discussion on the terms used in the papers.

Individual and collective memory of the gentry, nobility and aristocracy, and in a broader sense, of the post-feudal period with all its complexities, will, however, vary depending not only on how the landowners' era concluded, but also on its characteristics in different regions of Central and Eastern Europe. The landowning elites might have shared the same ethnicity and religion as the subordinate classes, or they could have been of different backgrounds, such as in Eastern Galicia, where Poles owned vast swathes of land populated by ethnic Ukrainians. They could have also belonged to the titular nation of the nation-state, as in interwar Poland, or been ethnically connected to another nation, as was the case with the German aristocracy in interwar Czechoslovakia. Its social and political standing, as well as its proportion within the general population, could range from significant, as seen in Hungary, to marginal, as observed in Romania. Moreover, the gentry, nobility and aristocracy could either be the sole elite in the country or blend, compete with, or even give rise to other influential groups, as exemplified by the Polish intelligentsia. Lastly, the current status of the landowning elites and their (former) property varies greatly across Europe: from regions where its status was never formally challenged, such as in Great Britain, to countries where extensive (re)privatization laws were enacted after the collapse of communism, like in the Czech Republic and Lithuania, and to the post-Soviet states of Ukraine and Belarus, where the issue of reprivatization was never politicized and remains largely absent from public discourse.

With this complex agenda in mind, we want to approach the topic of this conference in a comparative and contextualised perspective. We wish to pose questions about memory of the gentry, nobility and aristocracy as inscribed in the official narrative, vernacular beliefs, cultural practices and art. We will have a close look at the approach to the their material heritage, the role its history and legacy plays in maintaining collective identities on the local and national levels, as well as the complexity of the legal constraints involved. We will be interested in broadening our approach to the dynamics of the social relations between various actors and seeing among them not only the landowning elites and peasantry, but also Jews in their traditional and less conventional roles, city dwellers as a counter-community, rich bourgeoisie as the competing and/or aspiring class, and intelligentsia with its multifaceted role. Thus, we will include the internal and external perspective of various memory actors and keepers. Additionally, our key focus will be the material heritage: objects, buildings and spaces as spheres of interference, contested property battleground and non-sites of difficult memories.
 
The proposed papers might address, but not be limited, to the following issues:

THE LONGUE DURÉE OF POST-FEUDAL STRUCTURES
• How did the memory of the landowning elites, their role and status change over the time? What were the dividing lines or the turning points? 
• What is the group memory dynamics among the descendants of the gentry, nobility and aristocracy themselves, among people with peasant origins, and in local village communities where once the gentry resided?
• What are the main determinants of this memory – how are violence, power relations and class dependencies remembered?
• How can the longue durée of the post-feudal social mechanisms and structures be discovered in the cultural memory, values and elements of the identity of different social groups?
• How are various aspects of the gentry, nobility and aristocracy ethos perceived in contemporary social life, art and culture?
• Who endeavours to uphold this ethos as the ethos of their own group – in other words, who currently belongs to the group that regards the landowning elites’ legacy as its own?

CHANGE  
• How the ways the post-feudal system was dissolved in different countries influenced the memory of the gentry, nobility and aristocracy?
• How the categories of guilt, victimhood and historical justice have been employed in the narratives about the end of these groups’ domination on various levels (local, group, national)?
• How is the violence against the gentry, nobility and aristocracy that accompanied their dissolution as a social strata – physical, political and symbolic – remembered today?
• In which form, if any, is the past social order reactivated if an estate is bought by a new owner?  How does such new ownership, be it by descendants of a historical landowning family, or by new people,  resonate with the legacy of the past?
• How did the memory and survival strategies of the gentry, nobility and aristocracy families form and evolve during the communist and post-communist period?

MATERIAL HERITAGE
• What is the status of the material heritage of the gentry, nobility and aristocracy – manors, parks and palaces? To what extent is it considered common heritage – by local communities, by the national community, and by authorities on various levels?
• What does the memoryscape of such places look like?
• What are the commemorative practices connected with such spaces?
• Does the issue of the post-1989 (re)privatisation influence attitudes towards the landowning elites’ material heritage?
 
REGIONAL AND PARTICULAR VS. UNIVERSAL
• What is the specificity of memory related to the gentry, nobility and aristocracy in various European countries? Is the East-West division the main important one?
• Is the memory of the aristocracy different from the memory of the lower nobility, or landowners without noble titles? How does the social and political diversification of the landowning elites in the past influence its memory today?
• Which historical factors influence the collective and individual memory, as well as memorial practices?
• Is the overlapping of class, ethnicity and religion in the past decisive for the contemporary memory of the landowning elites and post-feudality?
• Is there any specific memory of the Jewish landed gentry?
• Can any parallels be found outside Europe? What is the postcolonial aspect of the landowning elites’ historical presence in these countries?

We welcome submissions from memory studies, heritage studies, and other related disciplines. The comparative approach will be particularly welcome.

Organisational information
The conference will take place in Warsaw on 25-27 September 2024 in a hybrid format with possible online participation.
The conference language is English. The organisers provide accommodation for the participants. There is no conference fee.

Call for Papers To apply please send the following documents to: genealogies@enrs.eu

The deadline for the submission is 19th of May 2024:
o          Abstract (maximum 300 words)
o          Brief biographical note (up to 200 words)
o          Scan/photo of the signed Consent Clause

Applicants will be notified of the results in mid-June 2024. Written draft papers (2,000–2,500 words) should be submitted by 25th of August 2024. Papers should aim to be 20 minutes, to be delivered in English.

Selected authors will be invited to submit their paper to an edited volume to be published with a leading academic publisher, most likely in the European Remembrance and Solidarity book series developed by ENRS and Routledge.

Social History Archive to provide access to world’s largest digital archive of UK historical source material

• New academic resource - Social History Archive - launches to UK and US universities and academic institutions
• Powered by the latest technology, the platform offers access to the largest collection of British & Irish historical resources online
• Major partnerships with the British Library and the National Archives provide a growing collection of exclusive and unique source material
• Powerful AI and search technology delivers accurate results in an instant, while Single Sign-On (SSO) ensures security
• The Social History Archive will be exhibiting at UKSG conference at stand 83

The Social History Archive, a brand-new resource for academics and researchers has launched, offering access to the largest collection of British and Irish historical resources online.

Catering to a range of academic interests, the digital archive contains over 14 billion records which offer centuries of data and insights. Through access to a diverse range of source material, including newspapers, census returns, crime reports and emigration records, researchers can delve into the people, places and events that have shaped the world.

This is thanks to partnerships with some of the world’s most prestigious cultural organisations and archives, including the National Archives and the British Library. A continuous comprehensive digitisation process enables the Social History Archive to deliver exclusive source material on an ongoing basis.

The archive is fully searchable through a powerful search function, with advanced and simple options, using keywords, names, dates, and even phrases to pinpoint accurate results faster. Students and researchers can also discover every detail of the original documents and newspapers on their screen, and a simple citation export function allows users to swiftly add references to working documents.

Institutions will benefit from the seamless integration of the Social History Archive into their single sign-on, for secure on and off campus access. The platform also complies with accessibility standards and offers COUNTER reporting with SUSHI support.

The Social History Archive is launching with four packages catering to a range of departmental requirements:

• Records – the entry level subscription gives users easy access to the complete repository of records, excluding the 1921 Census of England & Wales
• Records+ – in addition to everything included in the ‘Records’ subscription, researchers will be able to access the unique and invaluable 1921 Census – the last to be published until 2051.
• Newspapers – user-friendly, online access to The British Newspaper Archive, the largest collection of historical British and Irish newspapers online, with 30m pages covering over 300 years of history.
• Access all areas – unrestricted, unlimited access to everything
  The Social History Archive has to offer.

Sarah Bush, Managing Director, said:

“We’re delighted to launch the Social History Archive to the academic community, offering a goldmine of historical primary source material to benefit a huge range of specialisms and faculties. Whether you’re researching UK history, geography, sociology, journalism, politics and economics, or even data science, this growing collection provides a vast and varied record of life over the centuries.

“In collaboration with our partners and users, we’re constantly working to develop our offering. We’re committed to delivering a product powered by the latest technology and a growing repository of records, which together provide a world-class experience for researchers.”

The Social History Archive will be exhibiting at the upcoming UKSG event in Glasgow on 8-10 April 2024, at stand 83, where they with be demonstrating the platform.

 

ENDS

For more information, to request images or to discuss feature opportunities, please contact:

Madeleine Gilbert, Senior PR Manager, Findmypast: pr@findmypast.com

NOTES TO EDITORS

About Findmypast

Findmypast is a fast-growing, technology-driven, subscription service. With a bank of more than 14 billion digitised records, and exclusive access to some of the world’s most renowned historical databases, Findmypast’s technology allows customers to connect to people, both past and present, and visualise their family story in more detail than ever before. 

With a global community of over 13 million registered users, this innovative and agile British technology company has strong network effects and is trusted by some of the world’s largest archives, museums, and governments. Findmypast is building a team of world-class technology professionals where people from every background come together to help millions of others understand theirs.

Workshop at the Center for Modern East Asian Studies (CeMEAS) at Göttingen University, November 15-16, 2024

In Western political science literature, political passivity is generally regarded either as a symptom of weakening democratic institutions or, if it is observed in an illiberal regime, as an expression of citizens’ acquiescence with authoritarian rule. This binary view in which civic engagement is situated on the democratic end of the spectrum of political systems, while “passive obedience” is associated with non-democratic rule, assumes that individual agency in the public sphere is preconditioned by a clear division of state and civil society as is characteristic of liberal democracies. On the contrary, autocratic systems are believed to offer little to no space for political activism beyond the ruling party or government. There is, however, also the possibility of constituting an alternative dichotomy in which the opposite of political passivity is not civic engagement but mobilization. Indeed, the history of the twentieth century has provided us with ample evidence that totalitarian governments share a tendency to seek to arouse, enlist, awaken, or revive the people under their rule. Following this logic, passivity can be a form of resistance to creating a new man, nation, or culture. Even though Linz (1975) argues that passivity is a core feature of authoritarian rule in contrast to the mobilizational character of totalitarianism, the end of the Cold War and the waning influence of Communist ideology did not ring in the end of mass mobilization. Populist movements and dominant parties worldwide revived or reinvented the political tools of mobilization via mass campaigns, assisted by the possibilities of social media and artificial intelligence. Simultaneously, we see trends of a conscious retreat from society in youth phenomena popularized in China and beyond under the slogans of “lying flat,” “involution,” or “quiet quitting.” As we argue, political passivity has to be studied as a form of Eigensinn that transcends notions of compliance or resistance in authoritarian and hybrid regimes.

