Family and Demography Network

Call for papers / Proposed sessions for ESSHC 2008

• Solitary Households and their Demographic Effect
  Who were the solitaries? Were they elderly and widowed? Were they young people preparing for marriage or unable to marry? Does the presence of many solitaries explain demographic patterns of marriage, mortality or illegitimacy? Is there any effect?
  Organizer: Mary Louise Nagata, mnagata@fmarion.edu
• The Definition of Poverty as and Impediment of Marriage: How poor was poor?
  "Poor" people were prevented from marriage by communities in northern Protestant Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries. At the same time, demographic research has shown that young people from poorer families were more likely to marry in southern Catholic Europe than young people from more affluent families. Why this difference? Did marriage bring some survival benefit to these poor couples? How poor were they? How did they manage? Were the communities in the Protestant north wrong about the ability of poor couples to support their families? How did the northern communities define "poor"?
  Organizer: Mary Louise Nagata, mnagat@fmarion.edu
• The Borderline between Life and Death: neonatal and perinatal deaths
  Organizers: Olof Gardarsdottir, Olof.Gardarsdottir@hagstofa.is and Eilidh Garrett, eilidh.garrett@btinternet
• Childlessness
  Organizer: Olof Gardarsdottir, Olof.Gardarsdottir@hagstofa.is
• Marriage Contracts I: a quantitative approach to family strategies
  Organizers: Gerard Beaur, Beaur@ehess.fr and Joseph Goy
• Marriage Contracts II: inheritance systems
  Organizers: Gerard Beaur, Beaur@ehess.fr and Joseph Goy
• Mapping the Demography of Tuberculosis
  While the slow retreat of tuberculosis in Old World urbanized societies is familiar, its mechanisms remain puzzling. Moreover the impact of tuberculosis on indigenous peoples and rural immigrants to New World instant cities is arguably even more complex. What can we learn from a comparative approach to mapping the demography of tuberculosis in Old World and New World societies in the C19th and early C20th? Can the mapping and demography of changing household sizes and densities provide useful data on its decline? Were there different cohort effects? Did New World societies witness different patterns in tuberculosis as they underwent crises of urbanization and industrialization, and what can the mapping of tuberculosis in those new, often ethnically diverse communities, reveal of the dynamics of social dislocation, deprivation and discrimination in periods of rapid growth?
  Organizer: Janet McCalman, janetsm@unimelb.edu.au
• Rowntree Revisited: Poverty, Welfare and the Life-cycle
  More than a century has passed since the pioneering social investigator Seebohm Rowntree published the results from his study of poverty in York. Although his definitions and methods have been discussed and criticized over the years, his model of poverty life-cycle still stands out as a crucial insight in a historical context as well as in the contemporary society. But are Rowntree's results still undisputed? Have we learned anything about the relationship between poverty, welfare and the life-cycle since 1901? Can the same pattern be traced in rural areas as in industrial York or in pre-industrial societies? Is Rowntree's model equally applicable in other national contexts, outside Britain? This session welcomes papers discussing these issues from a broad and comparative perspective.
  Organizer: Elisabeth Engberg, elisabeth.engberg@ddb.umu.se
• Individual experiences of Vulnerablility
  In an international perspective the historiography of poverty and poor relief is vast. There are numerous studies discussing the legal framework and poor relief policy on both a national and a local level. The number of studies that focuses on the poor and vulnerable themselves and their life course is, however, considerably smaller. This session directs the focus away from poor laws and policy-makers to the poor themselves. What do we know about the experiences of being poor and vulnerable in past societies? Who received relief and who did not? How did people make ends meet over the life-course? What sources and methods can be used? And finally - how can poverty be defined from an individual perspective?
