Exploring the margins of administrative and police archives. New perspectives on social history (20th-21st century)
Aux marges des archives administratives et policières. Nouveaux chantiers d’histoire sociale (XXe -XXIe siècles)
Workshop organized with the support of Le Mouvement Social, Paris
Première édition des Journées du Mouvement Social, MSH Paris Nord
Abstract
The workshop, organized with the support of the journal Le Mouvement Social, aims to shed a new light on current discussions about archives and address methodological and epistemological issues in studying marginalized individuals and groups. First, we aim to address marginality as a category of analysis. Second, we encourage reflections on cross-reading administrative and police archives with community archives. Finally, we welcome papers that focus on the materiality of archives.
Announcement
Argument
The workshop, organized with the support of the journal Le Mouvement Social, aims to shed a new light on current discussions about archives and address methodological and epistemological issues in studying marginalized individuals and groups.
Marginality indicates the “position or condition of individuals and groups living on the physical or sociocultural margins or edges”, whether through geographical isolation or the effect of “exclusion, discrimination, or subordination” (Sigh et al. 2024). It is thus conceived as “the expression of a tension between belonging and exclusion, inherent to the system that produces it” rather than “a simple opposition to the center” (Le Dantec-Dowry et al. 2018). Inspired by Michel Foucault (1964; 1975) and Howard Becker (1963), social history has focused on the “margins” of the social world (Geremek [1976] 2006; Vincent 1979) since the mid-twentieth century. This “social elsewhere” (ailleurs social, Kalifa 2011) has received renewed attention, in fields like Romani studies (Barany 2002), history of crime (Rodak 2013), disability studies (Rembis et al. 2018), history of homosexuality (Tamagne 2006) or the history of mental asylums (Le Bras 2024). Frequently in line with intersectional approaches (Crenshaw 1991; Kócze et al. 2015), research has underlined that marginalization is contingent and processual (Anderson 2012), touches different marginalized populations and manifests itself under varied forms (Kennedy & Weston 2024; Irvine 2022; Cronin 2021).
Renewing the studies of social margins has an empirical component. Minority epistemologies have only recently been considered in social history. Notably, considering practices of community archiving transforms research on marginalities. While earlier works were limited to reading sources produced by the “center”, namely administrative, judicial or police records (Schmitt 1978; Farge 2010), current research tends to integrate “popular” or “indigenous” archives (Singh et al. 2024). This is part of the “archival turn” that has permeated disciplines beyond history and the social sciences since the 2000s (Poncet 2019), influencing fields ranging from queer studies (Marshall & Tortorici 2022), feminist studies (Eichhorn 2013) to contemporary art (Callahan 2024) or law (Biber 2017).
This workshop aims to bridge theoretical and empirical discussions on margins/marginalities:
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First, we aim to address marginality as a category of analysis. This can encompass multiple populations, such as national, ethnic or religious minorities, gender/sexual minorities, but also criminals, vagrants, hippies, people marginalized in terms of class, education, work, residency, geography, etc. The distinction between the notion of “margins” and other related terms, such as “minorities”, “deviants” or the “excluded” may not always be explicit, and therefore needs to be criticized and historicized.
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Second, we encourage reflections on cross-reading State archives with community archives. We invite contributions that focus specifically on records of the police and state administrations in the 20th-21st century. How can they be (re)read to study marginalized populations? What do they reveal? How can one confront them with other types of sources held by non-state actors? And what use may one make of inscriptions in the physical margins of archives in studying marginalized populations? Can cross-reading administrative and community archives help renew social history of marginalized populations? Namely, what do these archives tell us not just about their daily lives, practices, and organizations but also about state surveillance practices? How do these renewed readings lead us to rethink the category of “margins”?