This workshop sets out to investigate 1) how contemporary governments in authoritarian and hybrid regimes discuss and problematize political passivity and social disengagement, 2) how passivity is sanctioned under dominant ideological, cultural, social, or religious norms, 3) which practical measures are taken to counter signs of disengagement, and 4) how citizens react to pressures to engage in political and social life.

Possible topics of workshop contributions include, but are not limited to:
- Strategies, aims, and (unintended) consequences of political campaigns addressing citizens’ passivity
- Discourses on civic virtues and the initiation and impact of moralizing campaigns
- State-led attempts to create opportunities for the nationalistic, ideological, or cultural re-engagement of citizens
- Questions of methodology and source access in the study of political passivity
- Comparative approaches to passivity as a political problem in different countries and cultures
- Differentiated analysis of reasons for political passivity among citizens in non-democratic states
- Political passivity as an expression of youth subculture, especially among urban youths
- The reception of Western (academic) discourses on passivity and civic engagement in non-democratic states
Format
The workshop will take a hybrid format to accommodate participants from outside Europe.

Funding
Limited funding is available to cover travel costs and accommodation for participants who cannot get reimbursement from their home institutions. Preference will be given to junior researchers.

Submission
Please submit an abstract of about 250 words to bertram.lang@uni-goettingen.de and henrike.rudolph@uni-goettingen.de by April 30, 2024. Please also include information on whether you would like to attend in person or online and if you require financial support to cover travel and accommodation.

Timeframe
- Call for papers: April 30, 2024
- Decision on submissions by early May
- Submission of position papers (about 3-5 pages): November 1, 2024
- Workshop: November 15-16, 2024

Kontakt

Dr. Henrike Rudolph (henrike.rudolph@uni-goettingen.de), Dr. Bertram Lang (bertram.lang@uni-goettingen.de)

Rome, 17-19 April 2024

This conference at the German Historical Institute in Rome is designed to illuminate the historical relations between two factors in urban history: migration and urban activism.

Migration and Urban Activism in 20th Century Europe

Cities are made by people who inhabit them. European cities over the 20th century have been strongly shaped by domestic and international migration as well as urban social movements, civil society action, and political protest of various forms. This conference at the German Historical Institute in Rome is designed to illuminate the historical relations between these two factors in urban history: migration and urban activism. It brings together scholars discussing the history of urban developments subject to activism by migrants, against migrants, and for migrants. These three perspectives shall contribute to more systematic understanding of important processes in our cities to which European historiography hitherto has paid relatively little attention.

Programm

Wednesday, 17 April

14.30 Reception

15.00 Opening: Migration, Urban Space and Forms of Activism
Martin Baumeister (Rome), Bruno Bonomo (Rome), Olga Sparschuh (Vienna), David Templin (Osnabrück) and Christian Wicke (Utrecht)

15.30 Part 1: Migrant Activism
Chair: Bruno Bonomo (Rome)

1. Markian Prokopovych (Durham): Locating Transmigrants in Vienna and Budapest around 1900: Spaces, Institutions, Informal networks

2. Michael Goebel (Berlin): Local Struggles over Global Order: Migration and Anticolonialism in Interwar Paris

16.40 - 17.00 Coffee Break

3. Sarah Jacobson (Berlin): Organizing from the Neighborhood: Southern Italian Migrants and Housing Occupations in 1970s Italy and West Germany

4. Simon Goeke (Munich): Solidarity, Gastronomy, and Exile Politics: Leftist Anti-Junta Resistance and the Alternative Lifestyle in Munich during the 1960s and 1970s

5. Grazia Prontera (Salzburg): Navigating Political Spaces: The Role of Migrant Activism in Munich’s Local Consultative Body during the 1970s and 1980s

19.00 Keynote: Panikos Panayi (Leicester): Racists, Revolutionaries and Representatives in London: From Hostile Environment to Multiculturalism

Thursday, 18 April

09.30 Reception

10.00 Part 2: Urban Activism against Migration
Chair: Christian Wicke (Utrecht)

1. Stefano Gallo (Naples): Internal urban-oriented Migration in 20th century Italy: Exploring the Social Consequences of Administrative Discrimination

2. Andreas Weigl (Vienna): From the Referendum “Austria First” to the “Sea of Lights” (Lichtermeer): Urban Activism on Immigration after the Fall of the Iron Curtain in Vienna

11.20 - 11.40 Coffee Break

3. Malte Borgmann (Berlin): “We want to live peacefully again.” Anti-migrant Protest and its Influence on the Accommodation of Asylum Seekers in West Berlin

4. Carsta Langner (Jena): “A Danger to Upscale Living” – Local Engagement against the Accommodation of Migrants in the Postsocialist Society of East Germany in the 1990s

13.00 Lunch Break

15.30 Excursion: Migration and Activism in Contemporary Rome: from the Pantanella Factory to Spin Time Labs

Friday, 19 April

9.00 Reception

9.30 Part 3: Urban Activism for Migrants
Chair: David Templin (Osnabrück)

1. Daniel Renshaw (Reading): The Church Army and Jewish Communities in Urban Britain, 1900-1914: Poverty, Proselytization and Prejudice

2. Brian Shaev (Leiden): Civil Society Activism for Migrants in Dortmund, 1945-1968

10.40 - 11.00 Coffee Break

3. Giulia Zitelli Conti (Rome): Firstly Lumpenproletarians, then Immigrants: The Migration Issue in the Struggle for Housing in Rome in the Post-War Period

4. Luca Provenzano (Paris): Taking Back the City: Revolutionary Leftists, Migrants, and Urban Struggle in France and Italy, 1969-1975

5. Tahire Erman (Ankara): Contested Spaces in the Turkish Urban Periphery: Leftist Interventions in Informal Neighborhoods of Rural Migrants

12.45 Lunch Break

13.30 Final Discussion: Urban Activism and Migration
Chair: Olga Sparschuh (Vienna)

Commentaries: Alexander Sedlmaier (Bangor) and Alessandra Gissi (Naples)

14.30 End of the Conference

Kontakt

Christian Wicke (Utrecht University)
E-Mail: c.wicke@uu.nl

David Templin (Universität Osnabrück)
E-Mail: david.templin@uni-osnabrueck.de

http://dhi-roma.it/index.php?id=tagungen&L=0

Los Angeles, 28-29 June 2024

This workshop will explore new ways of thinking about archives, archival records, and other artifacts historians might use as primary sources to gain deeper insight into the history of migrants in transit and the knowledge they possessed, produced, transmitted, or lost. With a starting point in the history of Jewish migration from National Socialist-occupied areas, the workshop broadens out to investigate the experiences of refugees and migrants fleeing genocide, armed conflict, and persecution throughout the twentieth century.

Archives in/of Transit: Historical Perspectives from the 1930s to the Present

The workshop is focused on migrants in the situation of transit: How do their letters, photographs, and other artifacts communicate their experiences both to their contemporary and future generations? How can we reframe personal documentation, visual (re)sources, artifacts, and other material culture of migrants as sites of knowledge production? What role do archives play in allowing us to ask and address these questions? And what happens to the “archive” in contexts of transoceanic forced migration, such as the Holocaust? How does migration challenge concepts of archival materiality and fixity and, further, how have the “material turn” and the new interest in soundscapes and the digital age not only complicated but also enhanced our research?

Programm

June 28, 2024
Location: USC Shoah Foundation Offices

8:30 am – 9:15 am Registration / Coffee and pastries

9:15 am Welcome
Jennifer Rodgers (USC Shoah Foundation)
Simone Lässig (German Historical Institute Washington)

9:30 -11.30am Panel 1: Silence and Experience

Phi Nguyen (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne): Where Did the Boats Go? Silenced Tales of Vietnamese Repatriated Refugees from Hong Kong
Atina Grossmann (Cooper Union, New York): What Remains of the “In-Between”: Tracing Experience and Afterlife of Refuge in the Orient

Chair: Simone Lässig (German Historical Institute Washington)

11.30-12.30pm Lunch

12.30-1.30pm Archives session (Feuchtwanger Memorial Library, University of Southern California, Los Angeles)

1.30-3pm Panel 2: Knowledge and Networks

Eliyana Adler (Penn State University): Networks of Knowledge: Polish Jewish Holocaust Memorial Books as Archives in/of Transit
William Pimlott (Holocaust Research Institute, Royal Holloway, University of London): YIVO’s Foreign Sections: Building Transnational Immigrant History Before, During and After the Holocaust

Chair: Swen Steinberg (Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario)

3-3.30 pm Break

3.30-5.00 Panel 3: Music and Fashion

Svenja Bethke (University of Leicester): Making Clothes, Designing Fashion: Jewish Migrant Knowledge between Nazi-Occupied Europe and the British Mandate for Palestine
Andrea Orzoff (New Mexico State University, Las Cruces): Music as Migrant Archive: European Musical Refugees in Latin America, 1935-1945

Chair: Dan Stone (Holocaust Research Institute, Royal Holloway, University of London)

7pm Reception at the Thomas Mann House, Discussion with Julia Frank (Thomas Mann Fellow) and Andrea Orzoff

June 29, 2024
Location: Villa Aurora

10:00-10:30 Coffee and pastries

10.30-12.30am Panel 4: Solidarity, Gender, and Activism

Christopher Neumaier (Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History, Potsdam): Gender Roles in Transit: Impact of Immigrant Background on Work and Housekeeping in West Germany, 1970s–1990s
Tori Martinez (Linköpings Universitet): Lost Knowledge in a Hidden Archive: Ludwika Broel-Plater’s Agency and Activism as a Forced Migrant in Sweden
Robert Andrejczyk (Józef Piłsudski Museum, Sulejówek): Refugees in Need – Museum in Action. Case Study of Józef Piłsudski Museum in Sulejówek

Chair: Jane Freeland (Queen Mary, University of London)

12.30-1.30pm Lunch

1.30-2.30pm Tour of the Villa Aurora

2.30-4pm Panel 5: Collections and Agency

Charlotte Lerg (Ludwig Maximillian University, Munich): When Libraries Take Flight. Migrating and Re-assembling Destructed Archives of Cultural Knowledge in Times of War
Miriam Chorley-Schulz (University of Oregon, Eugene): The Making of the We Refugees Archive

Chair: Jennifer Rodgers (USC Shoah Foundation)

4-4.15pm Break

4.15-5.45pm Panel 6: War and Violence

Elissa Mailänder (Science Po, Paris): The Archives in our Attics: Material Hermeneutics of Vernacular Wehrmacht Photography
Jadzia Biskupska (Sam Houston State University, Huntsville): Settlers, Partisans, and Expellees: Framing the Consequences of the SS Colony in Zamość

Chair: Christine Schmidt (Wiener Holocaust Library, London)

5.45-6pm Final discussion

Chairs: Jennifer Rodgers, Simone Lässig and Swen Steinberg

https://www.ghi-dc.org/events/event/date/archives-in-of-transit-2024

Haledon, New Jersey – The American Labor Museum/Botto House National Landmark proudly opens the exhibit Protect Our Rights To Protect Our Patients:  Celebrating 50 Years of the Health Professionals and Allied Employees (HPAE), AFT, 1974 – 2024 on Wednesday, January 10th, 2024. 

