Le genre comme outil d’analyse est révélateur et stimulateur de nouvelles perspectives historiques dans le domaine des relations internationales et, partant, d’une compréhension transnationale de l’évolution des enjeux de société. La majorité des recherches historiques sur les femmes et/ou le système de genre, pour local ou spécifique que soit leur objet d’étude de départ, débouchent, en dernier ressort, sur la mise en exergue d’enjeux internationaux. De fait, la hiérarchisation entre les groupes sociaux des hommes et des femmes étant constitutive de tout domaine social, il s’avère heuristique, dans nombre d’études de cas, de comparer à l’échelle du temps et de l’espace les pratiques et les discours justifiant la reconfiguration de l’ordre social de genre.

Le fait que les résistances au système de genre soient difficiles à mener pour les femmes – puisqu’elles nécessitent des ressources politiques, sociales, culturelles et économiques importantes auxquelles elles n’ont pas accès – amène les actrices à sceller des alliances et à débattre des options à privilégier. Au final, elles se positionnent les unes par rapports aux autres, non seulement dans le(s) cadre(s) national(aux), mais aussi dans le champs international, par le biais notamment des organisations internationales à l’époque contemporaine.

Les Troisièmes Journées suisses d’histoire sont l’occasion de lancer un appel à contributions individuelles qui, basées sur des études de cas inscrits dans un espace local ou portant sur des organismes internationaux, impulsent une réflexion méthodologique sur les tensions entre politiques sexuées locales et globales. S’appuyant sur leur recherche dans le cadre du projet FNS 100011_134630/1 « Women at work in a changing world. ILO politics and working women 1948-1978 », les coordinatrices de ce panel souhaitent poursuivre et enrichir les approches analytiques qui mettent en évidence l’histoire des imbrications entre politiques de genre locales et transnationales.

Responsabilité

• Schoeni Céline : celine.schoeni (at) unige.ch
  
• Natchkova Nora : nora.natchkova (at) unige.ch

http://www.geschichtstage.ch/panel/55/le-genre-entre-local-et-global–une-histoire-sous-tension

Pour cet appel, nous vous invitons à nous soumettre par e-mail d’ici au 30 avril 2012 des propositions de contribution :

• en histoire;
• sans restriction de période;
• sans restriction de pays étudiés;
• en français, anglais ou allemand (durant le panel chaque contributrice-teur peut s’exprimer dans une de ces trois langues)

En principe, 5 personnes au maximum peuvent intervenir dans un panel. Chacune doit s’acquitter d’une taxe d’inscription fixée par le comité d’organisation des 3ème Journées, qui se monte à 50 francs suisses.

Les frais liés à la participation aux 3ème Journées sont, soit à la charge de votre institution de rattachement, soit peuvent faire l’objet de demande de financement. Prière de nous contacter car il semble que les financements soient restreints, en particulier pour les personnes qui se déplacent d’autres continents que le continent européen (ou des pays de l’UE, ce n’est pas très clair dans les informations données).

Pour plus d’information sur les 3ème Journées d’histoire suisse voir http://www.geschichtstage.ch/20/home.html

Pour toute information complémentaire, n’hésitez pas à nous contacter.

Au plaisir de lire vos contributions,

Bien cordialement,

Nora Natchkova et Céline Schoeni

Temporary Exhibition: 14 February to 31 July 2012

Women at Work in a Changing World

International Labour Organisation Politics and Working Women (1948-1978)

Abstract

Work being the main structure on which Western societies are built, it constitutes the core of the
problem in understanding why inequalities between men and women have been built and
maintained for so long on an international scale. While considering the ILO (International Labour
Organisation) as one of the major framework for regulating women labour around the world in
the 20th century, this research questions some specific examples in history studies dealing with
the sexual division of labour. It also suggests new understanding in the field of gender history of
labour and international organisations. The post war economic prosperity (“Les Trente
Glorieuses”) and the beginning of the Cold War (1948-1978) are analysed according to a
didactic approach organised in three levels: national and international actions by women; sexual
division in international labour; redefinition of national and international political power
struggles (understood as a conflicting or pacified relationship between people for the creation of a
social norm).
Thanks to a rich collection of documents that have never been used in research so far (from the
IBL, UNO, World Bank, Rockfeller Foundation, Argentina National Archives and records from
feminine/feminist organizations), our study aims first of all at a better understanding of ILO
normative politics towards women labour. In addition, this will enable us to apply these new
empirical information about women employment to an analysis both of international
feminine/feminist networks and groups of people active within the ILO (governments, employers
and trade unionist organisations) in the redefinition of sexual division of labour. Finally, thanks
to a cross analysis between normative and operational actions in the field of technical assistance
in Argentina – our case study -, this research will help us confront discourse and practice,
qualitative and quantitative tools in the sphere of international and gendered labour politics.
Three axes of research have been defined in order to understand in a new way the complexity of
the challenges related to women labour at that time.
a) This research will show how ILO politics regarding women labour are intrinsically related to
the new international context. Each project, convention and reference elaborated by the IBL
Women and Children Labour Service (Service du travail des femmes et des enfants du BIT) will
be examined.
b) The chosen approach is based on an analysis of the connections between the main political
actors invested in the above-mentioned politics: governments representatives; employers and
trade unionist organisations of member countries; expert’s reports of women labour; national and
international feminine/feminist associations.
c) The specific role attributed to women in the development of technical assistance will be
analysed through our case-study of Argentina. This will help us understand how challenges
following the ILO new prerogatives towards women labour are applied in practical terms on an
international scale.
This research is based on two complementary methodological options. First of all, considering
that Swiss academic research is undeniably involved in the discussions about international
relations, this study aims at making space for some specific historical perspective, which is often
too nationally centered. This can be done thanks to our transnational approach to history.
Secondly, the prosopography of key actresses (defined as a study of mutual and diverging
characteristics of women involved in a common sphere of activity at given time and space) will
allow us to fill the gaps of women international history in order to draw up a significant profile of
these women as social groups within both the national and the international scenes.