While we welcome new analyses of already well-studied groups, the aim of the workshop is to include populations for which academic interest is more recent, such as queer people or persons with disabilities. The call for abstracts is structured around three themes. It focuses on the 20th and 21st centuries and is not limited to any geographical area or political regime. By adopting broad chronological boundaries, we want to bring discussion on the diverse and evolving margins of the social world, allowing for comparison and reflection on continuities between heterogeneous populations or historical settings.
The detailed section of the CFA (below) offers three possible axes along which contributions can be organized:
Conceptualizing the margins. The categorization of marginalized groups in administrative and police archives
We invite contributions with a focus on the ways in which state administrations construct the "margins” and categorize certain individuals or groups as “marginal”. The aim is to investigate the making of these groups, while highlighting the instability of the taxonomies produced in archival documents, which are also based on “popular discursive categories” (Chauncey 1994) and constitute “records of uncertainty and doubt” (Stoler 2009). By adopting a broad definition of the "margins”, we want to trigger comparison between different populations and reflect on the limits of this concept. Should we speak of "minoritization" instead of "marginalization"? How should we distinguish between marginality/centrality, minority/majority, exclusion/inclusion (Acke et al. 2023)?
The challenge is to think of the historical construction of these concepts. How do archives reflect the ways in which diverse administrative actors (street-level bureaucrats, political representatives, police officers...) categorize individuals as "marginal" or belonging to a "minority"? What does it say about the workings of state administrations? How do these categorizations contribute to suspecting and disenfranchising certain groups? How do criteria and processes of marginalization evolve in terms of class, gender, generation, health, race, or religion? How do they vary in different contexts (national, regional, local...)? The question of categorization raises that of scale. What scale of observation is required to best analyze marginalization, stigmatization and exclusion of certain populations by administrative authorities? And how can we construct relevant categories of analysis of marginalized populations, that take their performative effect into consideration without reproducing state categories? How can we (re)think the definitions of marginalized populations based on new readings of administrative archives?
Archives of the marginalized: confronting administrative and police archives with other sources
The second focus of this workshop will be on how the production of physical or digital archives (Bouillard 2023) by marginalized groups challenges readings of administrative and police archives and calls for rewriting the history of these groups from a new angle.
How do marginalized communities create archival centers of their own as an alternative to state archives? How does the emergence of these archives, often conceived as a form of "epistemic struggle", “queering” (Marshall 2014, 2015; Faure 2021), or reversing stigma, invite us to re-read state archival collections from a new angle? How can we reassess the limits of archives produced by the police or state administrations by confronting them to community archives? How does that redefine what constitutes an archive (see, for example, the exhibition “Alice.x in LGBTQI+ archives’ land” at Palais de Tokyo)?
This raises methodological questions: how to cross-read administrative and police archives with community archives? Would it allow us to grasp differences in the ways marginalized people define themselves compared to how administrative actors define them? In broader terms, how do these archives created by marginalized communities transform social history when we use them to either gather new sources or study the movements of alternative archive production?
The production of archives by marginalized communities is not new, as demonstrated by the decades-long existence of lesbian archives (Petit 2021) and LGBTQI+ archive centers in Berlin or Bologna. It remains, however, a relevant topic on an international scale, with numerous recent examples: LGBTQI+ archives in Paris, which claim the emancipatory character of the archive, Lithuanian Queer Archive, congresses of community archives in Poland (Wiśniewska-Drewniak & Pepłowska 2022), “affective” archives (Hertzberg 2023). We invite contributions that address the creation of archives of marginalized groups, question the role of researchers in such initiatives (see Robène & Serre's “Punk is not dead” project), and discuss the role that digitalization plays in preserving archives of marginalized communities and making them visible (see Romani archives projects in Poland or the Czech Republic).
Above all, we encourage contributors to look beyond the usual taxonomies (public/private archives) and consider the intersection of administrative and police archives with other types of sources, such as oral archives (Portelli 2003), photographic archives (About & Chéroux 2001), iconographic archives, sound archives, audiovisual archives (Andro & Le Bonhomme 2024), and everyday objects. How can we (re)read the paper archives produced by state administrations against the backdrop of these other types of sources?