The Health Professionals & Allied Employees, AFT is the largest union of registered nurses and health care professionals in New Jersey.  HPAE began through the efforts of the nursing staff at Englewood Hospital in 1974 over issues such as shift rotation, floating, low wages and a general lack of respect from management.  Nurses at other area hospitals later joined the HPAE, which now includes 13,000 members.

Protect Our Rights To Protect Our Patients:  Celebrating 50 Years of the Health Professionals and Allied Employees (HPAE), AFT, 1974 – 2024 exhibit features labor union memorabilia, union contracts, historic photographs and union publications, strike placards, and more from the collection of the HPAE and union members.  The exhibit highlights the benefits of collective bargaining for these union members and the effectiveness of the HPAE as a union of democratically-run local unions made up of members and leaders who strive together to win safe working conditions, respect for member professions, safe and effective patient care, and sound healthcare policies. 

This program is made possible in part by a grant administered by the Passaic County Cultural and Heritage Council from funds granted by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.

The Botto House National Landmark, headquarters of the American Labor Museum, is located at 83 Norwood Street in Haledon, NJ.  The Museum's hours of operation are Monday through Friday, 9AM-5PM.  Visitors are welcome Wednesday through Saturday from 1PM-4PM and at other times by appointment.  For further information about the Museum, call 973-595-7953 and visit www.american-labor-museum.org.

Il lavoro come fatica individuale e possibile strumento di sfruttamento, ma anche il lavoro come leva di riscatto collettivo e di emancipazione: questo intreccio complesso e apparentemente contraddittorio costituisce il filo rosso che attraversa il volume Storia del lavoro nell'Italia contemporanea, scritto da Stefano Gallo e Fabrizio Loreto. 

Gli autori propongono una storia d’Italia dall’Unità a oggi affrontata dallo specifico angolo di visuale del lavoro - inteso nella sua accezione più ampia - ricostruendo le trasformazioni del mercato del lavoro, l’evoluzione delle relazioni industriali e delle tecniche produttive, le forme dell’associazionismo e della partecipazione politica, le rappresentazioni culturali, i mutamenti del quadro giuridico e della legislazione sociale.

Per consultare l’indice del volume clicca su questo link.

Depuis la fin des années 1970, les études sonores (sound studies) fleurissent dans de nombreux domaines des sciences humaines et sociales (Sterne, 2012). L’histoire n’est pas restée insensible à ce tournant sonore. Le domaine d’études des sound studies présente en effet de nouveaux enjeux pour la recherche historique, en permettant notamment d’interroger les liens qui unissent les individus à leurs environnements sonores, mais aussi et surtout la capacité des phénomènes sonores (voix, sons, bruits, musiques, silences) à accompagner, renforcer ou symboliser les pratiques et les expériences individuelles ou collectives. En France, des travaux issus de courants historiographiques variés, comme l’histoire politique et l’histoire culturelle – par le bais notamment de l’histoire des sensibilités – ont permis d’ouvrir de nouvelles thématiques de recherche telles que : l’évolution des paysages sonores et des modalités d’écoute ; les rapports d’attachement, d’indifférence ou d’aversion qu’entretiennent les individus à l’égard de leurs environnements sonores ; les usages politiques des phénomènes sonores ; ou encore les enjeux de pouvoir associés aux sons, aux voix ou aux silences (Revue de la BNF, n° 55 (2017), « Le mur du son » ; Sociétés & Représentations, n°49 (2020), « Sons et cultures sonores »).
 

Malgré l’abondance et la diversité de ces travaux, les publications de revues francophones consacrées au croisement entre histoire sociale et études sonores sont peu nombreuses. Or, il nous semble que les questionnements, thématiques et approches propres à l’histoire sociale gagneraient elles aussi à dialoguer davantage avec les renouvellements historiographiques et méthodologiques permis par le développement des études sonores.
 

C’est pourquoi nous souhaitons constituer un numéro thématique consacré aux liens entre sound studies et histoire sociale et plus particulièrement aux univers sonores des contestations survenues en France et ailleurs aux XIXe et XXe siècles. La revue Le Mouvement Social a manifesté son intérêt pour la publication d’un tel dossier. 
 

Il s’agirait dans ce numéro de poursuivre et d’enrichir le champ des recherches menées ces dernières années, en particulier par les médiévistes et les modernistes, sur la dimension sonore, vocale et gestuelle des contestations (Lett et Offenstadt, 2003; Bender et al., 2015; Hermant et Challet, 2019) en ouvrant l’étude à la période contemporaine et à de nouveaux espaces afin de mettre en lumière les phénomènes de rupture ou de continuité dans les usages du son en contexte de lutte.
 

Thèmes et axes de recherche

Ainsi, plusieurs axes de recherche sont envisageables dans le cadre de ce numéro, parmi lesquels :


- La place et le rôle des phénomènes sonores, vocaux et musicaux dans les pratiques contestataires (grèves, manifestations, occupations de lieux de travail ou de lieux publics)

- Spécificités des voix et des gestes sonores en regard d’autres modes d’expression (le visuel par exemple)

- L’idée des pratiques sonores comme « répertoire d’action » (charivaris, sérénades, détournements de musique ou de slogans, phénomènes de question-réponse dans les manifestations…)

- Usages ou contre-usage des technologies de captation et de diffusion sonore dans les mouvements sociaux (micro, haut-parleurs...)

- Oppositions ou contrastes entre les sonorités du travail et les sonorités de la contestation

 - Spécificités et comparaisons de la « vie verbale au travail » (Boutet, 2008) et de la vie verbale en situation contestation (paroles, voix, manières de communiquer et de dire le travail ou le conflit)

- Le silence, les murmures, les rumeurs et autres camouflés sonores comme expressions d’une contestation « dans le dos du pouvoir » (Chantraine et Ruchet, 2008)

- Sonorités, voix et paroles du maintien de l’ordre (sommations, négociations, signaux sonores pour incarner une forme de « pouvoir » face aux contestations)

- Les outils et méthodes de restitution et d’analyse historique des sons en situation de contestation

Outre ces thèmes, l’objectif de ce numéro serait de favoriser un espace de discussion entre chercheurs et chercheuses sur les sources, les questionnements et les méthodes d’enquête et d’écriture d’une histoire sonore des contestations. 

Envoi des propositions

Si l’appel s’adresse avant tout aux historiens et historiennes du contemporain, l’ouverture des contributions aux approches d’autres disciplines des sciences humaines et sociales est bienvenue. 

Les propositions d’articles (titre, résumé de 2000 signes maximum et courte biographie) sont à envoyer à Marion Henry (marion.henry@univ-paris1.fr) et Adrien Quièvre (adrien.quievre@univ-lille.fr) avant le 1er avril 2024. Une réponse sera donnée courant mai 2024. Si la proposition de dossier est acceptée par la revue, les articles seront à envoyer à l’automne 2024.

--

Marion Henry

Maîtresse de conférences en histoire contemporaine

Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - Centre d'histoire sociale des mondes contemporains (CHS)

Chercheuse associée au Centre d'histoire de Sciences Po (CHSP)

University of Pula (Croatia), 28 - 30 August 2024

At the end of August 2024, at the University of Pula, Croatia, we are organizing the 10th Doctoral Workshop, this year with the theme "Why Socialism Matters? Approaches to Research of the Political Idea and the Historical Period". PhD students in history and related fields are welcome to apply.

Why Socialism Matters? Approaches to Research of the Political Idea and the Historical Period

Our tenth annual summer workshop for doctoral students aims to intertwine the themes of previous workshops and possibly raise them to a different level, thereby enabling discussion on the relevance of socialism in historical and contemporary social contexts, as well as in the research practises and epistemology of social sciences and humanities. Beginning with the nineteenth century, socialist thought and actions have profoundly influenced politics, economics, culture and other domains, fighting against inequality, exploitation and poverty, while also reducing old social tensions and sometimes instigating new ones. These processes are evident in the political activities of governments, socialist, social-democratic and communist parties, trade unions, workers’ associations, groups and revolutionary movements; in the economic policies that built the welfare state and socialist state; as well as in the intellectual and cultural realm shaped by socialist thought, and the dissemination of socialist ideas across Europe and globally. Through the decades, insights to these issues have evolved, introducing new approaches and sources. When presenting their topics, applicants are expected to highlight the connection between socialist thought and historical experiences, to explain why socialism matters for the particular topic and why the research of their topic matters, how it shaped the past through possible successes and failures, and how such legacies are shaping the present and possibly the future.

The expected four keynote speakers are historians, philosophers and theoreticians: ANKICA ČAKARDIĆ (University of Zagreb), HANNES GRANDITS (Humboldt University of Berlin), BRANIMIR JANKOVIĆ (University of Zagreb) and KATARINA PEOVIĆ (University of Rijeka).

So far, the Workshop has focused on various topics in contemporary history, the history of socialist Yugoslavia and wider European context: The History of Everyday Life in Socialist Yugoslavia (2015); Yugoslav Socialism: Similarities and Exceptionalities (2016); A New Man for the Socialist Society (2017); Yugoslavia and the Global 1968: Contexts, Perspectives, Echoes (2018); Industrial Societies of Late Socialism: European Comparisons (2019); Cooperation, Exchange and Solidarity in Europe 1945-1990 (2020); Microhistories of Socialism (2021); Microhistories of Socialism and Postsocialism (2022); What Was Europe? Perception, Division and Integration, 1940s-2010s (2023). The themes were often connected to the research projects at CKPIS or with the cooperation network around the Chair for South-East European History at the Humboldt University of Berlin. Over the past years, the Workshop has received an excellent response, with PhD students and lecturers coming from various universities and other institutions (Belgrade, Berlin, Bielefeld, Birmingham, Bochum, Bologna, Budapest, Cologne, Cork, Durham, Florence, Ghent, Giessen, Glasgow, Graz, Hamburg, Iaşi, Konstanz, Koper, Lisbon, Ljubljana, Montreal, Munich, North Carolina – Chapel Hill, Nottingham, Oxford, Paris, Potsdam, Prague, Princeton, Regensburg, San Diego, Sarajevo, Skopje, Sofia, Split, Tübingen, Turku, Vienna, Warsaw, Warwick, Zagreb and Pula). Information on past workshops is available on our website.