  OrganiIzer: Elisabeth Engberg, elisabeth.engberg@ddb.umu.se
• Making Large and Complex Data Bases Easy to Use
  The historical community is now fortunate to have a growing number of large-scale, public databases of life histories from the past. Some of these databases have been under development for a long time, such as the Demographic Database in Umea, the Utah genealogical database, the Scania database in Lund and the PRDH and BALSAC in Quebec. Others are relatively recent, such as the Historical Sample of the Netherlands. Although many of these databases are intended to be public resources and available to any qualified researcher, relatively little work has been conducted with them. Since longitudinal databases are exceptionally rich and address a host of questions not covered by cross-sectional data, the difference is striking. One of the reasons for this relatively low use is the enormous complexity of this kind of data. The main object of this session is to find ways of making this kind of databases more easy to use, especially for those scholars in the historical and social sciences who have little or no experience in programming.
  Organizer: Kees Mandemakers, kma@iisg.nl
• The Impact of the 'Industrious Revolution' on the Family
  The intention of this session is to further a discussion on household behaviour in the 17th to 19th centuries concerning the input of labour and goods for a market. Since Jan de Vries launched the concept in 1994, there has been a discussion on the usefulness of the concept. Some historians have doubted the existence of such a change, while others have readily adopted the concept. The hope is that this session could bring new material to the discussion. Some questions would be: Can we identify changes in market related work put in by men, women, and children in preindustrial Europe? Is there a change in the gender division of work? Is there a change in mentality towards work in the period? Can we identify an increased stress on industriousness in the upbringing of children?
  Organizer: Ida Bull, ida.bull@hf.ntnu.no
• Mobilities, integration and formalisation of social relationships in the urban context
  Migrants to the city try to become integrated in social or kin networks. In order to do this, it can be useful for them to reinforce some existing bonds or to create news ones. Using more or less institutionalized rites (wedding witnessing ; Christian spiritual kinship or its French secularized version - the Republican sponsorship- ; joining specific groups as confraternities ; etc) is often a way to "formalize" these relationships and to give them more strength and durability. Taking into account the diversity of the actors, this session will try to analyze various "formalization" strategies and their impacts on the building of urban social networks (contacts with new circles, for instance the native urban citizens ; rebuilding of existing communautary ties ; formation of local solidarities), by insisting on the specific modalities and spirit of each formalized or institutionalized relationship. We would also try to think about our capacity to understand and describe urban social networks by focusing on these formalized bonds which are often the only available ones within the historical sources.
  Organizer: Vincent Gourdon, vincent.gourdon@aliceposta.it
• Did Peasants Die in their Own Beds? Rural Migration in the 18th-19th Centuries
  This session will focus on the places where the peasants were likely to die before the Industrial Revolution. Historical demographers and historians have found it was not unusual for peasants to abandon their children, to die on the road out of their villages or to run away from their villages under the serious damage of great famines. Peasants did not all die in their own homes. We expect to address mobility of peasants in traditional society by investigating the last moments of death.
  Organizer: Hiroshi Kawaguchi, kawag@tezukayama-u.ac.jp
• Evidence and Use of Clean Numbers
  Social science history has enabled scholars from a number of disciplines to address past phenomena from their respective disciplinary views. Unfortunately, they take for granted the canons of evidence of their particular fields. This can be dangerous in that the use of evidence can vary widely from field to field. Macroeconomists, for example, routinely alter their statistics as revised numbers are reported to governments, a practice alien and confusing to historians. Historians, however, might accept 19th century nosologies which are no longer acceptable to 21st century epidemiologists. This panel will therefore address the ways in which scholars can negotiate differences in rules of evidence in order to promote interdisciplinary approaches.
  Organizer: Bruce Fetter, bruf@uwm.edu
• Unnatural Kinship: familiarity outside of family, 15th-19th Centuries
  The session will focus on relationships that were not founded on ties of blood or affinity, but which conveyed a sense of familial closeness. The most important of these was spiritual kinship created by baptism, which like blood ties also created impediments to marriage. Other relationships, although not officially recognised as one of kinship, nevertheless infused a sense of familial rapport as is suggested by the extensive use of familial terms and metaphors of kinship: such is the case, for example, of the "family of the prince" composed by his closest courtiers and servants, or of "institutional families" such as orphans who resided in the same hospital. While these non-biological familial ties have been much studied from a juridical-institutional point of view, we need to explore further their actual social meaning.