Swiss National Science Foundation – Research Project No 100011_134630/1
Nora Natchkova – Nora.Natchkova(at)unige.ch & Céline SCHOENI – Celine.Schoeni(at)unige.ch
European Institut, University of Geneva, Switzerland
Superviser: Sandrine KOTT, University of Geneva, Switzerland

In October 2010 a group of historians met at the Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung in Potsdam for an exploratory workshop called ‘Intimate Internationalism: Women Transforming the Political in Postwar Europe’ organised by Celia Donert (ZZF) and Janou Glencross (Leibniz Universität Hannover), with a keynote lecture by Victoria de Grazia (Columbia University).

In the aftermath of the mass killing and unspeakable violence of the Second World War, European states and societies struggled not only to reconstruct families, communities and nations in the hope of achieving peace, stability and eventually, prosperity, but also to establish international norms and institutions that would serve the competing interests of new political, economic and social orders. Gender relations provide a crucial site for exploring the possibilities and limitations offered by European reconstruction on the international, as well as the national, level. Most existing studies of postwar European women’s or gender history are based on local or national case studies and are focused disproportionately on the western half of the continent.

This workshop, which was funded by the Gerda Henkel Stiftung and the Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung, aimed to break new ground by exploring the gendered dimension of international politics, norms and institutions in both eastern and western Europe, as well as the ways in which transnational women’s movements responded to changes in international politics from 1945 to the mid-1960s, a period that studies of transnational women’s organizing have tended to ignore as an era of alleged female political apathy. Particular attention during the two-day workshop was paid to entanglements and transfers across ideological and geographical divides – above all, between East and West Europe during the Cold War.

The workshop report and programme are online (click the words to link to them). We will continue our ideas and discussions through further projects in the future, and we would very much like to hear from anyone working on related themes.

Celia Donert (donert@zzf-pdm.de) and Janou Glencross (janou.glencross@phil.uni-hannover.de).

The past year has seen a spate of conferences and networks organized around international history, and the history of international organizations more specifically. It is springtime for internationalism. In Australia, Europe, America, at the least (and I’d like to hear about other places), there is a keen interest too in the transnational setting of these internatioanl pasts. But where is the story of gender, where are the female actors? In the spirit of this blog and its aim to keep the place of women, and the framework of gender, on the international map, I thought I’d report on recent events that have reminded us of the historical significance of these new trends, and offer contexts in which your work on women and gender might fit.

Feb 10-11, Bologna, Italy: In the midst of a wave of striking women rejecting the gender politics of the current Italian Prime Minister, a group of mainly women (Patrizia Dogliani, Glenda Sluga, Marilyn Lake, Sandrine Kott, Patricia Clavin, Kate Darian-Smith, Fiona Paisley, Madeleine Herren) and some men (Peter Mandler, Dirk Moses, Tim Harper, James Cotton) met to discuss the history of twentieth century internationalism. Lake and Paisley’s work put women and the history of feminism front and centre. I would recommend to you their work on women negotiating international politics in the twentieth century, particularly through (Lake) the League of Nations and UN; (Paisley) the Institute for Pacific Relations and the Women’s Pan Pacific Union; Sandrine Kott on the ILO.

If you have recently attended a workshop or conference or seminar on international history that introduced new work on women and gender please let us know.

Glenda Sluga, University of Sydney

The playlist feature on WASM-I allows users to collect and share their favorite collections of content from the database. You can create multiple playlists, organized by theme or by teaching topic. You might even have your students create and share their own playlists! Create your WASM-I playlist by selecting the “Playlists” tab on the top of the screen and then clicking on “Create a Playlist.” Give your playlist a title and description and then choose the level of access. You may make your playlist visible to everyone or only to select groups of users. Then, add items to your playlist.