We hope the workshop will again attract PhD students in the field of history, as well as in other fields of humanities and social sciences. Our objective is to enable the exchange of knowledge and ideas, as well as participation in motivating discussions. We would like to enhance networking and exchange among young researchers and map new research trends, especially at the level of PhD studies.

Please, submit the online application form by May 15, 2024. The form includes the abstract (max. 200 words) and a short biographical note (max. 200 words). Acceptance notification will follow by the end of May. By July 10 the elected applicants are expected to send a short paper (max. 1,800 words), based on their dissertation or another research. The workshop language is English. Based on the paper, each presentation should last up to 15 minutes and will be followed by an immediate discussion. A certificate will be issued to PhD students confirming their participation and the value of 2 ECTS credits.

Participants are expected to arrive by late afternoon of Wednesday, August 28, when the workshop starts. The programme ends by noon on Saturday. The workshop venue is the Student Dorm (Preradović Street).

The participation fee is 125€. Payment information will follow after the selection process. As organisers, we will be able to cover accommodation (three nights, single rooms) at the new student dorm in the city centre, a meal per day and coffee breaks. The participants should organise their travel to Pula and cover its cost, hopefully with the support of their universities or other sources.

The online application form and all information are available on the website:
https://www.unipu.hr/ckpis/en/doctoral_workshop/2024.

For any questions, please contact Tina at tinafilipovic.pu@gmail.com.

We are looking forward to your applications!

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
Prof. Igor Duda, PhD, University of Pula
Anita Buhin, PhD, Nova University Lisbon
Tina Filipović, EUI Florence / University of Zagreb
Sara Žerić, IOS Regensburg

Programm

A detailed workshop programme will be available in June 2024, after the application and selection process. The workshop will start on Wednesday, August 28, late afternoon and end on Saturday, August 31, noon. Keynote speakers are listed in the call. Every participant who is a PhD student will have 15 minutes for presentation and 15 minutes for discussion. Programmes of past workshops are available online.

Kontakt

Igor Duda, igor.duda@unipu.hr
Tina Filipovic, tinafilipovic.pu@gmail.com

https://www.unipu.hr/ckpis/en/doctoral_workshop/2024

Conference in Mumbai, 13 - 14 February 2025

Between the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1930s and decolonization after World War II, a range of non-Western, in many cases colonial, regions became hubs for people in transit. A growing body of new research on refugees “In Global Transit” (transit.hypotheses.org) many of them Jews in flight from Nazi Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe, has highlighted this forced migration to, and in, the Global South. Scholars are documenting refugee encounters with local populations and colonial authorities, their search for more permanent new homes, as well as their attempts to maintain contact with, and facilitate the escape of, those left behind.

Refugees in Global Transit: Encounters, Knowledge, and Coping Strategies in a Disrupted World, 1930s–50s

This conference builds on the emerging scholarship on cultural, social, and political encounters – connections and disconnects – among diverse groups of European and non-European refugees and with highly stratified host populations, including existing Jewish communities, colonial officials and settlers, and other migrants. While much of this research has relied on sources produced by state or colonial officials or the refugees themselves, this conference aims to explore new approaches and sources that require knowledge of local and national languages, archives, and histories.

“Transit” refers to individual and collective experiences of living in-between – that is, in spaces people did not envision remaining in permanently. However, it also refers to regions and countries like Turkey, Palestine, and India, where refugees from Nazi Europe found a safe haven while these regions were themselves undergoing turbulent transitions.

Examining this volatile historical moment raises further questions applicable to other refugee and migrant experiences in crisis: What kinds of knowledge transfer can we observe, and what kinds of boundaries and prejudices obstructed such transfers? What were the differential impacts of class, gender, and age on notions of ethnic, national, “racial,” and religious differences? And how can we uncover the long-term memories of this global diaspora of WWII refugees after most of them moved beyond their transit spaces in the decades following independence, state building, and – in some cases – new forms of forced migration?

We welcome paper proposals for an international conference that brings together scholars with an interdisciplinary and cross-epochal approach and are especially interested in exchange with and among scholars in and/or from the Global South. This conference aims to focus specifically on:

- hospitality, friendship, and enmity
- peaceful and violent encounters, connections, disconnects, and separations
- processes of and obstacles to knowledge transfer and cultural translation
- the formation and perception of diasporas
- memories in and of transit.

The conference will be held in English. Individual paper presentations are limited to 20 minutes. Proposals for entire panels (up to three papers) are welcome. Proposals, which should include a title, an abstract of no more than 300 words, a CV, and contact information (address, phone, email) must be submitted ONLINE (https://app.smartsheet.eu/b/form/9bf751e328d44e699bd963640e37d4aa) in one pdf by April 30, 2024. Applicants will be informed about the acceptance of their paper by the end of June 2024.

Accommodation will be arranged and paid for by the conference organizers. Participants will make their own travel arrangements; funding subsidies for travel are available upon request for selected scholars, especially those who might not otherwise be able to attend the workshop, including junior scholars and scholars from universities with limited resources. Please inform us if you can utilize funds from your home institution to participate in the conference. There is no registration fee.

https://www.ghi-dc.org/events/event/date/refugees-in-global-transit-encounters-knowledge-and-coping-strategies-in-a-disrupted-world-1930s-50s

Le huitième numéro de Revue d’Histoire Contemporaine de l’Afrique (RHCA), à paraître en juin 2025, sera consacré au thème « Enfants et Enfances dans l'histoire de l'Afrique », sous la direction de Kelly Duke Bryant (Rowan University, États-Unis) et Kalala Ngalamulume (Bryn Mawr College, États-Unis).

Date limite de l'envoi des résumés: 15 avril 2024

Enfants et enfances dans l’histoire de l’Afrique

Avec plus de 60 pour cent de la population âgée de moins de 25 ans, l’Afrique est reconnue comme le continent le plus jeune du monde. Il est évident que les vies des enfants de l’Afrique sont façonnées par de nombreuses forces et institutions, au-delà de leur seule famille ou leur communauté locale, tels que l’État, les ONG, les organisations religieuses, les institutions scolaires ou la société civile. En même temps, les éléments locaux, comme la socialisation de l’enfant, la taille de la famille et ses moyens financiers, la santé et l’accès aux soins médicaux, les liens sociaux hors du foyer, etc., influencent la vie quotidienne des enfants africains. Pour mieux comprendre ces enfants d’aujourd’hui, qui font face à tant de défis à surmonter, mais qui auront aussi de nouvelles opportunités, il faut connaître leurs histoires: histoires récentes autant que lointaines, histoires de leurs expériences vis-à-vis des organisations et des influences locales mentionnées ci-dessus. Il faut aussi s'interroger sur ce que le mot « enfant » a signifié et signifie toujours en pratique dans différentes sociétés africaines et à des époques différentes, en se concentrant sur le 19e siècle à nos jours. Nous avons utilisé l’expression « enfants et enfances » dans le titre de ce numéro thématique pour indiquer que nous nous intéressons à la fois à l’histoire de l’enfance du point de vue des institutions et des adultes qui la règlent et la surveillent, et à l’histoire des enfants eux-mêmes: leurs expériences, leurs perspectives, leurs actions. Deuxièmement, notre utilisation du pluriel, « enfants et enfances » sert à rappeler qu’il n’existe ni une enfance africaine seule et unique, ni un « type » d’enfant africain. Il faut noter aussi qu’il est difficile de délimiter les âges de la vie, et de faire une distinction entre enfance et jeunesse, en raison des variations de culture, de période, de régime juridique ou politique. Les principaux objectifs du numéro, donc, consistent à réfléchir à ces termes, à explorer comment les enfants ont façonné et ont été façonnés par les sociétés dans lesquelles ils vivaient, et à retracer les développements significatifs de l’historiographie récente (Goerg 2012 ; George 2014 ; Razy et Rodet 2016 ; Walters 2016 ; Chapdelaine 2021 ; Duff 2022).

Considéré par les historien·nes comme le texte fondateur de l’histoire de l’enfance (même s’il a fait l’objet de nombreux débats et critiques), L’Enfant et la vie familiale sous l’Ancien Régime de Philippe Ariès paraît en 1960 et contribue de façon cruciale à faire de l’enfance un objet d’histoire à part entière. En effet, avant Ariès, l’enfance attirait plutôt l’attention de chercheurs formés dans d’autres disciplines, telles que l’anthropologie, la médecine, la sociologie ou la psychologie. Bien que ses conclusions aient été vivement débattues voire rejetées, la publication de cet ouvrage, et sa traduction en anglais qui paraît en 1962, a amené de nombreux autres spécialistes à écrire sur l’histoire de l’enfance, notamment en Europe et en Amérique du Nord (Alexandre-Bidon et Lett 1997). D’après Heidi Morrison (2012) et Peter Stearns (2008), les spécialistes d’autres régions, notamment d’Afrique, ont commencé à étudier la question de l’histoire de l’enfance vers la fin du 20e siècle. Les africanistes, spécialistes de l’Afrique subsaharienne autant que spécialistes du Maghreb, ont examiné ce sujet en s’appuyant sur les recherches des anthropologues, qui s'intéressent depuis longtemps aux questions de la famille, des rites de passage, du mariage, des relations sociales entre les générations, ou des étapes de la vie.

Durant les dernières décennies, les travaux sur l’histoire des enfants se sont focalisés sur trois questions ou thèmes principaux: les différences et liaisons entre l’histoire des enfants et l’histoire de l’enfance ; les effets et les limites de la capacité d’action des enfants (et à l’inverse, les questions autour de l’enfant comme victime, ou l’enfant marginalisé) ; et le problème des sources primaires qui nous permettent de mieux comprendre et écrire ces histoires. Ce problème des sources est particulièrement important quand il s’agit de l’histoire des enfants eux-mêmes, étant donné les limites de l’alphabétisation en Afrique, et du passé et des types de documents créés et conservés qui, d’habitude, privilégient les voix des adultes. Les africanistes se sont penchés sur chacune de ces questions.

Concernant la première piste, certaines études se focalisent sur l’histoire des organisations ou des institutions qui s’occupaient des enfants (comme les écoles, les orphelinats, les tribunaux) ou bien sur les lois ou politiques gouvernementales concernant les enfants, tandis que d’autres s’occupent des expériences et des perspectives des enfants eux-mêmes. Souvent, les sources primaires posent des limites sur ce qu’on peut savoir, étant donné que la plupart des documents ont été écrits et conservés par et pour des adultes. Chez les africanistes, on peut voir cette séparation nettement. De plus, la plupart des études examinent l’histoire des organisations (souvent coloniales) créées pour les enfants. Par conséquent, nous comprenons mieux l’évolution de l’école coloniale, par exemple, ou des orphelinats liés aux missions catholiques que les vies des enfants qui y vivaient (Bouche 1974; Barthélémy 2003). Ce n’est qu’assez récemment, dans les années 2000, que les chercheur·ses ont commencé à écrire l’histoire des expériences des enfants africains, comme élèves, travailleurs, délinquants, orphelins, réfugiés, ou membres d’une famille et communauté. Pourtant, il est fondamental de comprendre les perspectives des enfants et non pas seulement l’histoire du monde des adultes car, contrairement à la position avancée dans l'article controversé de Sarah Maza (2020), les enfants ont eu des impacts sur leurs familles, leurs communautés, et même la politique.

