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CfP: Conference - "Pathways to Empire? Belgian Global Expansion, 1830-1930"

3 months 2 weeks ago

On September 11-13, 2024, KU Leuven will host an international conference on the interrelated themes of imperialism and Belgian expansionism. We welcome paper proposals that explore the theoretical and methodological challenges involved in writing new global histories of imperialism between 1830, when Belgium was founded, and the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Conference - Pathways to Empire? Belgian Global Expansion, 1830-1930"

On September 11-13, 2024, KU Leuven will host an international conference on the interrelated themes of imperialism and Belgian expansionism. We welcome paper proposals that explore the theoretical and methodological challenges involved in writing new global histories of imperialism between 1830, when Belgium was founded, and the Great Depression of the 1930s. Focusing on different actors, institutions, organizations, learned societies, and transnational associations involved in Belgian overseas expansion is an invitation to reflect on definitions of imperialism, colonization and empire, to apply this to the case of Belgian global expansion, and to transcend the conventional focus on the ‘Great Powers'.

Aims

In 1905 the ‘Congrès International d’Expansion Écono-ique Mondiale’ took place in the Belgian city of Mons. It was part of a series of celebrations for a triple jubilee: the 75th anniversary of Belgian independence, King Leopold II’s 70th birthday, and the 20th anniversary of the Congo Free State. The congress marked the conflation of territorial colonization in Congo, economic expansion in the world and complacent projections of power on a global scale. Although Belgian expansion had
kickstarted well before the brutal subjugation of Congo and its peoples, the latter gradually warmed various Belgian elites to expansionist ideas. The aim of this conference is to explore the kind of entanglements that crystalized at the congress in Mons between globalization, capitalism, modern state-building, and imperialism.

The historiography of imperialism tends to focus on the Great Powers, illustrated by the abundant literature on Britain’s ‘gentlemanly imperialism’ or ‘informal empire’. These notions, however, cannot simply be transferred to other European expansion(ist) histories. A burgeoning scholarship on comparative, entangled, and small-state perspectives has demonstrated the importance of examining alternative cases and vantagepoints. In line with exciting new research into ‘colonial Switzerland’ (i.e. colonialism without colonies) and small powers’ involvement in formal
colonization, we propose to focus on Belgian expansionism to rethink common notions of modern imperialism.

Nineteenth-century Belgium is an ideal case to start such an inquiry: Belgian actors, organizations, and infrastructures were vital for the development of the new imperial wave in which several European powers participated. And even earlier, Brussels and Antwerp had been prime
international hubs for the circulation of goods, capital, people, and ideas. Wallonia was one of the world’s most advanced industrial centers and exported weapons, steel, and chemical compounds world-wide. Contrary to some of its neighboring countries, Belgium had limited military power, but could instrumentalize its favorable location and (nominal) neutrality to craft loopholes to advance its
foreign policy agendas. The Leopoldian construction of a so-called double crown – one Belgian, one Congolese – separated the Belgian state from the Congo Free State in theory. In practice, however, the division between the Palace and the country’s institutions was porous at best and often complicated the relation between expansion, imperial discourse, and political power.

These peculiar features of ‘Belgian imperialism’ complicate conventional understandings of Western imperialism. How, for instance, can we connect global (imperialist) processes to Belgian involvement in the construction of railways in Argentine, the migration of Asian indentured laborers to Congo, scientific expeditions to the Pole regions, the composition of the Egyptian Mixed Courts, the
exploitation of mines in Tsarist Russia, or the involvement in the Amazonian rubber trade? And how did diplomats, military men, engineers, missionaries, translators, educators, shippers, or dock workers negotiate, shape, or contest imperial projects and ideologies? To answer these questions, we follow how people, commodities, knowledge, and technologies embedded Belgium in the world and vice versa.

We are especially interested in paper proposals that depart from local, non-Western, or comparative perspectives to investigate aspects of Belgian globalization between 1830 and 1930. Critical and conceptual reflection on the meanings of imperialism, globalization, Belgian-specificity, or expansionism is encouraged. Themes to explore include:

• State-private relations;
• Science, techniques, and infrastructures of empire;
• Labor and empire;
• Sensory histories of empire;
• Environmental history and empire;
• Violence in imperial processes;
• Commodity frontiers;
• Transimperial mobility;
• Anti-imperial resistance;
• New (digital) methods for studying imperialism;
• Imagining of Empire;
• Cultural and business diplomacy in imperial processes;
• Migration, ethnicity, nationalism, and diasporic communities;
• Press, propaganda, and collective memory;
• Use of terminology – imperial, colonial, expansion – by historical actors;
• Role of (local) intermediaries and (in)formal actors

Keynote Speakers
• Manu Karuka (Barnard College, New York)
• Daniel Laqua (Northumbria University, Newcastle)

Practicalities
• Submissions should include name, main affiliation, paper title, abstract, and a short bio (max. 100
words).
• Applicants are invited to submit a 350-word abstract in which their research questions,
objectives, relevant historiographies, and primary sources are clearly outlined.
• Final papers should be submitted in English and will be pre-circulated.
• We intend to publish selected papers.
• You can send your papers to: globalbelgiumconference@gmail.com.
• Travel and accommodation expenses of those who do not dispose of institutional funding will
(partially) be refunded.