Try it out and let others know your experience here!

When the announcement of WASMI’s online inauguration arrived, I happened to be (re)reading a comment by the editors of a 2006 biographical dictionary of women in Central, Eastern, and South Eastern Europe that “it is safe to say that the history of women’s movements and feminisms is largely unwritten”—and nodding in agreement.[i] How fortuitous! Even after all the work of thousands of historians of women, especially during the past forty years of its resurgence in academia, women’s historic struggles against gender injustice remain barely known to most of the world. Clearly we still have a lot of labor left to do. Everything that spreads this knowledge increases the power of those seeking justice for women. WASMI can play an important role in international communication about women’s rights.

Especially for those of us who grew up during the Cold War and found the doors into much of the world closed to us, the past two decades have brought exciting new opportunities to meet and work with our counterparts outside North America and Western Europe, including authors of the above volume. My own first venture onto the international organizational stage came in July 2005, at the conference of the International Federation for Research in Women’s History (IFRWH) held in Sydney, Australia during the 20th International Congress of Historical Sciences. There I met historians of women from all over the world. More recently, one evening during the 2010 conference of the European Social Science History Council in Ghent, Belgium, I sat at table, glasses raised, with historians of women from Austria, Belgium, Croatia, England, the Netherlands, and Russia. I met others from elsewhere at last August’s IFRWH conference in Amsterdam. On just one day, emailing about women’s history, I have touched colleagues in Bulgaria, China, and England.

Perhaps all this won’t seem so remarkable to scholars of a generation younger than myself. But for me, a veteran student from the more nationalistic 1960s and 1970s, it remains wonderful in all senses of the word.

Marilyn J. Boxer, Professor of History Emerita, San Francisco State University

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[i] A Biographical Dictionary of Women’s Movements and Feminisms: Central, Eastern, and South Eastern Europe, 19th and 20th Centuries, ed. Francisca de Haan, Krassimira Daskalova and Anna Loufti (Budapest and New York: Central European Press, 2006).

The History of International Organisations Group (HION) was founded in Geneva in Autumn 2008 by Professors Sandrine Kott (University of Geneva), Davide Rodogno (HEID), and Daniel Palmieri (ICRC).

HION has two guiding objectives:
- To unite the many researchers working on the history of international organizations
- To promote collaboration between researchers, archivists of international organizations, and international civil servants, particularly those in charge of institutional history projects.

As of autumn 2010, HION is nearly 100 members strong.

To learn more or to join HOIN, please visit their web site by clicking here.

I’m the author of Petticoats and White Feathers (1997), Reconstructing Patriarchy after the Great War (2008), and a volume co-edited with Kimberly Jensen titled Women and Transnational Activism in Historical Perspective (2010). Beginning in June 2011, I will be taking over as editor of the interdisciplinary, international journal Peace and Change http://www.wiley.com/bw/journal.asp?ref=0149-0508. I’ve just completed a book-length study of the transnational aspects of war widowhood during the First World War. Of Little Comfort, under contract at New York University Press, explores war widowhood primarily in the United States and Germany. As living symbols of self-sacrifice in need of protection, war widows aided the nation-state by providing the justification necessary to re-militarize after the guns were silenced. But some widows in both the “winning” and “losing” nations renounced the violent nationalism that they interpreted as the cause of their own war-induced grief, as well as that of humankind as a whole. Their activism spawned transnational interpretations of women’s relationship to war.

Barbara Sonneborn’s 1998 film Regret to Inform (http://www.regrettoinform.org/pages/about.shtml) spurred my interest in how widows have shaped relations between nations formerly at war. In the documentary, Sonneborn, a U.S. Vietnam War widow, travels to that country to visit the place where her husband died and to talk with Vietnamese women who also lost their husbands in the conflict. After the film’s release, a cyber memorial, War Widows Living Memorial (http://archive.ideum.com/portfolio/widows_war ) was created to commemorate war widowhood transnationally. Films and websites encourage transnational interpretations of armed conflict, since there are no governmental or military authorities to mediate between a war widow’s memories of her late soldier-husband and the official commemoration of the conflict itself, and no governmental entity to fabricate unity out of disparate experiences or responses to war.

Erika Kuhlman, Ph.D., Associate Professor of History, Idaho State University

Now that the first release of Women and Social Movements, International is online and freely available for the month of February, I thought WIG subscribers might share tips about its navigation.  The link to that free site is http://alexanderstreet.com/aha.htm.  Check it out. The first release includes 30,000 pages of the eventual 150,000.  Any site as large as that is also complex.  I’ve visited its main features and would be happy to share what I’ve learned. WIG could be a way we could help one another explore WASM-I.  Over the coming weeks, I can comment on various search techniques if you will also share your experiences.  What can we find in this first release?  What search methods work best?  I look forward to hearing from you.  Kristen Gwinn.