Quant au questionnement portant sur la capacité d’action des enfants, de nombreuses études qui s’y rapportent concluent simplement que les enfants ont eu une certaine capacité d’action dans tel ou tel milieu et période, au lieu d’examiner l’impact de leur action sur la famille, l’école, la communauté, etc. Dans son article sur l’histoire des écoliers à distance au Canada, Mona Gleason (2016) utilise le terme d’« agency trap » pour décrire cette tendance, qu’elle nous encourage à éviter. Jusqu’à récemment, les africanistes se sont souvent concentrés sur les enfants marginalisés ou sur les enfants en tant que victimes (Robertson et Klein 1983 ; Thioub 1993 ; Grier 2006). Or, nous devons aussi souligner que certains enfants pouvaient agir et avoir un impact sur leur propre vie ou sur celle des autres, même s’ils étaient limités par les conditions dans lesquelles ils vivaient. Plusieurs études l’ont établi et il est désormais temps de mieux comprendre les effets des actions des enfants africains sur l’histoire africaine (Lord 2011; George 2014; Razy et Rodet 2016; Duff 2022). En même temps, les expériences vécues par les enfants africains eux-mêmes font partie de l’histoire du continent, et nous devons les étudier pour mieux comprendre cette histoire.

Chez les historien·nes de l’enfance, la question des sources primaires (notre troisième thème) est souvent difficile. La plupart des sources primaires ont été produites par des adultes (et surtout par des hommes, des personnes alphabétisées, des personnes ayant du pouvoir). C’est un défi pour ceux et celles qui effectuent des recherches sur l’histoire de l’enfance dans n’importe quelle région, mais surtout pour l’Afrique, où la scolarisation massive n’a été atteinte qu’assez récemment. Il faut alors souvent lire les archives « against the grain », ou entre les lignes, pour découvrir l’histoire de l’enfance et surtout l’histoire des enfants. Aussi, comme Christopher Lee (2010) l’a noté, les archives traitant les enfants sont souvent fragmentées, dispersées à travers plusieurs dossiers ou séries, voire ne sont que des fragments. Les historien·nes de l’Afrique contemporaine, pourtant, sont habitués à travailler sur des sources coloniales, et dans la recherche sur l’histoire des enfants et de l’enfance, on peut bénéficier d’autres méthodes: lire entre les lignes, s'appuyer sur d'autres disciplines, et utiliser des sources orales. L’histoire orale peut offrir des points de vue africains, mais ce genre de source pose également des problèmes, tels que l’inégalité de pouvoir entre le·la chercheur·se et l'interviewé·e, l’oubli, la durée de vie humaine, etc. Par conséquent, nous sommes particulièrement intéressés par des contributions qui sont fondées sur des sources inédites et/ou lisent et analysent les sources existantes en mettant l’accent sur les « voix » ou les actions des enfants.

Même si les chercheur·ses continuent à approfondir nos connaissances de cette histoire riche, dans les faits, le savoir de l’histoire de l’enfance et de la jeunesse en Afrique reste très incomplet. Et si les historien·nes anglophones ont publié plusieurs études en anglais sur ce thème, elles restent peu nombreuses en français (voir Goerg et al 1992; Ginio 2002; Ndao 2015). C’est pourquoi ce numéro thématique peine à définir et à mettre à jour le profil de « l’enfant » africain d’aujourd’hui et du passé, tout en admettant que cette définition était (est) toujours en constante évolution, et qu’il y a, de fait, de nombreuses définitions de l’enfant à travers le continent. Ce numéro thématique demande comment, d’un côté, les agent·es de l’État, les missionnaires et les chefs religieux, les travailleur·ses humanitaires, les instituteurs·trices, les parents et les autres personnes qui se sont intéressés aux enfants africains, et de l’autre, les enfants eux-mêmes, ont produit, ensemble, l’histoire de l’enfance en Afrique depuis le XIXe siècle. Ce numéro thématique aborde aussi les effets de la capacité d’action des enfants et ses limites, ainsi que celle des sources primaires qui peuvent révéler les « voix » des enfants.

Nous invitons des contributions d’environ 50 000 signes sur l’histoire des enfants ou des enfances, africaines dans n’importe quel pays africain, par rapport à l’un des sous-thèmes que nous décrivons ci-dessus. Chaque article doit être situé dans un contexte détaillé, et peut analyser soit une étude de cas, soit une source primaire (ou un ensemble de sources primaires). Nous invitons les auteur·e·s à faire attention à l’historiographie de l’Afrique, mais aussi à analyser des études qui traitent des thèmes pareils dans d’autres lieux. En plus des articles basés sur des recherches originales, nous encourageons les chercheur·ses à réfléchir à des idées pour les différentes rubriques de la revue, que ce soit Sources, terrains, contexte et Entretiens, ou Comptes-rendus critiques.

Axe 1: Les enfants africains chez eux

On a souvent tendance à croire que la vie des enfants dans leurs familles (nucléaires et élargies) ne représente aucun intérêt majeur pour les chercheur·ses. Mais à y regarder de près, on se rend compte qu’on a beaucoup de choses à apprendre sur ces premières années de formation des enfants. Parmi les sujets possibles, nous pouvons citer la socialisation de l’enfant à la vie en société (les normes, les habitudes, les croyances, le langage corporel, et la construction sociale de la réalité), la division du travail entre garçons et filles, les jeux des enfants, les moments de transmission du savoir ancestral au travers des proverbes ou des contes, sans oublier les chansons et les danses (Bâ, 1972, 1992, 1980 ; Lundy 2018). Ce sujet est important parce qu’il nous aide à mieux comprendre le monde des enfants en famille et entre eux, révélant des détails sur le point de vue des enfants sur le monde.

Axe 2: Les enfants africains et l’éducation formelle

Parmi ceux qui s’intéressent à l’histoire de l’enfance en Afrique contemporaine, il est évident qu’il faut inclure l’histoire de l’école. Effectivement, pendant des décennies, on a failli équivaloir l’histoire de l’école coloniale ou postcoloniale à l’histoire des enfants. Les historien·nes ont eu tendance à se focaliser sur l’institution de l’école, pour examiner, par exemple, le pouvoir de l'État colonial, la politique, ou l'aliénation culturelle parmi les (anciens) élèves. Mais nous ne connaissons ni les expériences scolaires des enfants africains ni leurs points de vue sur l’école. Nous en savons encore moins sur l’histoire de l’initiation à la vie d’adulte subie par l’enfant dans sa famille et/ou sa communauté, la façon dont cette éducation a changé pendant et après l’époque coloniale, et les impacts sur les expériences et les idées de l’enfance. Et il nous reste beaucoup à apprendre au sujet de l’éducation religieuse et son influence sur l’enfant. Nous sollicitons donc des articles au sujet de l’histoire de l’éducation au sens large, les effets d’une telle éducation sur les enfants et/ou les impacts de l’action des enfants africains sur leur éducation (les années formatives, l’éducation religieuse, publique/privée, etcetera).

Axe 3: Les enfants africains et la santé

Dans cette partie, nous sollicitons des articles qui traitent des questions liées à la santé de l’enfant et à la maladie de l’enfance. Les enfants sont demeurés presque invisibles dans les études sur médecine coloniale en Afrique (Feierman 1985 ; Vaughan 1991). Dans la période postcoloniale, les études historiques sur la santé des enfants sont de valeur inégale sur le plan géographique et thématique. Les deux dernières décennies ont vu un changement de focale, depuis la malaria (Trape 2002 ; -Feltrer 2008), la vaccination (Périères 2022) et la polio (Makoni 2020) vers les enfants orphelins à cause du SIDA et les problèmes auxquels ils ont fait face (Filteau 2009). Dans ce numéro, nous nous intéressons à l’étiologie des maladies des enfants, aux options thérapeutiques disponibles, à l'itinéraire du patient entre la médecine traditionnelle et la biomédecine, au personnel soignant les enfants, et aux médicaments. Nous voudrions aussi des contributions sur les expériences des enfants avec la biomédecine, y compris l’introduction des maternités par les autorités coloniales et leur acceptation par les femmes de diverses catégories sociales ou religieuses, les questions liées à la vaccination et à l'immunité, et le lien entre l'accès à l'école et la vaccination, aussi bien que l’expérience des enfants avec les maladies émergentes comme le virus Ebola et celui du Covid-19.

Axe 4: Les enfants africains et les espaces publics

Pour ce dernier axe, nous invitons les chercheur·ses à contribuer à l’histoire des enfants africains dans les lieux publics, que ce soient les espaces physiques comme les rues ou les marchés, ou les espaces métaphoriques comme la rhétorique, le discours politique ou l’action humanitaire. Nous nous intéressons surtout aux histoires des enfants qui ont rencontré les vecteurs de pouvoir de l’État ou des ONGs en traversant ces espaces publics. Ces « corps en mouvement » peuvent inclure des enfants de la rue, des mendiants, des vendeurs ambulants, des enfants réfugiés, ou des enfants soldats. La littérature a beaucoup écrit sur les enfants soldats ou les enfants mendiants contemporains, et on commence à mieux connaître l’histoire des organisations humanitaires que se concentrent sur le sort des enfants (Baughan 2022), mais nous devons en savoir plus sur l’influence de ces espaces publics et les entités qui ont tenté de les mettre en ordre sur les enfants qui y vivaient et sur leur influence sur l’idée même d’une « enfance africaine ». Nous ne suggérons pas ici que l’expérience de la violence ou d’être « enfant-soldat » est ou était typiquement africain en Afrique. C’est un phénomène plus récent lié surtout à l’exploitation illégale des « minerais de sang » et c’est la raison pour laquelle nous proposons un thème plus large. Ce sont donc les enfants, (souvent, mais pas toujours, marginalisés), dans l’espace et en rapport avec les vecteurs de pouvoir que nous voudrions examiner ici.

