Teresa Huhle and Delia González de Reufels, Latin American History, in cooperation with the Research Center on Inequality and Social Policy: SOCIUM, Univ. Bremen

Time: 13.-15.09.2017
Venue: Universität Bremen
Proposals by: 31.10.2016

The conference aims to bring together an international group of junior and senior scholars from history and related fields who are working on the history of social policies and the welfare state in the Global South from a transnational, entangled or global history perspective.

Together, the organizers would like to discuss current trends of research as well as map out open questions of the field. During the last ten years, the historiography on social policies and the welfare state has started to participate in the transnational turn. However, the exchanges of knowledge, ideas and institutions have been predominantly studied among countries and regions of the Global North, also highlighting transfers from north to south. The way European powers have intervened within their colonial domains in Africa and Asia in social policy issues can serve as an example.

The organizers attempt to broaden these perspectives on the directions of transfer and communication. They are especially interested in research that focuses on exchanges and processes of transfer which have worked in the south-south and south-north direction. These can include questions on the effects that colonial contestations of welfare measures had on the policies … read more (PDF)