Women, Gender Relations and Families in the Construction of European History
The history of women, gender relations and the family has a long-standing tradition in the Department of History and Civilization, and is now moving towards a transnational, European dimension with a comparative approach to a gendered history of Europe within a multifocal framework; thus moving away from a Western European focus towards a narrative where migration and the issue of displacement across and beyond borders are emerging points of interest. Our present approach is a profoundly critical history of Europe that challenges all notions of Eurocentrism and nationalism.
The Department focusses on three main research areas in the history of women, gender relations and the family: families in, across and beyond Europe; identity and otherness; and women rulers in Europe.
Families in, Across and Beyond Europe
The idea of the nuclear family is becoming increasingly redundant amidst diversification of households and the break-up of marriage, yet it still influences normative imaginary notions and self-perceptions about what a family should be today, as migrant and minority ethnic families tend to be viewed as sites of resistance to the integration of migrants into receiving societies. Complex questions connected to multiculturalism point to the family as a site of contention and historical research and allow us to use a long-term perspective to examine issues that sociologists tend to consider as 'new' developments connected to mass migration.
Research focuses on the shaping of family and households in different European contexts from the 16th-19th century, examining changing networks of kin, gender and generational relationships comparatively adn at a transnational level. Agency, gender and conflict are taken into account in contrast to the prevailing demographic trends of previous years. This area of research enhances a comparative cultural approach to the history of family ties and the way in which displacement and migration impact upon them.
Identity and Otherness
The framework is the construction of the European self vis-à-vis non-Western others through differences represented and perceived on the bodies of men and women, their clothes, sexual practices, and family mores. We focus on the differences within specific regions of Europe and to the iconography related to costumes and their broader meanings: thus the language of honour and shame in its connection to the veiling of women across the Mediterranean area, to the central figure of the bride and groom in the Christian ritual of marriage.
In contrast, images of indigenous resistance or non-assimilation to the spread of Christianization in the Northern and Eastern parts of Europe are used as a critical counterpoint. The objective is to rethink the history of Europe, taking into account the representation of ethnicity, gender roles and culture from the 16th to the 19th century. Iconography plays an important part in this area of research.
Women Rulers in Europe
The focus here is on styles of government and the dynastic functions and family roles in a transnational perspective. Political power, family roles and the life cycle are taken into account when mapping the gendering of state rule in Europe. The circulation of women rulers across the borders of European states in the ancien régime produced a complex set of transfers (language, personnel, material culture, technical expertise, pedagogical systems, political style of government).
Research addresses these transfers and the transformations they activated across Europe, in a perspective of cultural, political and religious 'hybridism'. Ruling women’s correspondences are the main source that will be explored systematically across European archives and libraries.
The Professor with a research interest in these area is Giulia Calvi