Calendrier et modalités de soumission

15 avril 2024: Envoi des résumés. Veuillez envoyer un résumé 500 mots maximum accompagné d’une biographie d’environ 100 mots aux adresses suivantes: duke-bryant@rowan.edu et kngalamu@brynmawr.edu

15 juillet 2024: Envoi des articles. Les auteur·e·s invités devront envoyer leurs articles de 55 000 caractères maximum, espaces comprises et incluant bibliographie et résumés. Les articles doivent être inédits. Pour les consignes aux auteur·e·s voir: https://oap.unige.ch/journals/rhca/consignes

Automne 2024: évaluation.

Juin 2025: Publication

Kontakt

duke-bryant@rowan.edu
kngalamu@brynmawr.edu
revuerhca@gmail.com

https://oap.unige.ch/journals/rhca/announcement/view/36

This edited volume seeks to situate antisemitism within Soviet society and the Soviet system by defining its characteristics and showing how antisemitism intersected with repression of non-Jewish groups. To complicate the more established history of Soviet antisemitism from above, we wish to elucidate the everyday lives of ordinary Jews in different regions and eras of the USSR.

Defining Soviet Antisemitism: Everyday Jewish Experiences in the USSR

Antisemitism was a thread that ran through the entire fabric of the Soviet Union. During the interwar period, Bolshevik ideology condemned the persecution of Jews as an evil relic of Imperial Russian rule. Meanwhile, Westerners as prominent as Henry Ford accused the USSR of being a Jewish institution, and Adolf Hitler’s opposition to “Judeo-Bolshevism” drove his vision for a new order in Europe. Upon the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, local antisemitism collided with hostility toward Stalin’s regime, with catastrophic consequences for Jews on Soviet territory. After the end of World War II, the USSR was the first country to recognize the state of Israel. Yet in the years that followed, Soviet leaders embraced discrimination against Jews like never before, even as they insisted that the USSR remained a bastion of anti-antisemitism. Scholars have grappled with the contradictions that surround antisemitism in the Soviet context in different ways. Events such as the prosecution of members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee and the Doctor’s Plot have loomed especially large, as have sweeping statements on Soviet responses to what we now call the Holocaust. Much of the literature tends to take Soviet antisemitism for granted – when the victim is Jewish, the repression is antisemitic. Intellectual siloing of Jewish, Soviet, and post-Soviet national studies perpetuate existing gaps in knowledge.

This edited volume seeks to situate antisemitism within Soviet society and the Soviet system by defining its characteristics and showing how antisemitism intersected with repression of non-Jewish groups. To complicate the more established history of Soviet antisemitism from above, we wish to elucidate the everyday lives of ordinary Jews in different regions and eras of the USSR. What did it mean to be a Jew in the Soviet Union, a state which proclaimed the equality of all ethnicities as well as the formation of a superseding “Soviet people”? How did the lives of ordinary Jews change in the course of the rise and fall of the USSR? What kinds of strategies did Jews use to avoid official and grassroots antisemitism, and how did these tactics evolve over time? We invite contributions from scholars in history as well as political science, literary analysis, and related disciplines. We envision a volume that spans a variety of approaches, from empirically based case studies to methodological reflections and “state of the field” retrospectives. We especially welcome comparative assessments that articulate what was specifically “Soviet” about Soviet antisemitism. Relevant topics include (but are not limited to):
- “Judeo-Bolshevism” as perceived by Soviet Jewry and as well as in the political and international spheres;
- Jewish experiences in the crosshairs of the 1917 revolutions and subsequent civil wars;
- the consequences of prewar korenizatsiia policies for Soviet Jews;
- Soviet Jewish identities, both hidden and proclaimed;
- religious practices and methods of state control imposed on Jewish communities;
- everyday experiences of Holocaust survivors in the USSR;
- postwar “anti-cosmopolitan” campaigns in the context of the Zhdanovshchina and mass repressions in the western borderlands of the USSR;
- Soviet ideology and official statements on Israel and Zionism;
- gender and antisemitism in ordinary Soviet Jewish families;
- Zionism and the activities of underground Jewish organizations;
- “otkazniki” in the late Soviet period;
- antisemitism and Cold War experiences of ordinary Soviet Jews.

The deadline for proposals is July 1, 2024. Please send proposals and direct any questions to Paula Chan and Irina Rebrova at sovietantisem@gmail.com. Proposals should be submitted in English and include an abstract of the proposed article (up to 300 words) as well as a CV. Applicants will be notified by September 1, 2024, and papers will be due on April 1, 2025. Earlier submissions are welcome. The volume will be peer-reviewed. Each contribution should be approximately 8,000 words, including bibliography, footnotes, abstracts, and captions. We seek proposals from scholars at all career stages.

Paula Chan is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at All Souls College, University of Oxford (2023-2028). Her articles have appeared in the Journal of Contemporary History, the Journal of Illiberalism Studies, and Holocaust and Genocide Studies. She is currently preparing her first book manuscript, Eyes on the Ground: Soviet Investigations of the Nazi Occupation, and launching a second book project tentatively titled Jewish Choices in Soviet Riga, which focuses on survivors of Nazi and Soviet rule to analyze the consequences of regime upheaval for social cohesion.

Irina Rebrova is an Alfred Landecker Lecturer at the Center for Research on Antisemitism at Technical University, Berlin. In 2020 she published the monograph Re-constructing Grassroots Holocaust Memory: The Case of the North Caucasus. Since 2022 she has been a member of the board of the German non-profit association KONTAKTE-KOНTAKТЫ that promotes intercultural tolerance, education about history, and donations for the victims of the Nazi era in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia through international exchange. Her most recent project “Remember us…” dealt with the history and memory of people with disabilities who became Nazi victims in the occupied regions of Russia during the Second World War (http://nsvictims.ru/).

Kontakt

sovietantisem@gmail.com

Workshop in Potsdam (Germany), 30 - 31 January 2025

The first thematic workshop of the newly founded MKGD research network will examine the manifold violent interactions in colonial wars, colonial rule and anti-colonial liberation struggles with a focus on "gender". It combines a thematic conference with a writing workshop for doctoral students preparing a first peer reviewed publication. The organizers invite contextualized case studies and diachronic and synchronic comparisons from both early modern and modern colonial conflicts up to the end of the Cold War.

CfP - MKGD Workshop and Early Career Writing Workshop: Gender and Violence in Colonial Wars, Colonial Rule and Anti-colonial Liberation Struggles

Theme and Goals
The extreme violence in colonial wars and anti-colonial wars of liberation as well as the structural and actual practice of violence under colonial rule have received increased international academic attention in the last two decades. However, the gender dimension of the topic is still under-researched, although previous gender-historical research on colonial conflicts shows that gender is of considerable importance both as a methodological approach and as a subject of research.

Gender images constructed intersectionally in connection with social, ethnic and racial differences shaped and legitimized the spheres of action of men and women in the violent interactions of colonial conflicts. They significantly influenced the colonial invaders' practices of violence and the colonized population's experiences of violence. Native women in the colonies, for example, were particularly victims of sexual violence in its various forms, from forced prostitution and forced concubinage to rape. Native men were forced into forced labor by the colonial powers and recruited as colonial soldiers.

In colonial wars and anti-colonial wars of liberation, especially when they took the form of guerrilla wars, the distinction made in international laws of war—at least in theory—between soldiers and the civilian population was usually completely abolished. They were waged early on as "total" wars with systematic mass violence against the entire population to be colonized. Both colonial troops and the armed forces of anti-colonial liberation movements were dependent on the support and services of the civilian population, including women, during their campaigns. After victorious colonial conquests, the violence in the rule over the indigenous population continued in many ways. Both men and women in the imperial metropolises supported the belligerent politics of colonial conquest in a gender-specific way. Both genders were also actively involved in various ways in the uprisings and wars of liberation that fought against colonial oppression.

The aim of the first thematic workshop of the newly founded MKGD research network is to comparatively examine the manifold violent interactions in colonial wars, colonial rule and anti-colonial liberation struggles with a focus on "gender". In doing so, we want to look at both early modern and modern colonial conflicts up to the end of the Cold War and welcome both: contextualized case studies and diachronic and synchronic comparisons.

Keynote speaker: Prof. Dr. Natalya Benkhaled-Vince (University of Oxford)

We invite applications for presentations at the MKGD Research Network workshop as well as for participation in the writing workshop for doctoral students. The hotel and travel costs (second-class flight or train) of the invited speakers will be covered by the MKGD Research Network.

Call for Papers - MKGD Workshop:
The CfP is aimed at advanced doctoral students, postdoctoral researchers and professors. The submitted contributions may address the following aspects and topics, but need not be limited to them:
- intercultural dimensions and dynamics of gender-based violence and violent organizations
- the role of the intersectional inequality categories of race/ethnicity, class and gender in the colonial space of violence
- intersectional gender images, in particular constructions of masculinity, colonial and postcolonial actors of violence
- sexual and sexualized violence as an instrument of colonial and postcolonial conflicts
- continuities of colonial gender-specific violence and ideas of masculinity/patriarchal structures in anti-colonial movements
- female voices and practices of action in colonial conflicts.

The presentations are scheduled for 20 minutes each. Conference language is English. For the workshop, please submit an abstract (approx. 700 words) and a short CV. Please send your application by May 5, 2024 to: <tanja.buehrer@plus.ac.at>

Writing workshop for doctoral candidates on January 30, 2025

In the writing workshop, three to four manuscripts in German or English, which should relate to the topic of the workshop and are intended for publication in a national or international journal, will be discussed in a small group. The selected manuscripts will be commented on by experts invited to the workshop and then discussed on the question of how they could be revised for successful publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

Doctoral candidates interested in the writing workshop are invited to apply with an exposé (approx. 1500 words) and a short CV. Please send your application by May 5, 2024 to: <isabelle.deflers@unibw.de>

Kontakt

For the MKGD workshop we invite submission of an abstract (ca. 700 words) and a short CV. Please send your application by 5 May 2024 to: <tanja.buehrer@plus.ac.at>

For the writing workshop, please adress an exposé (ca. 1500 words) and a short CV by 5 May 2024 to: <isabelle.deflers@unibw.de>

https://mkgd.hypotheses.org/current-workshop

Vienna, 26 - 27 September 2024

This year's SKÖTH conference will focus on the Czech workers who came to Vienna between 1868 and 1918 and lived and worked there. The focus is deliberately on the labour force.

During the Habsburg Monarchy, the imperial capital and royal seat of Vienna had a great attraction for people from all parts of the monarchy, especially those from the Bohemian lands. Czech-speaking people came in large numbers and shape and changed Vienna.

This year's SKÖTH conference will focus on the Czech workers who came to Vienna between 1868 and 1918 and lived and worked there. The focus is deliberately on the labour force.
The conference and the publication that follows are dedicated to the origin of the workers, their migration history (reasons, ways and means, etc.) as well as their arrival in Vienna. How long did they stay or were they allowed to stay? What differences and similarities existed between seasonal workers and permanent "emigrants"; between individual occupational groups and genders? What repercussions existed for their regions of origin?