Focusing on the physical margins of administrative and police archives
Finally, we welcome papers that focus on the materiality of archives: annotations, layout, marginal notes, and signs of archive production. How does attention to the physical margins of archives contribute to the study of marginalized populations? While we do not suggest that there is a necessary link between social marginality and the material marginality of an annotation, we encourage exploring such links. Does being in the margin also entail being on the margin? How are margins of the social world and physical margins of the archives intertwined?
Building on academic works that read peritextual annotations of bureaucrats in the margins of administrative archives (Zalc 2020), we want to discuss the ways in which reading between the lines and in the margins of police or administrative archives may renew the study of marginalization. For instance, can attention to the margins enable a change of scale in the history of the marginalized? What methods should we adopt to study information located in the margins? How can we include it in databases and quantify it (Lemercier & Zalc 2019)?
Following Ann Laura Stoler's (2009) pioneering approach, still largely applied in (post)colonial studies (Sowry 2012; Hossain 2024), how can we read administrative and police archives “along and against the grain”? How can we rethink the study of marginalized people through questioning the materiality of archives? How does the digitization of archives affect the possibilities of reading archives through their margins? Can digitization enable the study of certain marginalized populations (Barré 2023)?
We invite abstracts related to either of the three above-mentioned themes. The workshop is open to social historians, archivists, social and political scientists, anthropologists, and scholars coming from fields in which discussions on the use of archives are revived, such as queer studies, Romani studies, disability studies, literature, or art studies. Papers that adopt a transnational or comparative approach to archives are particularly welcome. Proposals dealing with (post)colonial and (post)imperial contexts are also encouraged.
Submission guidelines
This workshop, aimed at early-stage researchers, is organized with the support of Le Mouvement Social, a French journal in social history.
We invite proposals from PhD researchers and post-doctoral researchers up to 5 years after their PhD defense. The abstracts can be written in French or English and should be no more than 300 words long. Abstracts should contain your main research questions, methods, and sources. Please also add a brief biographical presentation (150 words maximum) to your submission.
The organizing committee will set up discussion panels.
Proposals should be sent to je.mouvementsocial@protonmail.com
before January 31st, 2025, at 23:59 (CET).
The workshop will take place on June 30th, 2025, at the MSH Paris-Nord.
Presentations can be held in French or English.
The journal's editorial board offers the possibility of publishing a selection of papers presented during the workshop.
Organizing Committee
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Gabrielle Escaich, PhD researcher in social sciences (EHESS - IRIS, ERC Lubartworld)
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Sacha Najman, PhD researcher in arts and language (EHESS - CRAL)
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Tymoteusz Skowroński, PhD researcher in history (European University Institute, Florence, Italy)
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Antoine Perrier, Research Fellow at the CNRS (Centre Jean Bérard), member of the editorial board of Le Mouvement Social.
Suggested bibliography
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Anderson Clare, Subaltern Lives: Biographies of Colonialism in the Indian Ocean World, 1790–1920, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Andro Gaïd & Le Bonhomme Fanny, « “94° à l'ombre” (Rennes - années 1990-2000). Le lien sonore par-delà la peine », Criminocorpus, Listening to Justice, 2024.
Barany Zoltan D., The East European Gypsies: Regime Change, Marginality, and Ethnopolitics, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Barré Louise, « Le Modern Endangered Archives Program, un programme mondial de numérisation de fonds textuels, iconographiques et audiovisuels des 20e et 21e siècles », 20 & 21. Revue d'histoire, vol. 158, no. 2, 2023: 167-172.
Becker Howard S., Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance, Glencoe, Free Press, 1963.
Biber Katherine, « The Archival Turn in Law: The Papers of Lindy Chamberlain in the National Library of Australia », Sydney Law Review, vol. 39, no. 3, 2017: 277–302.