  Organizer: Guido Alfani, guido.alfani@unibocconi.it
• Models of Illegitimacy in Comparative Perspective
  The frequency of illegitimate births has long been studied in Europe in relation to the general increase of abandoned children. Administrators and policy makers had to organize charitable support for single mothers or wet-nursing arrangements and on the whole pay for an enormous number of burials, particularly in urban areas. Some attempted to analyze the geographical and social distribution of illegitimacy, but until the 1930s and the beginning of the sociological study of bastardy, illegitimacy was taken more or less as an index of the moral state of a community. The session will encourage comparative historical studies using longitudinal data. The aim is to trace various models of "illegitimate" children in various cultures and family surroundings, taking account-particularly to understand their life expectancy-of the economic and social conditions of the mothers and whether the babies were born (or not) from a more or less stable or stabilized couple.
  Organizer: Antoinette Fauve-Chamoux, fauve@msh-paris.fr
• Intergenerational aspects of Demography
  This session is focused on intergenerational aspects of demographic behavior. Different aspects of demography in history have been studied extensively. Individual-level data has permitted studies of the role of environment, social class, gender and so on. What only recently have started to be explored are different intergenerational aspects of demography. Do we find similar patterns of reproductive behavior or health and longevity between generations? Was high mortality or high fertility concentrated to certain families? What do we know about how these patterns were transferred? Papers and presentations that analyze these topics as well as those discussing methodological aspects of such studies are welcome.
  Organizer: Soren Edvinsson, Soren.Edvinsson@ddb.umu.se
• Cultural Constructions of Blood from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century, 1-4 sessions
  Notions of blood are central for familial and kinship identities, the devolution of property, the succession to office and rulership, the construction of affinal relations, mapping categories of inheritance and kinship onto conceptions of nation and race, theological propositions, juridical reasoning, and social practices. Perhaps as many as four sessions can be dedicated to exploring these issues across intellectual domains and practices.
  Organizer: David Sabean, dsabean@history.ucla.edu
• Demography of Indigenous Populations, 1-2 sessions
  The session is open for papers focusing on historical demography of indigenous populations in the world. The health transition, family composition, fertility, marriage patterns, and cultural analysis are examples of broad topics that are naturally included. Additionally studies of indigenous classification, medical history, and colonization are easily adopted.
  Organizer: Peter Sköld, peter.skold@cesam.umu.se
• The Survival Strategies of Widows
  The intention of the session is to focus on strategies adopted by widows and their families to secure survival and well-being. Some of the issues will relate to inheritance and property and the control of assets by widows. Others will deal with the strategies adopted by widows in balancing family co-operation and public assistance. In analyzing household composition and kin co-operation the question will be raised whether the approach of viewing societies as relying either on family or on public assistance will give answers that truly illuminate the past.
  Organizer: Beatrice Moring, bke.moring@ntlworld.com
• Demography and Dictatorship
  Organizer: Isabel Moll, isabelmoll@ono.com
• Nobilities in Empires: Creole family networks, 16th-19th centuries
  This session will be devoted to a general assessment of the participation of the different European nobilities to the conquest, preservation and management of the European Empires and to examine the links these colonial nobilities maintained with relatives in their mother country and especially how they maintain social and family ties.
  Organizer: Francois-Joseph Ruggiu, francois_joseph_ruggiu@hotmail.com
  This session is co-sponsored by the Elites network.
• The Use of Genealogies with Long Family Lines for Demographic Research
  The purpose of this session is for those who have used, or those who intend to use genealogies for the analysis of demographic behavior, e.g. fertility regimes, or mortality rates, to share their interests. The session will also explore the possibilities of incorporating the results of such long-term demographic studies into comparison of economic, (other) social, and cultural factors, thereby linking regional variations with definitive demographic trends. Ultimately, such research may also help understand issues related to the phenomenon of exceptional longevity.