The Czech labour migrants have different regions of origin, social backgrounds and identity constructions. To what extent and how did the construction of a collective identity "Viennese Czech labour force" and partial identities such as the "Ziegelböhm" take place? How did they define their relationship to the "home nation"?
What did acculturation strategies ranging from integration, assimilation and separation to marginalization look like in this group or parts of it?

What were the acculturation strategies in this group or parts of it, which could range from integration, assimilation and separation to marginalization?

The role of the censuses with their extraordinary mobilization potential with regard to the formation of national identities is an exciting topic that is worth examining in more detail.

The workers' associations, which emerged both from the transformation of craftsmen's associations and from newly founded ones, as well as by splitting off from larger factions with their tasks, their members (male and/or female workers) and their inherent hierarchies, represent a central aspect of the labour movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The ways and forms of cooperation between the Czech (workers') associations and with other (workers') associations (such as the German-speaking workers' associations in Vienna) are also an important element, as is the relationship between Czech and German-Austrian political forces and the Czech working class in Vienna.

Research into strategies for social mobility - as well as social barriers specific to the Czech environment in Vienna - is another topic to be discussed at the conference.
(Important in this section would be, for example, questions about the generational change in the labour market, the role of education, the transition from seasonal and temporary work to permanent employment).

The reconstruction of the social situation and everyday life of the (immigrant) Czech labour force, especially that of women and children, would also be a rewarding topic.
A comparison with workers of other ethnic origins would also be of interest here. This also raises the question of overlaps and interactions between different forms of discrimination, marriage strategies and birth behavior, the housing situation of (Czech) workers in Vienna, their social support networks and the importance of the welfare and school system.

You are welcome to suggest further topics that deal with the Czech workers in Vienna.

Submission details
Abstracts in German, Czech or English with a maximum length of 2000 characters and a short bio should be submitted to Dr. Hildegard Schmoller (hildegard.schmoller@univie.ac.at) and Prof. Lukáš Fasora (fasora@phil.muni.cz) by 15 April 2024.
Publication of the contributions is planned. Submission of manuscripts: 31 March 2025.
The working languages of the conference are German and Czech, with simultaneous translation. Presentations in English are also welcome.

Kontakt

Dr. Hildegard Schmoller
T: +43-699-19234069
E-Mail: hildegard.schmoller@univie.ac.at

prof. Mgr. Lukáš Fasora, Ph.D.
Phone: +420 549 49 3548
E‑mail: fasora@phil.muni.cz

Czech Academy of Sciences (Prague), 14 - 15 October 2024

The workshop Ethnolinguistic cartography (18th–21st centuries) in comparative perspective: genre, political conflicts, memory, organised by the Institute of History of the Czech Academy of Sciences with the support of the Strategy AV21: Research programme Identities in the World of Wars and Crises, will take place on 14–15 October 2024 at the Institute of History. 

Ethnolinguistic maps are an important genre of modern political cartography. The genre originated in Europe at the end of the eighteenth century and subsequently experienced a tumultuous development, mainly due to the organisation of statistical censuses, the development of printing technologies, the efforts of states to territorialise (centralise), and the growth of modern nationalism. With the development of mass literacy and mass politics, ethnographic maps became an important medium of public debate. Various drawing techniques emerged to serve the political goals of national movements and the territorial aspirations of nation-states. Ethnolinguistic maps became part of school curricula, political agitation and national conflicts. They became an important argument in the post-war negotiations on new borders. They were also an important propaganda tool for movements seeking the territorial revision of ‘unjust’ borders. However, there were also efforts at inter-ethnic cooperation in cartography and innovations aimed at ‘scientific’ and neutral cartography, such as the dot method. After 1945, the genre lost much of its political potential due to the discrediting of the idea of territorial expansion in Europe, but it experienced a rebirth during post-communist ethnic conflicts (post-Soviet, post-Yugoslav countries) or ethno-religious conflicts in the Near East.

The theme of the workshop will be to analyse the development of ethnolinguistic maps in Europe and other regions of the world from different perspectives from the 18th to the 21st century. In particular, we encourage papers that address the following questions:

• How has the genre developed from its origins to the present day?
• What were the specificities of ethnolinguistic mapping in different European or non-European regions/states?
• How did ethnolinguistic mapping manifest itself during wars, peace negotiations and attempts to revise borders?
• What was the relationship between ethnolinguistic mapping and ethnic statistics?
• What was the relationship between ethnolinguistic maps and other specialised map genres (dialect maps, town plans, historical atlases)?
• How can the transfer and comparative perspectives be applied to the study of ethnolinguistic maps?
• How did ethnolinguistic maps serve the purposes of political propaganda? Do they represent specific sites of memory?

The deadline for submitting abstracts (300 words) and a short CV is 15 May 2024. Authors will then be notified of the acceptance or rejection of their proposals by 31 May 2024. Each participant will have 20 minutes for their presentation and there will be time for questions and answers at the end of the presentation. Travel within Europe and accommodation will be covered by the organisers. The organisers plan to publish selected papers either in the conference proceedings

Appel à articles pour le numéro 19 de la revue Images du travail, travail des images (septembre 2025)

Sol, sous-sol, hors-sol : terrains d’observation du travail

Très longtemps confiné aux sciences du vivant, à l’agronomie ou bien sûr à la science spécialisée de la pédologie, le sol est un objet dont les sciences sociales francophones se sont emparées depuis quelques années (Meulemans & Granjou, 2020). Cet intérêt s’est trouvé renforcé par le développement des travaux sociologiques autour de la question écologique, étayant l’idée que le sol constitue « une nouvelle frontière d’exploration et de connaissances » (Sugden, Stone & Ash, 2004). Les évolutions observables dans ce cadre portent autant sur les pratiques professionnelles en lien direct avec l’usage des sols que sur les méthodes visant à les analyser, par exemple en matière de cartographie des sols transformée par les évolutions technologiques du numérique (Kon Kam King, 2020). Par ailleurs, les enjeux écologiques tout autant qu’économiques[1] autour de la « gestion » au sens large des sols et des sous-sols ont accentué les dimensions politiques voire géopolitiques de ces sujets. Désormais investis par l’action politique (Fournil et alii, 2018) ou militante mais aussi par le travail juridique, sol et sous-sol conduisent à penser et produire à l’échelle des territoires nationaux[2] ou internationaux des normes porteuses de fortes transformations professionnelles. Enfin, on assiste à une réévaluation de la dimension anthropologique des sols, notamment avec l’intégration en 2006 de la catégorie de « technosols » dans le système de classification des sols de l’Organisation des Nations unies pour l’alimentation et l’agriculture ou les débats pour apparenter les activités humaines à la production même des sols (Meulemans & Tondeur, 2022). Le développement des pratiques d’humusation (transformation du corps en humus) participe également d’une perception renouvelée des relations entre êtres humains, plantes, animaux, eaux et sols rejoignant les idées d’une « éthique de la terre » (Leopold, 1949).

Le prochain projet de la revue Images du travail, Travail des Images propose d’éprouver les transformations actuelles des sols et des sous-sols à l’aune des questions du travail (entendu dans son sens le plus large) et des différentes représentations visuelles auxquelles celui-ci peut donner lieu. Si le sujet du sol et du sous-sol permet d’envisager les évolutions de métiers traditionnels comme ceux de l’agriculture ou de la mine, ou encore de l’archéologie il ouvre aussi sur de nouvelles activités - qu’elles soient professionnelles (création de sols fertiles à partir de matériaux recyclés par exemple), citoyennes ou militantes - et permet une décentration du regard sur le travail qu’il conviendra de prendre en compte. La place du sol dans les représentations du travail montre des formes variables du rapport humain au sol ; tantôt il s’agit de fouler le sol, d’être en appui, de l’excaver ou d’en prendre possession, tantôt il s’agit d’en exposer la force majestueuse (au moyen de prises de vue aériennes) mais aussi la menace. Dans certaines configurations le sol est souffrant, dégradé et fragile. On ajoutera qu’à une iconographie déjà riche et diversifiée, sont venues s’ajouter d’autres images permises par des techniques d’exploration ou de visualisation qui modifient vision et connaissances des sols. Ainsi, les pratiques professionnelles des géomètres évoluent désormais avec l’apport de clichés produits par des drones. Ceci justifie d’ailleurs l’introduction dans le projet de l’idée du « hors sol » comme une dimension à part entière de l’analyse : si l’on songe aux géoglyphes de Nazca, il faut préalablement le survol la zone en avion P. Kosok pour en initier l’étude. Il s’agira donc d’explorer dans quelle mesure les images associées aux sols et aux sous-sols dans diverses activités humaines et contextes sociaux rendent compte ou non de rapports renouvelés au sol. On pourrait également envisager d’étendre la réflexion à la question du sol « au travail » en s’attachant aux nombreuses activités non humaines qui le rendent vivant et aux manières de les saisir (comme l’a abordé par exemple le projet collaboratif Matsutake Worlds).

Compte tenu de la diversité des activités qui convoquent les sols et les sous-sols, nous proposons trois axes autour desquels pourraient s’organiser les contributions.

Axe 1 : Collaborations, protection, re-valorisation

Au titre des nouveaux rapports au sol, la protection ou la conservation des sols se trouve affirmée et affichée aussi bien dans les pratiques professionnelle agro-responsables que dans les pratiques citoyennes, militantes, voire éducatives. À l’instar des savoirs et méthodes de production étudiés par l’ethno-pédologie (Rakoto Ramiarantsoa, & Nicolas Lemoigne, 2019), l’usage du sol semble mobiliser particulièrement les sens (toucher la terre, observer la couleur du sol, sentir l’odeur du compost). Dès lors, comment les images peuvent-elles figurer ce travail d’exploration et de soin : quels sont les environnements choisis, les éléments naturels présents dans le décor, les postures adoptées, les outils exposés ? Ce répertoire d’action réunissant à la fois des engagements ruraux et urbains, voit-on des différences de représentation dans les manières de faire ou les rapports au sol entre professionnels et non-professionnels ? Les questions de plaisir ou de jeu évoquées dans le cadre du compostage (Granjou et alii, 2020) sont-elles manifestes dans les opérations d’entretien ou de sauvegarde des sols ? L’idée du sol comme bien commun développée se traduit-elle spécifiquement par une représentation collective des activités ? Par ailleurs, de nouveaux métiers émergent à la faveur de recherches sur les « technosols » et des stratégies visant à ne pas urbaniser davantage de sols agricoles (Leyval, 2018). Ces nouvelles formes de sols engagent une multiplicité d’acteurs professionnels (biologistes, agronomes, forestiers, professionnels du bâtiment, etc.) et provoquent des usages sociaux et professionnels (écopâturage, agriculture urbaine) dont l’iconographie déjà foisonnante pourrait être analysée. On pourra également aborder ici la manière dont certaines pratiques agricoles ou d’exploitation forestière évoluent dans une ambition de protection des sols en alliant savoirs traditionnels, technologies.