Deadline & Dates
Deadline submission abstracts: December 30 • 2023
Notifications of acceptance: January 30 • 2024
Deadline submission papers: July 15 • 2024
Conference: September 11 >13 • 2024

Organizing Committee
• Dr. Houssine Alloul (University of Amsterdam)
• Dr. Michael Auwers (State Archives of Belgium)
• Eline Ceulemans (University of Antwerp)
• Prof. Idesbald Goddeeris (KU Leuven)
• Dr. Gert Huskens (Ghent University)
• Janne Schreurs (KU Leuven)

Contact (announcement)

globalbelgiumconference@gmail.com.

CfP: Participation and Representation – A Democratic Lovestory? Conference of Archiv fuer Sozialgeschichte in preparation of vol. 65 (2025)

3 months 2 weeks ago

Conference in Bonn, 13-14 June 2024

Participation and Representation – A Democratic Lovestory?

Modern democracies are characterised by a fundamental tension: on the one hand, they promise to realise the rule of »the people«, that is the exercise of power by the many, through the widest possible political and social participation, and base their legitimacy on this. On the other hand, even if they are committed to a participatory understanding of democracy, they cannot avoid delegating the rule of the many to representatives who stand for a group or a party: the many then only have the power to vote for their representatives in elections or on specific political issues in referendums. The representative system has therefore been repeatedly criticised, if not condemned, for its lack of participation. The experimentation with (consultative) citizens’ councils currently underway in several countries, including at subnational and supranational levels, is a response to the current demand for additional forms of participation in representative democracy. In addition, extra-parliamentary actors have for some time been asking who is actually represented, what the »representation« of certain groups looks like. This is not a new question in the history of democracy, but it has been discussed with increasing intensity over the last 20 years – including, for example, in relation to the prospect of a loss of trust.

Against the backdrop of the 75th anniversary of the Basic Law and the Federal Republic of Germany, we would like to take this stocktaking as an opportunity to take a systematic look at the (tense) relationship between and complementarity of representation and participation. What role have social or political protests, that is non-representative practices of participation, played in the emergence of modern democratic forms of representation? How specific are the problems of legitimation of political representation for democratic systems and their promise of participation compared to dictatorships that developed authoritarian, plebiscitary forms of political participation of the many? How can the quality of representational relations in democratically organised republics be described in concrete terms and distinguished from those in (constitutional) monarchies, for example? How did democratic relations of representation differ according to time, region, ideological orientation and institutional framework, and what specific or universal understandings and problems of participation were associated with them? Which social classes participated to what extent, who was excluded, and what role did gender roles and ethnicity play in the development of democratic forms of participation? How exactly did participation (symbolic, consultative, decisive) work and how was it represented? How was and is participation specifically limited and restricted by representation; what processes of change can be identified in this respect? And finally: which notions – in the cultural-sociological sense – of participation and political representation, of »people« or party base, of representatives and political leaders characterise the history of modernity? These questions aim not least to shed light on the historicity of terms, concepts and practices in modern democratic societies.

For the 65th volume of the Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, we are looking for contributions that address these questions, focusing on the relationship between participation and representation in modernity and discussing them comparatively or on the basis of a specific case. Of interest is the period from the late eighteenth century to the present, with European and global historical as well as interdisciplinary perspectives explicitly encouraged.

The Friedrich Ebert Foundation will host a conference in Bonn on 13 and 14 June 2024 to develop ideas, topics and questions for contributions on the subject of Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 65 (2025) as outlined above. We invite all those interested to submit proposals to afs@fes.de by 10 February 2024. The proposals should not exceed 3,000 characters and, like the papers and subsequent texts, may be submitted in German or English. The articles subsequently selected by the editors for inclusion in the volume should be approximately 60,000 characters (including footnotes) and should be completed by 31 December 2024.

Kontakt

Philipp Kufferath
afs@fes.de

https://www.fes.de/afs/cfp

CfP: Rendez-vous d’histoire coloniale, 2nd edition: "(Anti)colonialism and (inter)nationalism"

3 months 2 weeks ago

20-22 of June 2024 - Diplomatic Archives - Nantes.

Theme 1 – Rethinking the Empire of Knowledge through the prism of internationalism(s)

Theme 2 – Anti-imperialism et internationalism

Theme 3 – War and peace: international institutions and colonialism

Theme 4 – Nationalisation of societies and the colonial situation

Scientific and organising committee:

Élise Abassade ; Étienne Arnould ; Nadia Biskri ; Vincent Bollenot ; Marie Challet ; Fabienne Chamelot ; Nora Eguienta ; Edith Ekodo ; Luca Nelson-Gabin ; Margot Garcin ; Quentin Gasteuil ; Thaïs Gendry ; Thierry Guillopé ; Mickael Langlois ; Éric Lechevallier ; Hugo Mulonnière ; Anna Nasser ; Adrien Nery ; Martino Oppizzi ; Maëlle Pennéguès ; Antonin Plarier ; Christelle Rabier ; Chloé Rosner ; Margo Stemmelin.

Please find attached the detailed Call for Papers with all further information.