  Organizer: Harriet Zurndorfer, h.zurndorfer@kpnplanet.nl
• Denomination of Foundlings
  In several European countries, and particularly in the catholic ones, the numbers of foundlings increased during the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. Some of them arrived at the hospital with the name of their father (or mother) and kept it, while some got new names. Other ones did not have any name and the hospitals had to create names for hundreds of foundlings every year. In this session, we will describe the names that were given and the way theses names were created. It seems that in Italian hospitals and in some Spanish hospitals, thousands of foundlings shared the same name (as Colombo in Milan). In France, names were more various, but some of them were very specific. In anglo-saxon countries (U.K. and U.S.A.) specific names were created (as reported by Charles Dickens in "Oliver Twist"). We will also wonder about the meanings of these practices and their effects on the identity of the foundlings.
  Organizer: Guy Brunet, Guy.Brunet@univ-lyon2.fr
• Migration and inequality within families: Multigenerational Perspectives
  This session asks how migration either contributes to or is a reaction to inequality within families. The families can be nuclear, or larger, ie go back several generations in time as in genealogical data bases. If there was a move in the past, how long did its effects last? The inequality can be in wealth, occupational status, access to education and the like. What happened to the children who did not inherit the family's resources, who might have been "forced" to move? What happened to their children?
  Organizer: Alice Kasakoff, Kasakoff@gwm.sc.edu
• L'Année 1911: demographic realities and political reactions
  The summer of 1911 was long, hot and dry. In a large part of Western European countries, this led to increase the infant and childhood mortality and, less obvious, the old population mortality. 1911 provides an ideal case to study how European countries observed the event, both statistically and politically: which kind of statistics were produced? Which kind of grounded observations were made about the causes? Which political lessons were drawn? The comparison of national experiences from France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, England and Wales, Italy and Spain would be of interest to see how the event was taken into account in the statistical and epidemiological studies and in the agenda of public health policies.
  Organizer: Catherine Rollet, crollet@club-internet.fr
• Kin-Marriages as Strategies for Social Reproduction
  Whereas marriages inside near kinship were prohibited in Europe by religious and later civil authorities, such practices nonetheless did occur with a frequency that cannot be disregarded. What about the social and geographic milieus in which it appears to have been a preferred behaviour, and what is to be thought of the variations in time of this phenomenon and its turning points? Besides, this session is intending to focus on the different interpretations of kin-marriages : while some of them obviously derived from the restricted number of potential spouses in some given situations, or from cultural habits, it will be examined whether in such marriages kinship did not represent the best way to the achievement of social strategies, either related to inheritance, social reproduction, or to the preservation (or even improvement) of social status and identity in some specific contexts.
  Organizer Bernard Derouet, bernard.derouet@wanadoo.fr
• Emigration, Female Marriage, and Social Mobility
  As population grew in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, men and women were forced to emigrate to find additional means for survival. Emigration for women was as vital for survival as for men but most women found solutions to survival through marriage. Emigration involved specific choices, destinies, and social mobility, with benefits as well as sacrifices. What kind of marriage did migrating women make? What kind of social mobility did marriage secure them? Did they maintain their social status, improve it, or on the contrary experience downward social mobility? How different did their life become from their parents'? What benefits and/or sacrifices did they make through marriage?
  Organizer: Marie-Pierre Arrizabalaga, marie-pierre.arrizabalaga@u-cergy.fr
• Divorce, Women and Families in the Balkans, 18th-20th Centuries
  A couple's separation has always been, in the past and today, a social, economic and affective issue. In a number of European countries divorce was not accepted until the late eighteenth century and this led to the "invention" of a series of more or less effective solutions, including separation [séparation de corps] and the annulment of the marriage. However, the Orthodox Church, for example, while proclaiming that marriage was indissoluble in principle, accepted divorce in practice and allowed spouses to separate for a whole range of reasons. Our session tries to find out how and who invoke separation, in which moment of marriage and what is happened with both partners. Moreover, another significant topic which could be catch our interest is the induced effects of this separation on family, children and even on society.
  Organizer: Constanta Vintila-Ghitulescu, c_ghitulescu@yahoo.fr
• Medical and Demographic Knowledge: quantifying and classifying death, 17th-19th centuries
  Organizers: Christine Théré, ch_there@ined.fr and Jean-Marc Rohrbasser, rohrbass@ined.fr