Abstract
This is a review essay introducing a special issue. The special issue argues that historical work must take ‘the family’ seriously as an active participant in shaping historical change. The issue offers seven case studies from across the North to South and East to West of Europe, ranging from the 1940s until the present, and looking across authoritarian, liberal democratic, communist and fascistic systems. In all case studies, authors look ‘from below’ to show how individuals thought of themselves, in messy and complex ways, as living within ‘families’. This powerful yet shifting idea shaped people's social lives, political choices and activism. This introduction explores grand narratives of welfare and democracy in the twentieth century; offers a new working approach to analysis of family ‘agency’; and then summarises the collection's main findings around chronologies and geographies of change.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | e1 |
| Pages (from-to) | 173 - 185 |
| Journal | Contemporary European History |
| Volume | 32 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 5 May 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This collection is indebted to the work of Laura Lee Downs, Paul Ginsborg and Sally Alexander, who have been central to establishing and maintaining an EUI network in this area, ‘Trajectories in the Quest for Welfare and Democracy: Voluntary Associations, Families, and the State, 1880s to Present’. The majority of contributors in this special issue were brought together, by Laura, Paul and Sally at a workshop at the EUI in November 2017. Jennifer Crane was since asked to edit this volume, but remains very grateful for the initial work of these scholars and their network. I gratefully acknowledge that my research time to work on this introduction was funded by a Wellcome Research Fellowship in the Humanities and Social Sciences [grant number: 212449/Z/18/Z]. 2
Funding Information:
The special issue emerges in part from a collaborative research network, ‘The Quest for Welfare and Democracy: Voluntary Associations, Families, and the State, 1880s to the Present’. This network was initially sponsored by the European University Institute and is now supported by a grant from European Co-operation in Science and Technology (COST). The network met for collaborative symposia at the European University Institute in February 2016 and November 2017, forging productive discussions from which many of these articles emerged. Three main ideas developed in these discussions, which will be explored below. The introduction first explores grand narratives of welfare and democracy across Europe in the twentieth century, which tend to position families as recipients – or victims – of state power. It then moves on to offer new working approaches to analysis of ‘family’ and of ‘agency’, through which we can reassess largescale narratives of democratic change across this significant period. In a third section, the introduction demonstrates how by using these broad definitions, and by taking family seriously, we see: new visions of chronologies and geographies of change in mid-to-late twentieth century Europe; more expansive definitions of ‘activism’; and the ongoing power of gender hierarchies in structuring daily life.