Call for Papers: Women, Gender Roles and Humanitarian Aid in the Greater War (1912-1925)

24-25 June 2020, University Foundation (Brussels)

Female-centred humanitarian aid has gained traction in recent years. In 2016, the UN Population Fund stated that ‘to succeed in building a more stable world, leaders will have to address the needs and protect the rights of affected women and girls, and incorporate their leadership and knowledge into all plans.’ In response, humanitarian agencies have launched a number of initiatives that empower girls through education, create cash-for-work programs for women and localise long-term aid in communities through female involvement.

While these issues might seem new and timely, women have shaped humanitarian agendas for more than a century. In the era of World War One, when Europe was also a recipient of help, numerous international aid organisations such as the Commission for Relief in Belgium, the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the Rockefeller Foundation, the International Committee of the Red Cross and Save the Children tried to combat poverty, illness and trauma through the education and participation of European girls, women and mothers. The international, national and local civilian aid programs were often carried out by women. Female volunteers (society ladies and nobility members) laboured alongside professionals (home economists, nutritionists, nurses, physicians, social workers and librarians). These relief workers struggled with some of the same challenges humanitarian workers face today: how to reach crisis-affected civilians and particularly women in the private sphere of the home? How, when and where are traditional gender roles maintained, reinforced or disrupted by helping women and employing female humanitarian workers? How to push forward, fundraise for and carry out female oriented humanitarian projects in male dominated organisations and societies?

The two-day conference Women, Gender Roles and Humanitarian Aid in the Greater War will examine these and other questions by looking at the specific humanitarian programs for women and girls in Europe during and after the First World War. We look for contributions that analyse the nature of the programs by and/or for women and girls – both internationally and locally. We especially welcome presentations that go beyond Western Europe. It is envisaged that a selection of conference papers will be published in a special issue.  

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CfP: The Aftermath of the First World War – Humanitarianism in the Mediterranean

Convenors: Silvia Salvatici (University of Milan) and Johannes Paulmann (Leibniz Institute of European History Mainz) in  co-operation with the German Historical Institute Rome and the Villa Vigoni – German Italian Centre for European Excellence

Date: 3 – 4 December 2019

Venue: University of Milan, Italy

Download CFP Humanitarianism_postwar_mediterranean_def

In the memory of 1919, the signing of the peace treaties and the foundation of the League of Nations figure prominently. The year also saw the birth of the Third International and ushered in a turbulent post-war period of revolutions and counter-revolutions, which drastically changed the international balance of power and incubated the fascist movements that in 1922 subverted the fragile democracy in Italy. As a result, the attention of scholarly and public debate focus on post-war political, diplomatic and institutional history and on Central and Eastern Europe. The conference proposes a dual shift of perspective: thematic and geographical.

On the one hand, it focuses on international relief and rehabilitation programs during and in the aftermath of war. This will direct attention to international projects for political and social stabilization and the transformation processes that took place in post-war societies. It will allow us to examine the effects the war had on international relations in peacetime from a different perspective than the better-known diplomatic history. On the other hand, the conference specifically concerns the Mediterranean area thereby shifting our attention away from the well-studied Northern European and Transatlantic region. It investigates the post-war rise of humanitarianism in the countries of Southern Europe, in the colonial territories of North Africa, in the Balkans and in the Middle East. The Mediterranean saw the redrawing of the geopolitical map after the disintegration of the old empires, while at the same time a challenge to European colonialism began to rise in several places. Humanitarian projects took different forms and meanings in these contexts, but they were usually conceived as instruments that would have an impact on the long term, not simply as an immediate response to temporary crises.

Research has begun to show the relevance that humanitarian affairs had for the League of Nations, which also operated in the Balkans and the Middle East. However, the League programs are only one chapter in the history of post-war relief, which saw the mobilization of national states, large and small private agencies, religious groups, societies founded on a common political ideology, experts in sectors such as medicine, public health, or education. The purpose of the conference is to study the way in which these different actors cooperated, interacted, and came into conflict, both in designing aid programs at the headquarters and in implementing them on the spot and within local communities. Specific case studies have shown that the historical development of humanitarianism came about through extensive transnational networks based on religious affiliation, on institutional relations among states, and on professional skills. With reference to the specific post-war context, the conference intends above all to highlight the way in which these networks, usually studied separately, came intersected and how the configuration in the Mediterranean area, including responses from within the societies concerned, shaped the development of humanitarianism at large.

We invite proposals for papers on any of the themes, topics and areas mentioned above. The time period covered may reach from the First World War into the 1930s discussing the aftermath and effects of continued or renewed war in the regions studied. The proposal should highlight the colonial and national contexts, the contemporary ideas on political and social stabilisation and the effects of the measures taken.

Please send an abstract of no more than 300 words and a short CV by April 8, 2019 to

Silvia Salvatici (silvia.salvatici@unimi.it) & Johannes Paulmann (paulmann@ieg-mainz.de)

The conference will take place from 3 – 4 December 2019, at the University of Milan, Italy. Travel and accommodation will be covered.  

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Exhibition and Lecture Series: Eine „innertürkische” Verwaltungsangelegenheit?

Eine „innertürkische Verwaltungsangelegenheit“?

Osmanisch-deutsche Verflechtungen und die “Armenier-Greuel” im Ersten Weltkrieg

Ausstellung vom 23.04.2015 – 21.05.2015

an der JGU Mainz, Philosophicum,

Durchgangsbereich der Bereichsbibliothek

Öffnungszeiten: Montag – Freitag 08.00 – 22.00 Uhr

“Über die Armeniergreuel ist folgendes zu sagen: Unsere freundschaftlichen Beziehungen zur Türkei dürfen durch diese innertürkische Verwaltungsangelegenheit nicht nur nicht gefährdet, sondern im gegenwärtigen, schwierigen Augenblick nicht einmal geprüft werden. Deshalb ist es einstweilen Pflicht, zu schweigen.” Mit diesen Worten suchte das Kriegspresseamt des deutschen Kaiserreiches im Oktober 1915 eine Berichterstattung über die Massaker an der armenischen Bevölkerung des Osmanischen Reiches seit dem Frühjahr 1915 in deutschen Zeitungen und Zeitschriften zu verhindern.

Exibition

Im Frühsommer 2015 jährt sich der Völkermord an den Armeniern zum hundertjährigen Gedenken. Die deutsch-osmanische Verflechtungsgeschichte der „Armeniergreuel“ ist jedoch weitgehend in Vergessenheit geraten. Ziel der Ausstellung ist es, die vielfältigen militärischen, ökonomischen und diplomatischen Verstrickungen des Deutschen Reichs in den Völkermord sowohl auf persönlicher wie systematischer Ebene zu rekonstruieren und damit auch eine unbekannte Facette deutsch-osmanischer Geschichte zugänglich zu machen.

Begleitet wird die Ausstellung von einer Vortragsreihe.

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