Chronological Depths and the Longue Durée

2015 ◽  
Vol 70 (02) ◽  
pp. 285-291
Author(s):  
Christian Lamouroux
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Short Contribution ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Longue Duree ◽  
Longue Durée ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Fernand Braudel

Abstract This short contribution seeks to place David Armitage and Jo Guldi’s article within a broader historiographical context, enlarged to include the history of China. From the outset, Fernand Braudel was careful to link his vision of the longue durée with the new “area studies” exploring international cultures. By studying social and economic history and more generally by using approaches drawn from the social sciences, European and American specialists of China have deconstructed the overly longue durée of Chinese history and shed light on its dynamism, previously repressed and concealed by the notion of a so-called “civilization.” This process facilitated a successful specialization, which can today be supported by the “big data” being compiled in circles close to the two authors.

Social and Environmental History in the Anthropocene

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Warde
Keyword(s):  
Environmental History ◽  
Social History ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
Longue Duree ◽  
Longue Durée

This chapter takes seriously the notion of the ‘Anthropocene’—the concept of the period of history from which human activities have had global effects on the environment—and looks at it historically, across the longue durée, noting that the environment is itself a concept with a history of its own. The chapter argues that environmental history is very largely entwined with social history and that this poses a challenge for historians. Should we think of ‘the social’ and ‘the environmental’ as two different (albeit connected) spheres, or should we reconceptualize what ‘society’ and ‘environment’ might mean, both historically and for the future?

Some Reflections on the Pre-Industrial City

Urban History ◽  
1975 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 13-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Burke
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Industrial City ◽  
The Social ◽  
Tribal Societies ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Europe ◽  
The City

In the last few years, a new word has gained popularity among historians: ‘pre-industrial’. Specialists in the social and economic history of Europe before 1800 have become increasingly aware that the object of their studies is simply one case among others of what sociologists call ‘traditional society’, and that it is easier to understand traditional or pre-industrial Europe if it is compared and contrasted with other societies of this type. Thus Keith Thomas and Alan Macfarlane have illuminated English witchcraft by making comparisons with witchcraft in African tribal societies, while Frédéric Mauro and Witold Kula, among others, have compared the economies of early modern Europe with those of the developing countries today. Even Richard Cobb, no great friend to the social sciences, has recorded that he came to understand eighteenth-century Paris better after visiting contemporary Calcutta. In fact, the city is an obvious and splendidly tangible unit of comparison, and it is not surprising that the term ‘pre-industrial city’ is passing into general use.

A History Without the Social Sciences?

2015 ◽  
Vol 70 (02) ◽  
pp. 271-283
Author(s):  
Claire Lemercier
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Time Scales ◽  
Path Dependency ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Crucial Question ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Longue Duree ◽  
Longue Durée

Abstract According to David Armitage and Jo Guldi, digitized sources and quantification almost naturally lead to the sort of longue durée history that they seek to promote. This article questions that assertion on the basis of the long tradition of quantitative history, open to exchanges with the social sciences and revived, not annihilated, by microhistory. The digitization of numerous historical sources does not call for less caution in our analyses—quite the contrary, as it creates new biases. More importantly, it does not solve the crucial question of controlled anachronism, that is, the need for carefully constructed categories in any quantification based on the longue durée. The article also addresses the implications of choosing the longue durée as the exclusive basis for reflections on historical processes and causality. Is the longue durée purely a scale for description? If not, can it escape a simplistic vision, a monocausal path dependency? If we are to avoid such pitfalls, the wider debates within all the social sciences on time-scales and causality must be taken into account.

Movilidad laboral geográfica en un antiguo enclave minero. La inversión de un mercado de trabajo local

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (18) ◽  
Author(s):  
Camilo Contreras Delgado
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Labor Markets ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Labor Mobility ◽  
Work Place ◽  
Local Labor Markets ◽  
Local Labor Market ◽  
Local Factors ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

Resumen:Este artículo examina los fa c t o res internos y externos a una localidad que son copartícipes en la estructuración y reestructuración de su mercado de trabajo local. A partir de la revisión de la historia social y económica del lugar, se destaca su tránsito de enclave minero a lugar de residencia de mineros y trabajadores de maquiladoras. En este caso, se presenta la constitución de los mercados de trabajo locales como un resultado del encuentro de las condiciones del lugar de residencia de los trabajadores y el lugar donde se encuentra el centro de trabajo. De aquí que la movilidad laboral geográfica aparezca como una de las tácticas de los sujetos ante una situación de desempleo.Palabras clave: Mercado de trabajo, Minería, Maquiladoras, Mineros, Movilidad laboral, Desempleo.Abstract:This article examines the internal and external local factors shaping the structuring and restructuring of a local labor market. By reviewing the social and economic history of the community, this article underlines its transition from a mining setting to a residence place for miners and maquila workers. In this case, the constitution of local labor markets is presented as a result of the condition encounter of both workers residence place and the location of the work place. This is a reason explaining why geographical labor mobility comes to be an actor tactic to face unemployment.Key words: Labor market, Mining, Export-oriented industry, Miners, Labor mobility, Unemployment.

