Doing Social History

(De)constructing the social order Mediterranean area, XVth-XIXth c.

20JUNE - 23JUNE 2011
Sylvanès Abbey (France)
Workshop

Coord.: MICHEL BERTRAND (Université Toulouse II-Le Mirail, Institut universitaire de France) ; THOMAS GLESENER (Université d’Aix-Marseille I) ; CLAIRE JUDDE DE LARIVIÈRE (Université Toulouse II-Le Mirail) ; NATIVIDAD PLANAS (Université Blaise Pascal, Clermont-Ferrand) ; STÉPHANE MICHONNEAU (Casa de Velázquez)
Org.: Casa de Velázquez ; Université de Provence Aix-Marseille I ; Université Blaise Pascal Clermont-Ferrand ; Université Toulouse II-Le Mirail ; Maisons des Sciences de l’Homme (MMSH, Aix-Marseille ; MSH, Clermont-Ferrand ; MSHS, Toulouse) ; Écoles doctorales (ECS, Aix-Marseille ; LSHS, Clermont-Ferrand ; TESC, Toulouse)
Adm.: CLAIRE JUDDE DE LARIVIÈRE

Presentation

In 2011, the workshop “Faire de l’histoire sociale/Doing social history” will propose a three-day seminar focused on the construction of social order, its foundations and forms, in the Mediterranean societies from the late Middle Ages to the beginning of the modern period. Who is responsible for creating public order, or the ordering of society as dictated from above to name and classify the groups that made up society; which institutions, which actors and which practices guaranteed social stability at the base of the Ancien Régime? How did social actors accept or contest social order? How was it constructed, deconstructed or destroyed? Hierarchies built on political and social domination helped elites to exercise a power creating order (coercion, violence, police, justice) and to produce discourses that imposed this order. But changing perspective and choosing a micro-approach or a view “from below” allows us to think about social order as the object of negotiations between people who, by their practices and discourses, were able to construct and deconstruct the established order. Considering that the mechanisms that gave societies cohesion were continually being undermined by social practice, we will attempt to clarify what the sources of cohesion, integration and balance were in these societies in which inequality was at the foundations of social order. Studies about social networks and their importance in social mobility, others about conflicts and their resolution at an “infrajudicial” level invite us to construct an analytical framework based on effect or justice. The objective is to understand how social bonds were constructed, which conventions, institutions, agreements helped reinforce them, with respect to the social order. We will analyse the recent evolution of historiography, considering in particular those historiographical strands within social science that can be of most help with this topic, such as political science, critical theory, and “sociology of the action”,  Engaging with various documents and sources, from the specific topic of each student and convenor, will oblige us to question the nature of the sources available: were they produced by elite authority and the ruling class or by the actors of the lower social classes, how can they be exploited, what are their specific limits, how do we have to study them?

Organisation

The workshop is open to PhD or post-doc students (20 students). The conferences will be in French, but foreign students are warmly invited to apply (discussions may be in English, Spanish or Italian).
The workshop will last from the morning of Tuesday 21st June morning until midday on Thursday 23rd. It will alternate lectures, seminars and presentations/discussion by students of their current research on the theme.
Full board accommodation will be offered for the workshop from the 20th June to the 23rd June (three nights), as well as transportation from Toulouse to Sylvanès.
Students will have to pay for the cost of their travel from their place of origin to Toulouse.
Grants may be offered to students who could need help. Please contact : judde@univ-tlse2.fr

Interested person have to fill the following application form before February 28th. Please click here

For any information, please write to : Flora Lorente, Secrétariat de la Direction des études de la Casa de Velázquez (Époques moderne et contemporaine) : Casa de Velázquez, c/ Paul Guinard, 3   28040 Madrid : ehehi@cvz.es

PODCASTS
01/03/2022 - Espagnol