Karen Lauwers
I am a postdoctoral researcher affiliated with the University of Helsinki’s Department of Cultures and its European Area and Cultural Studies unit, since 1 September 2019. Until 31 August 2022, I worked on the French-Algerian axis of Josephine Hoegaerts’ ERC-project CALLIOPE (“Vocal Articulations of Parliamentary Identity and Empire”). Trained as a historian of Political Culture & National Identities in the Low Countries (MA, Leiden University) and modern French political history (PhD, University of Antwerp), I have a broad interest in Western European parliamentary cultures and colonial history, intersectional identities, narratives of inclusion and exclusion, and thus of (incomplete) democracy, representation, and citizenship in the 19th and 20th centuries. My methodologies include analyses of political discourse and performance, from textual to embodied expressions and the sensory experiences they evoked. While my passion for research into political communication, negotiations, and (non-violent practices of) resistance has not changed, I have been moving my interest, since the publication of my monograph (Ordinary Citizens and the French Third Republic) in 2022, towards the methodological crossroads between microhistory and global history. By following individual stories emerging before, travelling within, and going beyond national borders, I am pursuing a better understanding of France’s Third and Fourth Republican dynamics of empire. My current postdoc project, funded by the Academy of Finland (2022-2025), aims to do so by investigating petitions sent by or on behalf of native and European inhabitants of Algeria to the French Lower House from the 1870s to the 1950s.
Supervisors: 2019-2022: Josephine Hoegaerts (PI of the CALLIOPE project, University of Helsinki) and 2014-2019: Marnix Beyen (PhD-supervisor, University of Antwerp)
Supervisors: 2019-2022: Josephine Hoegaerts (PI of the CALLIOPE project, University of Helsinki) and 2014-2019: Marnix Beyen (PhD-supervisor, University of Antwerp)
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This chapter sheds light on preconditioned essentialist perspectives that were the driving force behind local governance strategies of the French colonial army’s administrative sister institution: the Arab bureaus (1846–1871). The goal is to contribute to an understanding of how and why French colonial officers of these Arab bureaus (dis)missed and misinterpreted Arab and Berber political practices and expressions of resistance in Algeria. An analysis of the French officers’ treatment of their (mainly oral) sources of knowledge – instead of a focus on the mythical divide between Arabs and Kabyles as the end product of their knowledge – helps un-blackbox such essentialist dichotomies. At the same time, it reveals another imagined divide, viz., between spiritual and political practices. In this context, un-blackboxing entails a deconstruction of the bureaus’ officers’ ideas of loyalty and resistance, and the ways in which these views were preconditioned by their notions of politics, sense, and nonsense. In their treatment of marabouts, Sufi turuq (tariqas), and their music, French officers in pre-1871 Algeria attempted to disconnect politics from religion; hence, they missed cues of subaltern resistance. Their focus on debunking nonsense and exposing the real identity of so-called impostors reveals the bureaus’ political anxieties about and ignorance of how native Algerian resistance to French domination was performed in the context of France’s mid-nineteenth-century military rule over the colony.
Modifications to the electoral system in the Netherlands and Belgium at the turn of the twentieth century were the result of long discussions about what the ‘ideal’ parliamentary representation implied and how it had to be accomplished. Moreover, the MPs’ additional reflection on the necessity of a proportional distribution of votes added an extra dimension to the debates in the Lower Houses. ‘Democracy’ then seemed to have become an unavoidable process. However, what did ‘democracy’ mean, exactly, for the parliamentary representatives of different political orientations in both countries? And what role was the introduction of the proportionality system expected to play in, for example, the limitation, display or promotion of said ‘democracy’? A detailed analysis of the parliamentary discourse with which the orators (in Belgium in 1899 and in the Netherlands in 1916–1917) made implicit and explicit connections between this new electoral system and their perceptions of democracy, reveals similarities and differences that surpassed the national boundaries and the left-right divide.