The Problem

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mats Alvesson ◽  
Yiannis Gabriel ◽  
Roland Paulsen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Research Papers ◽  
Prestigious Journal ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Academic Researchers ◽  
History Of ◽  
Wide Gap

This chapter introduces ‘the problem’ of meaningless research in the social sciences. Over the past twenty years there has been an enormous growth in research publications, but never before in the history of humanity have so many social scientists written so much to so little effect. Academic research in the social sciences is often inward looking, addressed to small tribes of fellow researchers, and its purpose in what is increasingly a game is that of getting published in a prestigious journal. A wide gap has emerged between the esoteric concerns of social science researchers and the pressing issues facing today’s societies. The chapter critiques the inaccessibility of the language used by academic researchers, and the formulaic qualities of most research papers, fostered by the demands of the publishing game. It calls for a radical move from research for the sake of publishing to research that has something meaningful to say.

Historical Overview of Qualitative Research in the Social Sciences

2020 ◽  
pp. 21-58
Author(s):  
Svend Brinkmann ◽  
Michael Hviid Jacobsen ◽  
Søren Kristiansen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Social History ◽  
Historical Overview ◽  
Conceptual History ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Technological History

Qualitative research does not represent a monolithic, agreed-on approach to research but is a vibrant and contested field with many contradictions and different perspectives. To respect the multivoicedness of qualitative research, this chapter will approach its history in the plural—as a variety of histories. The chapter will work polyvocally and focus on six histories of qualitative research, which are sometimes overlapping, sometimes in conflict, and sometimes even incommensurable. They can be considered articulations of different discourses about the history of the field, which compete for researchers’ attention. The six histories are: (a) the conceptual history of qualitative research, (b) the internal history of qualitative research, (c) the marginalizing history of qualitative research, (d) the repressed history of qualitative research, (e) the social history of qualitative research, and (f) the technological history of qualitative research.

Women in science: from images to data

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Jami
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Gender Gap ◽  
Women Scientists ◽  
Working Environment ◽  
Women In Science ◽  
Standing Committee ◽  
Family Responsibilities ◽  
Working Lives ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

Abstract In recent decades research in the social sciences, including in the history of science, has shown that women scientists continue to be depicted as exceptions to the rule that a normal scientist is a man. The underlying message is that being an outstanding scientist is incompatible with being an ordinary woman. From women scientists’ reported experiences, we learn that family responsibilities as well as sexism in their working environment are two major hindrances to their careers. This experience is now backed by statistical analysis, so that what used to be regarded as an individual problem for each woman of science can now be identified as a multi-layered social phenomenon, to be analysed and remedied as such. Over the last five years, international scientific unions have come together to address these issues, first through the Gender Gap in Science Project, and recently through the setting up of a Standing Committee for Gender Equality in Science (SCGES) whose task is to foster measures to reduce the barriers that women scientists have to surmount in their working lives.

The Subaltern Critique of Dominant Historiography and a Case for Retrieving a Historiography of Dalit Literary Traditions in India

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-15
Author(s):  
Vandana
Keyword(s):  
Literary History ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
History Writing ◽  
Literary Traditions ◽  
Literary Historiography ◽  
History Of ◽  
Longue Duree ◽  
Longue Durée ◽  
And Shifts ◽  
The Third World

In order to retrieve literary history in India, teleology operates on three levels: ancient, medieval and modern. As per the longue duree approach to the study of history, history is not an event or an object, but like the concept of time, is a configuration and a process. The history of the longue duree gives priority to long-term monumental historic patterns, moments and shifts in society, that is, the slow-paced structural processes which tend to have strong historical consequences. Similarly, languages and literatures, too, marked by historical catastrophes, undergo a process of sedimentation. For this reason, instead of a single literary history of South Asia, Sheldon Pollock proposes the concept of ‘literary cultures’ which allows room for ‘historical individuation’ of each culture rather than homogenising them merely for the sake of historical analysis. The basic questions that I have tried to look into through this study include: Why is it problematic to retrieve literary history in India? Why is it essential to have an alternative literary historiography of Dalit literature? How does Dalit subalternity differ from colonial subalternity? How the Dalit voice is disintegrated from within because of the prevalence of graded inequality? What constitutes the politics of history writing and canon formation in the third world countries like India where retrieving subaltern literary trends remain a problematic discourse?

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document