The
Centre for Medical History at the University of Exeter will host a workshop on April 8-9, 2014, on "The Landscape of Occupations in Pre-Industrial Britain and Continental Europe, c.1400-1750." The two-day workshop is designed to bring together papers addressing any of the following four themes: Individuals, Economic Activity, and Developments in the Early Modern Economy; Gender and Occupation; Guilds, Colleges and Occupational Identity; and Rural and Urban Economic Lives. As the call for papers explains,
Occupational identity and the economic activity of individuals have seen growing attention from historians and historical geographers over the past thirty or forty years. While earlier generations of historians, including Postan and Tawney, addressed occupational structure as an aspect of the general structure of agricultural and industrial production, researchers are increasingly focusing upon the question of economic activity from the perspective of the individual. It is increasingly recognized that occupational identity was neither definite nor fixed. How did households combine economic strategies in response to opportunities, challenges, and natural cycles? How did economic and occupational identity change throughout an individual’s lifecycle? Indeed, how did occupational identity actually reflect economic activity?
Sessions will be structured around pre-circulated papers and presentations of five minutes, to allow maximum time for discussion.
For a more detailed description of topics to be addressed, please see the
complete call for papers. Abstracts, of no more than 300 words, should be sent via email to Justin Colson (
j.r.colson@exeter.ac.uk) by
December 2, 2013.