This introduction outlines how the authors of the special issue share not an eloquence-centred but a more encompassing, interactive, embodied and experience-oriented interpretation of political performance as their heuristic prism. Through this lens, they analyze vocal expectations and deviations in political debates that took place in a few different national and imperial contexts of the long nineteenth century. Their approach reveals what parliamentarians, state-officials and/or journalists perceived as (un)acceptable speech modes and, more broadly, as ‘proper’ audible and visible political representative practices of the time. Here, we introduce the theoretical and methodological framework employed by the contributors to explore speech as just one but integral part of political performance, and its audience as a multi-layered community, (in)efficiently reimagined, represented and embodied by those in power. Because the timeframes of these analyses mostly predate the focal point that has commonly been central to European histories of political discourse on representation, the authors have challenged themselves to consider important (dis)continuities and dichotomies in European political culture.
This article explores new ways to fruitfully investigate French colonial expedition diaries and memoirs, and help deconstruct what their authors framed as ‘historically accurate’ accounts of ‘pacification’ during the violent French military colonization of Algeria. How can we use such problematic sources in the absence of subaltern voices to counter the master narratives of these mid-nineteenth century publications? As a way of reading them against the grain, this article proposes to shift the focus from their discursive representations of the colonized Other to the authors’ situated re-presentations of native Algerian chiefs and the embodied performance of their leadership. Such a performance-oriented approach with attention to acoustics is presented here as a perspective that may help differentiate between the colonial writers’ socio-cultural habitus and their political strategy when it comes to their misinterpretations of native Algerian expressions of loyalty and resistance. As (former) high-ranking officers and officials attached to the French army’s administrative sister institution (the bureaux arabes), or as novelists and interpreters joining the military campaigns, these authors claimed to rely on their own ear- and eyewitness accounts when describing what (a)political Arab or Berber leadership looked and sounded like. By exploring their representations of speech, silence, and performance during these encounters, we can trace the mechanisms by which they artificially separated spiritual and political authority, and ultimately failed to grasp how power worked in the colony.
version, translated by Tiina Hakkarainen, which is available at <http://musiikinsuunta.fi/2022/02/28/siirtomaavalta-ajan-historiat-dekolonisoidut-vuoropuhelut-tutkimusta-musiikin-avulla-ja-sen-kautta/>.
Taking the distinction made by Patrick Hassenteufel between statutory and identity-based citizenship as a starting point, this article investigates expressions of the latter citizenship in early twentieth-century France. More specifically, this paper focuses on how ‘ordinary’ men and women from a rural area in the Rhône department perceived their place in French republican society shortly before and during the First World War. The war years were a time when (claims to) social policies were continuously renegotiated, in relation to men and women’s commitment to the Republic. Whether they had political voting rights or not, ‘ordinary’ citizens took part in these negotiation processes, yet in an informal (and therefore still underexposed) way, through written communication with a parliamentary representative (député).
Men and women who shared the same social background used similar rhetorical tactics in their requests for help, support, or a favour. Men’s expressions of gratitude towards ‘their’ député could, however, entail a promise of a vote, whereas women were still not enfranchised. Though reminiscent of the image of a clientelist rural France at first sight, neither men’s nor women’s letters were characterised by mere trade-offs. Instead, they were increasingly revealing of how the letter-writers (re)imagined the notions attached to their citizenship. The connections between those concepts, such as (social) rights, duties, and knowledge (and the impact of the war on rhetorical constructions of these aspects of citizenship) are analyzed from the letter-writers’ viewpoints. Focusing on such a micro-level allows for insights into the mutually educational nature of the common practice of sending letters to a French Third Republican parliamentary representative.