Axe 2 : Exploitations, compétition

Cet axe pourrait traiter des questions du sous-sol, du travail de la mine à sa reconversion, des activités de construction d’infrastructures de transports souterrains (dans le cadre de grands projets urbains comme celui du Grand Paris Express), des activités d’enfouissement de déchets radioactifs à la surveillance et mise en sécurité des anciens sites miniers, de la connaissance des différentes pollutions. Plus largement, pourraient être évoquées ici les différentes activités relatives au traitement des déchets qui soulignent la double exploitation des travailleurs et des sols mais qui traduisent aussi l’évolution de l’ordure comme une nouvelle ressource (Cavé, 2020). Par ailleurs, une attention pourrait être portée à la documentation des lieux d’exploitation ou de pollutions qui donne matière à une visualisation de ces enjeux (carte de la pollution éternelle, carte des conflits environnementaux liés à l'exploitation du sous-sol) et alimente le travail de justice environnementale. Cela pourrait être également l’occasion de comprendre les liens entre sols et sous-sols, comme les effondrements d’habitations après abandon des mines, les installations au jour dynamitées alors que survivent les galeries souterraines, la muséification des sites… donnant naissance à d’autres formes de travail. Dans toutes ces situations, et d’autres, l’image (cartographique, picturale, photographique, filmique …) est un outil majeur pour une variété de métiers. On pourra aussi documenter les rites autour de ces activités du sous-sol, particulièrement accidentogènes (fête de la Sainte Barbe hier chez les mineurs et aujourd’hui chez les ouvriers du Grand Paris Express ; rituels autour du Tio dans les mines de Bolivie (Asbi, 2004).

Axe 3 : Explorations, révélation, sublimation, transformation

Cet axe pourra réunir un large éventail de situations où s’opère un double mouvement de « révélation », d’une part lorsque les sols livrent les traces d’une activité humaine mise à jour par les archéologues, les historiens, les pédologues ou encore par certains pratiquants de l’urbex, d’autre part lorsque le travail scientifique aussi bien que l’activité artistique ou le geste militant contribue à montrer la valeur essentielle des sols. Quelles sont les représentations en situation de travail des différentes disciplines scientifiques directement intéressées par les sols ou les sous-sols, comment les professionnels de ces disciplines utilisent-ils les images dans leurs différentes activités ou quelles images produisent-ils en vue d’affiner la connaissance scientifique ou d’enrôler plus largement les pouvoirs publics ou les acteurs sociaux à la préservation des sols ? Par exemple, depuis l’Antiquité, le travail minier a suscité des représentations artistiques sur tous les continents, suivant en cela les innovations de supports au fil des siècles (gravures rupestres, bas-relief, sculptures, lithographies, peintures, photographies, affiches, films, productions numériques…). On pense ici par exemple à la démarche de l’archéologie apparentée par Leroi-Gourhan à un travail « d’archive du sol » qui a donné lieu en 2022 à une exposition des Archives nationales du monde du travail « Du cœur à l'ouvrage : dans l'intimité des archéologues », au travail de pédothèque du conservatoire européen des sols ou encore à des opérations telles que l’initiative « 4 pour 1000 » conduite par des chercheurs de l’Inrae. Enfin, un abondant corpus d’œuvres utilise les éléments du sol, représente le sol ou les choses au sol, adopte à dessein le cadre naturel comme lieu d’exposition, mobilise le spectateur sur les chemins, ou propose une œuvre-paysage. Le Land Art et dans une certaine mesure l’Arte Povera se distinguent en tant que mouvements au sein de l’art contemporain mais de nombreuses autres pratiques esthétiques actuelles - qu’elles se revendiquent ou non de l’art écologique - peuvent aussi être interrogées, notamment dans les relations qu’elles construisent avec les disciplines des sciences humaines et sociales.

Les propositions de contributions pourront émaner des différentes sciences sociales qui alimentent la revue : ethnologie, archéologie, géologie, histoire, histoire de l’art, sociologie mais le projet trouvera un réel bénéfice à réunir les contributions de géographes bien sûr, de pédologues ou spécialistes de cartographie ; mieux encore il pourra être une occasion de faire discuter les chercheurs de manière pluridisciplinaire.

Les articles attendus reposeront sur l’analyse d’un corpus d’images (productions iconographiques). Ces images devront être reproduites dans l’article. Rappelons que Images du travail, Travail des images est une revue scientifique entièrement numérique, gratuite et ouverte. L’auteur devra à ce titre s’assurer de la disposition des droits d’utilisation et de diffusion des images mobilisées dans le texte. Les articles sont d’un format de 30 000 à 50 000 signes maximum. Dans un premier temps, sont attendues des propositions d’articles, soit un texte d’intention de 3000 à 5000 signes avec une sélection d’images significatives et quelques références bibliographiques.

Les propositions d’article devront parvenir à la rédaction de la revue avant le 27 mai 2024

Le numéro est prévu pour septembre 2025

Contacts pour toutes informations complémentaires et pour l’envoi des documents :

Dominique Maillard, dominique.maillard@cereq.fr

Nadège Mariotti, nadege.mariotti@univ-lorraine.fr

Gwenaele Rot, gwenaele.rot@sciencespo.fr

La revue Image du travail, Travail des images : imagesdutravail@gmail.com

 

Références bibliographiques (indicatives)

Absi P. (2004). Le diable et les prolétaires, le travail dans les mines de Potosi, Bolivie, Sociologie du travail, https://doi.org/10.4000/sdt.29349

Barrocca B. (dir), Penser la ville et agir par le souterrain, Paris, Presses des Ponts 2014, p.143-159.

Barbier, M.N. (1956). Les mines et les arts à travers les âges, Paris : Ateliers ICA.

Cavé, J. (2020). La ruée vers l'ordure. Conflits dans les mines urbaines de déchets, Rennes : Presses universitaires de Rennes.

Allens (d.), G.& Andrea Fuori, A. (2017). Bure, la bataille du nucléaire, Paris : Seuil, Reporterre, 2017.

Désabres, P. (2005) Des hommes au travail. Les photographies du chantier du métro de Paris de 1898 aux années 1920. Dans : Le travail en représentations. Actes du 127e Congrès national des sociétés historiques et scientifiques, « Le travail et les hommes », Nancy, 2002. Paris : Éditions du CTHS, p. 95-107.

Dudal, R. (2005). The sixth factor of soil formation. Eurasian Soil Science. 38.

Fournil J., Kon Kam King J., Granjou C. & Cécillon L. (2018). Le sol : enquête sur les mécanismes de (non) émergence d’un problème public environnemental VertigO - la revue électronique en sciences de l'environnement. Volume 18, numéro 2, septembre 2018. https://doi.org/10.4000/vertigo.20433

Granjou, C., Higgin, M. & Mounet, C. (2020). Le compostage, entre réduction des déchets et domestication du pourrissement, Revue d’anthropologie des connaissances [En ligne], 14-4 | 2020, mis en ligne le 01 décembre 2020, consulté le 22 janvier 2024. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/rac/11873&nbsp;; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/rac.11873

Glinel Charlotte (2022), « Les forêts vues du ciel L’appropriation militante des dispositifs de visualisation aérienne dans une controverse canadienne forestière autour du glyphosate », Revue d’anthropologie es connaissances, vol. 16-3.

Grimaud, G. (2013). «Archéologie et ventriloquie. Jeux de chaises et de choses au bord d’une tranchée archéologique », Gradhiva 18 : 200-233. DOI : 10.4000/gradhiva.2750

Kalifa D. (2013), Les Bas-Fonds. Histoire d’un imaginaire, Paris : Seuil.

Kon Kam King, J. (2020). Le dessous des cartes, Revue d’anthropologie des connaissances [En ligne], 14-4 | 2020, mis en ligne le 01 décembre 2020, consulté le 06 janvier 2024. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/rac/6244 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/rac.6244

Leopold, A. [1949] (1995). Almanach d'un comté des sables. Paris : Aubier.

Leyval, C. (2018). Après la remédiation, le double enjeu de la restauration et de la requalification des sols. Annales des Mines - Responsabilité et environnement, 91, 82-85. https://doi.org/10.3917/re1.091.0082

Meulemans, G. & Granjou, C. (2020). Les sols, nouvelle frontière pour les savoirs et les politiques de l’environnement, Revue d’anthropologie des connaissances [En ligne], 14-4 | 2020, mis en ligne le 01 décembre 2020, consulté le 17 janvier 2024. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/rac/14027 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/rac.14027

Meulemans, G. & Tondeur, A. (2022). Correspondances interdisciplinaires : une recherche-création sur les sols urbains entre anthropologie, écologie et art », Tracés. Revue de Sciences humaines, 22, 117-138.

Meulemans, G. (2018). Des hommes qui creusent : suivre le sol en pédologie. Dans L. Mariani and C. Plancke [éds.] (D)écrire les affects, Paris : Petra.

France culture, Les pieds sur terre https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/les-pieds-sur-terre/la-champignonniere-de-roches-l-eveque-8685506

Rakoto Ramiarantsoa, H. & Lemoigne, N. (2019). La terre est chair, les roches grossissent » : gérer la vie là où elle se trouve. Pour une ethno-pédologie des savoirs paysans, ELOHI [En ligne], 5-6 | 2014, mis en ligne le 01 janvier 2015, consulté le 19 avril 2019. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/elohi/747 ; DOI : 10.4000/elohi.747.

Rosini, P. (2020). La mémoire lacunaire du nucléaire. Transmission des savoirs lors d’opérations de démantèlement et de reprise des déchets anciens, Socio Anthropologie, v° 40, https://journals.openedition.org/socio-anthropologie/7617

Rot, G. (dir.) (2023). Travailler aux chantiers, Paris : Hermann.

Sugden, A., Stone, R. & Ash, C. (eds.) (2004). Special Issue: Soils—The Final Frontier. Science, 304(5677).

Torterat, G. (2021) Suivre une trace, ressentir une ambiance, Techniques & Culture [En ligne], 75 | 2021, mis en ligne le 01 janvier 2024, consulté le 31 janvier 2024. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/tc/15630

 

[1].    On pense ici aux terres rares.

[2].    Cf. les différentes propositions de loi portées actuellement en vue d’audit de la terre pour des locations ou des ventes ou l’idée d’inscrire les sols comme patrimoine dans le Code rural et de créer une Haute autorité chargée d’un diagnostic de la qualité des sols.