History of Social Structures, Practices and Experiences
This research cluster explores how politics, institutions and the economy impact on, and are embedded in, social structures, practices and experiences. It focusses on examples such as the welfare state, inequality and poverty, practices of care and education, communities and networks, family and kinship. The projects are open to new methods and theories, such as in the history of emotions, knowledge and experience, or digital humanities methods.
Research Projects
The Dominicans and the University of Oxford, 1221-1538 (Cornelia Linde)
Ageing and ‘Doing Gender‘ in the Era of Value Change (Christina von Hodenberg)
Pauper Letters and Petitions for Poor Relief in Germany and Great Britain, 1770 – 1914
(Andreas Gestrich and Steven King)
The Semantics of Social Justice: Britain and West Germany since 1945 (Felix Römer)
Education and the Urban (India Centre Research Group)
Affiliated Project
International Research Academy on the History of Global Humanitarianism
(this link will take you to the Global Humanitarianism Research Academy website).
Past and Completed Projects
Transnational Research Group: Poverty and Education in India
History of Child Adoption in Europe (Benedikt Stuchtey, now at Philipps Universität Marburg)
The research area Solidarity and Care had strong links with the completed (2012) DFG-Collaborative Research Centre 600 Strangers and Poor People. Changing Patterns of Inclusion and Exclusion from Classical Antiquity to the Present Day at the University of Trier. Prof. Gestrich was (since 2008 in cooperation with Prof. Raphael) director of the research project B4: Poverty and Welfare Politics in European Cities in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.
The research area Solidarity and Care also collaborated with project I.04 The Importance of Family Ties and Clientelism for Rural Credit Markets in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Württemberg of the joint Research Cluster of the universities of Mainz and Trier on Social Dependencies and Social Networks. For more information see the project website and the full project bibliography