À partir des lettres que Constant Groussau, député du Nord entre 1902 et 1936, a reçues de la part de « citoyens ordinaires », cet article souhaite élargir l’interprétation habituelle de son image. Cette nouvelle approche, qui met l’accent sur la nature interactivement construite de la représentation parlementaire, permet également de jeter une lumière sur les perceptions et les attentes des citoyens au sujet d’un député (et plus largement, de la politique nationale) ainsi que sur leur propre place dans les réseaux sociaux-politiques. Les correspondants de Groussau, pour la plupart, peuvent être divisés en deux groupes : d’un côté, des religieux et des religieuses de différentes régions et même des exilés en Belgique et en Espagne, de l’autre, des victimes (physiques et économiques) de la première guerre mondiale dans les régions envahies. Ces dernières lui écrivirent surtout dans les années 1930, alors que la crise aggravait leur situation et rendait les inégalités encore plus criantes. Cependant, l’image de Groussau, défenseur du Nord, coexistait aisément avec celle du défenseur des catholiques et, souvent, ce dernier rôle continuait de l’emporter.
Deux cadres référentiels sont alors présents : celui de la religion et celui du régime politique. Se méfiant du régime français et des partis de gauche (lato sensu) – qui avaient promulgué une loi « persécutrice » – plusieurs requérants privilégient le premier même s’ils mentionnent parfois des valeurs générales concordant avec celles de la République, partagées par de nombreux catholiques. Entre ces deux modèles qui peuvent se recouvrir, Groussau, en interaction avec ses correspondants, se profile comme un député accessible, plus facile à contacter à Paris qu’à Lille, apprécié pour son expertise juridique et son influence auprès du gouvernement.
---
Analyzing the letters written by “ordinary citizens” to Henri-Constant Groussau, Member of Parliament of le Nord between 1902 and 1936, this article aims at broadening the usual interpretation of the latter’s image and role. Focusing on the interactively constructed nature of parliamentary representation, this from below-approach offers new understandings of perceptions and expectations citizens had of a deputy (and more broadly, of national politics), and of their own place in socio-political networks. Most of Groussau’s correspondents can be divided into two groups : there were many religious workers from different parts of the country, and even some of them who lived in exile in Belgium and Spain, but also (physical and economical) war-victims from le Nord and the surrounding invaded regions. People who belonged to this latter category contacted him most often in the 1930s, when the economic crisis worsened their situation and made inequalities even more blatant. Meanwhile, Groussau’s image as a defender of le Nord could easily coexist with his image as a defender of the French Catholics and clergy. Often, this latter role continued to have the upper hand, and not just in public, in the parliamentary arena or in communications with a political organization, but also and even more so under the radar. Many cases were destined to be resolved by means of personal correspondences and reallife conversations.
Two referential frameworks were present in these interactions : one offered by religion, and the other one offered by the political régime. Feeling suspicious of the French republican régime and its “persecutory” laws aiming at the congregations, many suppliants preferred the first framework, even though they usually combined it with references to general values matching republican expectations, shared by many Catholics. Between these different models that could thus overlap and intertwine, Groussau’s image as an accessible and discreet deputy was interactively constructed through letters written by “ordinary citizens”, who could contact him more easily in Paris than in Lille, and who appreciated his juridical expertise, as well as his influence towards the government.
This journal article analyzes practices of identification and othering in Belgian parliamentary discourse (and especially the fluctuating meanings of the pronouns we/us) during the language debates of 1932 about the use of either Flemish (Dutch) or French in official communications to citizens.
Blog posts by Karen Lauwers
Call for Papers by Karen Lauwers
Abstract submission DEADLINE: 21 November 2020.
The hybrid conference will take place on 10-12 May 2021, and is planned to be held live in Helsinki and online.
"Speaking as the 'Other'" is organised by the ERC-funded project CALLIOPE: "Vocal Articulations of Parliamentary Identity and Empire" at the University of Helsinki. This multidisciplinary conference seeks to examine performative, embodied and acoustic histories of articulating political representation and colonial ‘otherness’. To that end, we intend to extend the focus beyond established Anglophone analyses of the metropole and colony, and indeed, beyond the disciplinary pre-eminence of Anglophone postcolonial studies.
