The Action is delighted to announce that the workshop Reconstructing and reimagining the family: Health sciences and welfare on families in Southern Europe (1945-1989) will take place on 8 September at the École française d’Athènes.

The workshop aspires to help researchers join forces to develop collaboratively their ideas and methods on the history of the family after 1945, in order to enrich and nuance the understanding of post-war visions of and approaches to the family. To do so, it proposes an original geographical and analytical lens. On the one hand, it aims at charting new research on the countries of the post-war Southeastern Europe, which are understudied in comparison to Western European countries, and which are rarely examined together, owing to their different political systems and social policies. On the other hand, through the concept of health, a notion that was broadened in the post-war period to encompass not only the physical and mental, but also the social, the workshop embarks on a combined exploration of medical and social sciences, along with welfare professions, in shaping discourses and undertaking action on families. By investigating new and old understandings, continuities and ruptures in family interventions through the concept of health, the workshop aims at organizing a collaboration among the participants, in order to shape a research project, which will ultimately provide insights into how “the family” has been defined, represented and reinvented in different social and political contexts in Southeastern Europe during the post-war period. 

For the detailed workshop programme, please see the attached PDF.

The workshop is organised by Despo Kritsotaki (despo.kritsotaki@gmail.com) and Nicolas Henckes (nicolas.henckes@cnrs.fr). The event will be in a hybrid format and those interested in participating online can attend the workshop by following this link.

The workshop is organised within the convention between the École française d’Athènes (https://www.efa.gr/en/) and the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (https://www.ehess.fr/fr/europe), and is supported by the COST Action “Who Cares in Europe?” (https://whocaresineurope.eu/).