Bouillard Léna, « Du goût à la fièvre : réflexions autour des archives (nativement) numériques lesbiennes », in Frédéric Clavert & Caroline Muller, Le goût de l’archive à l’ère numérique [Online], 2023, https://gout-numerique.net/.
Callahan Sara, « When the Dust Has Settled: What Was the Archival Turn, and Is It Still Turning? », Art Journal, vol. 83, no. 1, 2024: 74–88.
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Chauncey George, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Makings of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940, New York, Basic Books, 1994.
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Cronin Stephanie, Social Histories of Iran: Modernism and Marginality in the Middle East, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2021.
Eichhorn Kate, The Archival Turn in Feminism: Outrage in Order, Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 2013.
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Foucault, Michel. History of Madness [1964], London, Routledge, 2006.
Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison [1975], New York: Vintage Books, 1995.
Geremek, Bronisław. The Margins of Society in Late Medieval Paris [1976], Cambridge: University Press, 2006.
Hertzberg Zuzanna, « Women Fighters: An Affective Archive », Teatr Studio (blog), 2023, https://teatrstudio.pl/en/galeria/wystawy/zuzanna-hertzberg-women-fighters-an-affective-archive/.
Hossain Purba, « How to Search for Indigenous Voices Within Colonial Documents », in Interrogating Colonial Documents and Narratives, Marlborough, AM, 2024.
Irvine Janice M., Marginal People in Deviant Places: Ethnography, Difference, and the Challenge to Scientific Racism, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 2022.
« Išgir̃stì – Lithuanian Queer Archive », https://isgirsti.lt/archyvas/lithuanian-queer-archive/.
Kalifa Dominique, « Face à l’“ailleurs social” », Écrire l’histoire. Histoire, Littérature, Esthétique, no. 8, 2011: 49-56.
Karczewski Kamil, « “Call Me by My Name:” A “Strange and Incomprehensible” Passion in the Polish Kresy of the 1920s », Slavic Review, vol. 81, no. 3, 2022: 631-652.
Karczewski Kamil, « Sex in Times of Nationalism: Queerness and Poland, 1918-1939 », PhD dissertation, European University Institute, 2023.
Katarzyna Kozyra Foundation, « Secondary Archive. Platform for women artists from Central and Eastern Europe », Secondary Archive, https://secondaryarchive.org/.
Kennedy Allan & Weston Susanne, « Introduction: Centring the Margins », in Allan Kennedy & Susanne Weston (eds.), Life at the Margins in Early Modern Scotland, Martlesham, Boydell & Brewer Limited, 2024, p. 1-14.
Kócze Angéla, Zentai Violetta, Jovanovic Jelena & Vincze Enikó, « Introduction: Romani Feminist Critique and Gender », in The Romani Women’s Movement. Struggles and Debates in Central and Eastern Europe, 2015: 1–25.
Le Bras Anatole, Aliénés : une histoire sociale de la folie au XIXe siècle, Paris, CNRS Éditions, 2024.
Le Dantec-Lowry Hélène, Rossignol Marie-Jeanne, Renault Matthieu & Vermeren Pauline (eds.), Histoire en marges : Les périphéries de l’histoire globale, Tours, Presses universitaires François-Rabelais, 2018.
Lemercier Claire & Zalc Claire, Quantitative Methods in the Humanities. An Introduction, Charlottesville, University of Virginia Press, 2019.
Marshall Daniel, Murphy Kevin P. & Tortorici Zeb, « Queering Archives: Historical Unravelings », Radical History Review, vol. 120, 2014: 1-11.
Marshall Daniel, Murphy Kevin P. & Tortorici Zeb, « Queering Archives: Intimate Tracings », Radical History Review, vol. 122, 2015: 1–10.
Marshall Daniel & Tortorici Zeb (eds.), Turning Archival. The Life of the Historical in Queer Studies, Durham & London, Duke University Press, 2022.