Please find more information, together with the CfP on our website: https://www.helsinki.fi/en/conferences/calliope-international-conference
---
During the last decades, political historians have increasingly focused on the evolution of political consciousness among the "common people" during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In that process they have often made use of all-encompassing notions such as politicization, democratization and nationalization. These have in common that they suggest an increasing commitment of a growing number of citizens in the political life of the nation, but because these concepts are so general and linear, they are hard to grapple with. Do they refer to an increase in consciousness and/or agency? Apart from the difficulty of measuring these processes, one can also ask whether they necessarily occur in parallel. A more active participation in electoral processes, for example, does not necessarily entail a greater commitment to political values, and membership of political associations can be inspired as much by individual calculations as by concern for the common good.
The conference "Subaltern political knowledges" intends to take one step back and ask a question which should precede all discussion of politicization, democratization and nationalization of the masses: what did people actually know about politics? In our quest for an answer, we will primarily focus on 'subaltern' groups in society, i.e. on people that neither occupied a position of formal or informal power in society nor were able to make their voice heard in public debates. We aim at discovering the knowledge these people expressed about political institutions, personalities, values and ideologies. While doing so, we pay attention to both the temporal and the spatial framework of this knowledge. Was it situated primarily at a local or national level, or did it extend to international politics? And did people only refer to politics of their own time, or did they evoke politicians and/or political systems of the past? Did they engage in comparisons between the past and the present?
Apart from the contents of the political knowledge of the subalterns, this conference also investigates its sources. Did these subalterns refer to the newspapers and other mass media, were they informed by electoral campaigns, were they inspired by informal talk with neighbors or relatives, was membership of associations a decisive factor?
Thirdly and finally, the conference intends to address the question how people acted upon their political knowledge. Did they use it in order to further their personal interests, or to support institutional or societal change?
The challenge of this conference will be to bring together a broad range of papers in which these questions are addressed empirically, preferably on the basis of sources created by subalterns (whether or not addressing members of elite groups). The geographical scope of the conference is emphatically global, and we invite scholars to submit proposals on cases from all over the world. They should be situated, however, in contexts where some form of institutionalized democratic politics was taking shape, but where the distribution of political knowledge was not yet facilitated by a powerful mass media such as television. The focus of the conference, therefore, will be on the period between the last decades of the eighteenth century and the 1950s.
Rather than offering grand narratives about the increase or decrease of political knowledge, we aim to historicize the theme, investigating how in diverse historical contexts certain types of political knowledge correlated with categories such as gender, age, ethnicity, urbanity, profession, literacy, sociability and electoral status (voter vs. non-voter). By juxtaposing and comparing these micro-historical investigations, we hope to be able to assess the relative strength and recurrence of these correlations. In the process, we will build a strong empirical foundation for nuanced discussions of politicization, democratization and nationalization.
Keynote speakers include: Rachel Jean-Baptiste (UCDavis), Eduardo Elena (University of Miami), Maartje Janse (Universiteit Leiden), Harm Kaal (Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen), Michaela Fenske (Humboldt-Universität Berlin) and Frédéric Monier (Université d'Avignon).
Poster by Karen Lauwers
Book Reviews by Karen Lauwers
PhD thesis: table of contents by Karen Lauwers
This chapter sheds light on preconditioned essentialist perspectives that were the driving force behind local governance strategies of the French colonial army’s administrative sister institution: the Arab bureaus (1846–1871). The goal is to contribute to an understanding of how and why French colonial officers of these Arab bureaus (dis)missed and misinterpreted Arab and Berber political practices and expressions of resistance in Algeria. An analysis of the French officers’ treatment of their (mainly oral) sources of knowledge – instead of a focus on the mythical divide between Arabs and Kabyles as the end product of their knowledge – helps un-blackbox such essentialist dichotomies. At the same time, it reveals another imagined divide, viz., between spiritual and political practices. In this context, un-blackboxing entails a deconstruction of the bureaus’ officers’ ideas of loyalty and resistance, and the ways in which these views were preconditioned by their notions of politics, sense, and nonsense. In their treatment of marabouts, Sufi turuq (tariqas), and their music, French officers in pre-1871 Algeria attempted to disconnect politics from religion; hence, they missed cues of subaltern resistance. Their focus on debunking nonsense and exposing the real identity of so-called impostors reveals the bureaus’ political anxieties about and ignorance of how native Algerian resistance to French domination was performed in the context of France’s mid-nineteenth-century military rule over the colony.
