Posted on 02 June 2020
The second call for proposals of the 2020 edition of the HAEU’s Postgraduate Vibeke Sørensen grant scheme is now open, until 26 July 2020. As Vibeke Sørensen grant holder of last year’s edition, Lotte Houwink ten Cate, Ph.D. candidate in modern European and international history, tells us about her project and research stay at the HAEU.
Lotte focuses on the intellectual and legal history of modern Europe, with particular interests in the history of sexuality and intimate life. Her current project looks at the transatlantic exposure of intimate violence between men and women as a problem in the second half of the twentieth century, and assesses its legal and political aftermath in Western Europe.
What is your research about and how did you come up with this topic?
My dissertation presents an intellectual history of how the harm caused by sexual, physical and emotional abuse came to be recognized, medicalized, politicized and criminalized between 1970 and the late 1990s in Western Europe. In under three decades seismic shifts occurred in what was allowed to happen between partners, and between parents and children. Beginning in the early 1970s feminists constructed a new conceptual infrastructure of wrongs — that centered around new notions of bodily autonomy. Age-old interpersonal behaviors, such as the corporeal punishment of children, husbands beating their wives and rape in marriage, have come to be seen as unethical, and have increasingly become criminalized under new rubrics such as “domestic violence.” Behaviors previously regarded to be unwanted became unacceptable, and finally, illegal. My dissertation is an attempt at writing the history of this change. The field of modern European history has been – understandably so – extremely concerned with public expressions of violence and its aftermath. The overarching questions I hope to answer are how, and why, violence behind closed doors has come under the purview of European states. I decided to focus my research on the Netherlands and West Germany, to understand how these developments have played out against the particular historical panoramas of the unending Dutch desire to be the most “modern” pupil in the class of European nations, and increasing German unease about state interference in private life.
There are different answers to the question of why I decided to choose this subject. I have throughout my studies concentrated on the hopes and fantasies that have been projected onto law at various moments in history; I am fascinated by failing legal mechanisms. As a master’s student, for example, I have written a microhistory of two trials held against Jewish “collaborators” in Western Europe in the aftermath of the Holocaust, in which I looked at legal writing as protohistoric material. When settling on a PhD subject it was always clear to me that women and children would be at the center of my work, quite simply because they constitute a fundamental part of our population, and that I would be most interested in the analysis of ideas not originating in institutionalized intellectual life. I have long been affected by the work of the American essayist Rebecca Solnit, and I landed definitely on my subject after reading her essay about the “silencing” nature of intimate violence, in her collection The Mother of All Questions (2017). Although I am in no way able to reconstruct “silent,” undocumented, occurences of violence, it struck me as a worthwhile mission to recover what has been thought and written about these silences at various moments in time.
Why is it relevant (socially and academically) to conduct such research?
Moving through the world as a woman myself, I believe that violence -- or the threat thereof -- is an inherent part of the human experience. As such it merits historical attention. The #MeToo Movement has shown that legal mechanisms currently in place are inadequate. The struggle for recourse via law was fiercely debated in the past by feminists, doctors, the police, jurists and politicians. My dissertation reconstructs these debates and maps alternative strategies thought out in the past in order to understand how we have arrived at our current notions of what constitutes violence and how to manage it, such as affirmative consent.
What did you expect to find at the HAEU to help you conduct your research? To what extent does reality meet your expectations? How did you learn about the Sorensen grant to conduct research at the HAEU and what do you think about this opportunity?
I arrived at the HAEU after extensive research in Dutch and German archives, which allowed me to find the beginnings of local feminist activism against violence, and how political actors working in national frameworks redefined their responsibility regarding the protection of women and children. What I did not yet understand were the broader European alliances that were forged around this subject. Quite specifically, I have been following the work of the trailblazing Dutch socialist politician and euro-parliamentarian Hedy D’Ancona, who after introducing intimate violence as a political question in Dutch politics went on to spearhead the Resolution Against Violence Against Women in 1986. During my time at the HAEU, I have been especially keen on understanding how intimate violence came to be understood as a phenomenon demanding supranational European attention, and how violence against women and children has come to be defined as clashing with gender non-discrimination and human rights. The Sørensen Grant allowed me to spend a much longer time in the archives than I otherwise could have, which has meant that in addition to finding answers to my dissertation questions I have been able to spend time finding new questions as well, which can hopefully become a part of a future research project. I wish to especially thank Mr. Pandelis Nastos for his wonderful assistance throughout my time in the archives.
The Vibeke Sørensen Grant scheme for visiting scholars was set up in 1993 by the then President of the European University Institute (EUI) Emile Noël with support of the European Commission. It aims to encourage research on the history of European integration based on primary sources held at the Historical Archives of the European Union. Postgraduate students are invited to apply for this grant; deadlines for applications are 12 April and 26 July 2020.
Find more information on the 2020 call for proposals and the Vibeke Sørensen Grant scheme.