Paris Ass Book Fair, « Alice·x Au Pays Des Archives LGBTQI+ », 2024, https://parisassbookfair.fr/2024/projets/alice%C2%B7x-au-pays-des-archives-lgbtqi/index.html.
Petit Mathilde, « Produire des archives lesbiennes : transmissions communautaires et connexions temporelles », GLAD! [Online], no. 11, 2021, http://journals.openedition.org/glad/3079.
Poncet Olivier, « Archives et histoire : dépasser les tournants », Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, vol. 74, no. 3, 2019: 711-743.
Portelli Alessandro, The Order Has Been Carried Out: History, Memory, and Meaning of a Nazi Massacre in Rome, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
Prague Forum for Romani Histories and Institute for Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences, « Roma and Sinti Testimonies », https://www.romatestimonies.com/about-database.
Rembis Michael A., Kudlick Catherine Jean & Nielsen Kim E., The Oxford Handbook of Disability History, New York, Oxford University Press, 2018.
Robène Luc & Serre Solveig, Punk is not dead. Une histoire de la scène punk en France (1976-2016), Paris, Nova, 2019.
Rodak Mateusz (ed.), Margines społeczny Drugiej Rzeczypospolitej. T. 6. Metamorfozy społeczne, Warszawa, Instytut Historii PAN, 2013.
Romski Instytut Historyczny, « Digitalizacja archiwum Romskiego Instytutu Historycznego - Stowarzyszenie Romów w Polsce », https://romowie.org.pl/Digitalizacja-archiwum-Romskiego-Instytutu-Historycznego-49.html%22%20/t%20%22_blank.
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Singh Lata & Sinha Shashank Shekhar, « Introduction: Writing Gender: Recasting Women and Beyond », in Lata Singh & Shashank Shekhar Sinha (eds.), Gender in Modern India: History, Culture, Marginality, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2024.
Sowry Nathan, « Silence, Accessibility, and Reading Against the Grain: Examining Voices of the Marginalized in the India Office Records », InterActions, vol. 8, no. 2, 2012.
Stoler Ann Laura, Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Common Sense, Princeton & Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2009.
Tamagne Florence, « Histoire des homosexualités en Europe : un état des lieux », Revue d’histoire moderne & contemporaine, vol. 534, no. 4, 2006 : 7-31.
Vincent Bernard (ed.) Les marginaux et les exclus dans l’histoire, Paris, U.G.E, 1979.
Wiśniewska-Drewniak Magdalena & Pepłowska Katarzyna (eds.), Urkunden, Archive, Kontexte, vol. 3. Geschichte im mitteleuropäischen Kontext, Göttingen, V&R unipress, 2022.
Zalc Claire, « Discretionary Power in the Hands of an Authoritarian State: A Study of Denaturalizations under the Vichy Regime (1940–1944) », The Journal of Modern History, vol. 92, no. 4, 2020: 817–858.
Places
- MSH Paris Nord - 20 Avenue George Sand, 93210 Saint-Denis
Paris, France (75)
Event attendance modalities
Full on-site event
Attached files
Keywords
- social history, histoire sociale, marges, archive administrative, archive policière, community archive, administrative archives, police, archival turn, marginalized populations, populations marginalisées, minorités, minorities, queer studies, Roma
Contact(s)
- Sacha Najman
courriel : sacha [dot] najman [at] ehess [dot] fr - Gabrielle Escaich
courriel : gabrielle [dot] escaich [at] ehess [dot] fr
Reference Urls
License
This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons - Attribution 4.0 International - CC BY 4.0 .
To cite this announcement
Gabrielle Escaich, Sacha Najman, Tymoteusz Skowroński, « Exploring the margins of administrative and police archives. New perspectives on social history (20th-21st century) », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Tuesday, December 10, 2024, https://doi.org/10.58079/12w17
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