Modifications to the electoral system in the Netherlands and Belgium at the turn of the twentieth century were the result of long discussions about what the ‘ideal’ parliamentary representation implied and how it had to be accomplished. Moreover, the MPs’ additional reflection on the necessity of a proportional distribution of votes added an extra dimension to the debates in the Lower Houses. ‘Democracy’ then seemed to have become an unavoidable process. However, what did ‘democracy’ mean, exactly, for the parliamentary representatives of different political orientations in both countries? And what role was the introduction of the proportionality system expected to play in, for example, the limitation, display or promotion of said ‘democracy’? A detailed analysis of the parliamentary discourse with which the orators (in Belgium in 1899 and in the Netherlands in 1916–1917) made implicit and explicit connections between this new electoral system and their perceptions of democracy, reveals similarities and differences that surpassed the national boundaries and the left-right divide.
This introduction outlines how the authors of the special issue share not an eloquence-centred but a more encompassing, interactive, embodied and experience-oriented interpretation of political performance as their heuristic prism. Through this lens, they analyze vocal expectations and deviations in political debates that took place in a few different national and imperial contexts of the long nineteenth century. Their approach reveals what parliamentarians, state-officials and/or journalists perceived as (un)acceptable speech modes and, more broadly, as ‘proper’ audible and visible political representative practices of the time. Here, we introduce the theoretical and methodological framework employed by the contributors to explore speech as just one but integral part of political performance, and its audience as a multi-layered community, (in)efficiently reimagined, represented and embodied by those in power. Because the timeframes of these analyses mostly predate the focal point that has commonly been central to European histories of political discourse on representation, the authors have challenged themselves to consider important (dis)continuities and dichotomies in European political culture.
This article explores new ways to fruitfully investigate French colonial expedition diaries and memoirs, and help deconstruct what their authors framed as ‘historically accurate’ accounts of ‘pacification’ during the violent French military colonization of Algeria. How can we use such problematic sources in the absence of subaltern voices to counter the master narratives of these mid-nineteenth century publications? As a way of reading them against the grain, this article proposes to shift the focus from their discursive representations of the colonized Other to the authors’ situated re-presentations of native Algerian chiefs and the embodied performance of their leadership. Such a performance-oriented approach with attention to acoustics is presented here as a perspective that may help differentiate between the colonial writers’ socio-cultural habitus and their political strategy when it comes to their misinterpretations of native Algerian expressions of loyalty and resistance. As (former) high-ranking officers and officials attached to the French army’s administrative sister institution (the bureaux arabes), or as novelists and interpreters joining the military campaigns, these authors claimed to rely on their own ear- and eyewitness accounts when describing what (a)political Arab or Berber leadership looked and sounded like. By exploring their representations of speech, silence, and performance during these encounters, we can trace the mechanisms by which they artificially separated spiritual and political authority, and ultimately failed to grasp how power worked in the colony.
version, translated by Tiina Hakkarainen, which is available at <http://musiikinsuunta.fi/2022/02/28/siirtomaavalta-ajan-historiat-dekolonisoidut-vuoropuhelut-tutkimusta-musiikin-avulla-ja-sen-kautta/>.
Taking the distinction made by Patrick Hassenteufel between statutory and identity-based citizenship as a starting point, this article investigates expressions of the latter citizenship in early twentieth-century France. More specifically, this paper focuses on how ‘ordinary’ men and women from a rural area in the Rhône department perceived their place in French republican society shortly before and during the First World War. The war years were a time when (claims to) social policies were continuously renegotiated, in relation to men and women’s commitment to the Republic. Whether they had political voting rights or not, ‘ordinary’ citizens took part in these negotiation processes, yet in an informal (and therefore still underexposed) way, through written communication with a parliamentary representative (député).
Men and women who shared the same social background used similar rhetorical tactics in their requests for help, support, or a favour. Men’s expressions of gratitude towards ‘their’ député could, however, entail a promise of a vote, whereas women were still not enfranchised. Though reminiscent of the image of a clientelist rural France at first sight, neither men’s nor women’s letters were characterised by mere trade-offs. Instead, they were increasingly revealing of how the letter-writers (re)imagined the notions attached to their citizenship. The connections between those concepts, such as (social) rights, duties, and knowledge (and the impact of the war on rhetorical constructions of these aspects of citizenship) are analyzed from the letter-writers’ viewpoints. Focusing on such a micro-level allows for insights into the mutually educational nature of the common practice of sending letters to a French Third Republican parliamentary representative.
À partir des lettres que Constant Groussau, député du Nord entre 1902 et 1936, a reçues de la part de « citoyens ordinaires », cet article souhaite élargir l’interprétation habituelle de son image. Cette nouvelle approche, qui met l’accent sur la nature interactivement construite de la représentation parlementaire, permet également de jeter une lumière sur les perceptions et les attentes des citoyens au sujet d’un député (et plus largement, de la politique nationale) ainsi que sur leur propre place dans les réseaux sociaux-politiques. Les correspondants de Groussau, pour la plupart, peuvent être divisés en deux groupes : d’un côté, des religieux et des religieuses de différentes régions et même des exilés en Belgique et en Espagne, de l’autre, des victimes (physiques et économiques) de la première guerre mondiale dans les régions envahies. Ces dernières lui écrivirent surtout dans les années 1930, alors que la crise aggravait leur situation et rendait les inégalités encore plus criantes. Cependant, l’image de Groussau, défenseur du Nord, coexistait aisément avec celle du défenseur des catholiques et, souvent, ce dernier rôle continuait de l’emporter.
Deux cadres référentiels sont alors présents : celui de la religion et celui du régime politique. Se méfiant du régime français et des partis de gauche (lato sensu) – qui avaient promulgué une loi « persécutrice » – plusieurs requérants privilégient le premier même s’ils mentionnent parfois des valeurs générales concordant avec celles de la République, partagées par de nombreux catholiques. Entre ces deux modèles qui peuvent se recouvrir, Groussau, en interaction avec ses correspondants, se profile comme un député accessible, plus facile à contacter à Paris qu’à Lille, apprécié pour son expertise juridique et son influence auprès du gouvernement.
---
Analyzing the letters written by “ordinary citizens” to Henri-Constant Groussau, Member of Parliament of le Nord between 1902 and 1936, this article aims at broadening the usual interpretation of the latter’s image and role. Focusing on the interactively constructed nature of parliamentary representation, this from below-approach offers new understandings of perceptions and expectations citizens had of a deputy (and more broadly, of national politics), and of their own place in socio-political networks. Most of Groussau’s correspondents can be divided into two groups : there were many religious workers from different parts of the country, and even some of them who lived in exile in Belgium and Spain, but also (physical and economical) war-victims from le Nord and the surrounding invaded regions. People who belonged to this latter category contacted him most often in the 1930s, when the economic crisis worsened their situation and made inequalities even more blatant. Meanwhile, Groussau’s image as a defender of le Nord could easily coexist with his image as a defender of the French Catholics and clergy. Often, this latter role continued to have the upper hand, and not just in public, in the parliamentary arena or in communications with a political organization, but also and even more so under the radar. Many cases were destined to be resolved by means of personal correspondences and reallife conversations.
Two referential frameworks were present in these interactions : one offered by religion, and the other one offered by the political régime. Feeling suspicious of the French republican régime and its “persecutory” laws aiming at the congregations, many suppliants preferred the first framework, even though they usually combined it with references to general values matching republican expectations, shared by many Catholics. Between these different models that could thus overlap and intertwine, Groussau’s image as an accessible and discreet deputy was interactively constructed through letters written by “ordinary citizens”, who could contact him more easily in Paris than in Lille, and who appreciated his juridical expertise, as well as his influence towards the government.
This journal article analyzes practices of identification and othering in Belgian parliamentary discourse (and especially the fluctuating meanings of the pronouns we/us) during the language debates of 1932 about the use of either Flemish (Dutch) or French in official communications to citizens.
Abstract submission DEADLINE: 21 November 2020.
The hybrid conference will take place on 10-12 May 2021, and is planned to be held live in Helsinki and online.
"Speaking as the 'Other'" is organised by the ERC-funded project CALLIOPE: "Vocal Articulations of Parliamentary Identity and Empire" at the University of Helsinki. This multidisciplinary conference seeks to examine performative, embodied and acoustic histories of articulating political representation and colonial ‘otherness’. To that end, we intend to extend the focus beyond established Anglophone analyses of the metropole and colony, and indeed, beyond the disciplinary pre-eminence of Anglophone postcolonial studies.
Please find more information, together with the CfP on our website: https://www.helsinki.fi/en/conferences/calliope-international-conference
---
During the last decades, political historians have increasingly focused on the evolution of political consciousness among the "common people" during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In that process they have often made use of all-encompassing notions such as politicization, democratization and nationalization. These have in common that they suggest an increasing commitment of a growing number of citizens in the political life of the nation, but because these concepts are so general and linear, they are hard to grapple with. Do they refer to an increase in consciousness and/or agency? Apart from the difficulty of measuring these processes, one can also ask whether they necessarily occur in parallel. A more active participation in electoral processes, for example, does not necessarily entail a greater commitment to political values, and membership of political associations can be inspired as much by individual calculations as by concern for the common good.
The conference "Subaltern political knowledges" intends to take one step back and ask a question which should precede all discussion of politicization, democratization and nationalization of the masses: what did people actually know about politics? In our quest for an answer, we will primarily focus on 'subaltern' groups in society, i.e. on people that neither occupied a position of formal or informal power in society nor were able to make their voice heard in public debates. We aim at discovering the knowledge these people expressed about political institutions, personalities, values and ideologies. While doing so, we pay attention to both the temporal and the spatial framework of this knowledge. Was it situated primarily at a local or national level, or did it extend to international politics? And did people only refer to politics of their own time, or did they evoke politicians and/or political systems of the past? Did they engage in comparisons between the past and the present?
Apart from the contents of the political knowledge of the subalterns, this conference also investigates its sources. Did these subalterns refer to the newspapers and other mass media, were they informed by electoral campaigns, were they inspired by informal talk with neighbors or relatives, was membership of associations a decisive factor?
Thirdly and finally, the conference intends to address the question how people acted upon their political knowledge. Did they use it in order to further their personal interests, or to support institutional or societal change?
The challenge of this conference will be to bring together a broad range of papers in which these questions are addressed empirically, preferably on the basis of sources created by subalterns (whether or not addressing members of elite groups). The geographical scope of the conference is emphatically global, and we invite scholars to submit proposals on cases from all over the world. They should be situated, however, in contexts where some form of institutionalized democratic politics was taking shape, but where the distribution of political knowledge was not yet facilitated by a powerful mass media such as television. The focus of the conference, therefore, will be on the period between the last decades of the eighteenth century and the 1950s.
Rather than offering grand narratives about the increase or decrease of political knowledge, we aim to historicize the theme, investigating how in diverse historical contexts certain types of political knowledge correlated with categories such as gender, age, ethnicity, urbanity, profession, literacy, sociability and electoral status (voter vs. non-voter). By juxtaposing and comparing these micro-historical investigations, we hope to be able to assess the relative strength and recurrence of these correlations. In the process, we will build a strong empirical foundation for nuanced discussions of politicization, democratization and nationalization.
Keynote speakers include: Rachel Jean-Baptiste (UCDavis), Eduardo Elena (University of Miami), Maartje Janse (Universiteit Leiden), Harm Kaal (Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen), Michaela Fenske (Humboldt-Universität Berlin) and Frédéric Monier (Université d'Avignon).