RHN 127/2016 | Call
Organiser: Dr. Juri Auderset, Archiv für Agrargeschichte, Bern, Switzerland (Presenting author)
11-14 September 2017, Leuven, Belgium
Deadline for submissions: 15 January 2017
Panel at the Rural History 2017 Conference
Alcohol and Rural Society in the 19th and 20th Centuries
The “Alcohol Question” as it came to be called in the second half of the 19th century had multiple ramifications in the culture and society of rural spaces throughout the European continent and beyond. Alcohol was closely linked to agricultural production since the bulk of the overall fabrication of spirits derived from agricultural products such as grain, potatoes, fruits and wood. Moreover, the “symbolic crusade” (J.R. Gusfield) against excessive drinking emerging in temperance movements in the mid-19th century not only focused on the drinking cultures of the industrial proletariat, but also the modes of consumption in the rural population. While the regulatory interventions of states and civil societies took on a great variety of forms – from taxation over monopolies to policies of prohibition and the support of the use of non-distilled agricultural products (e.g. apple juice) – at different times in different surroundings, the alcohol policies at all times had to consider the various interrelations between the agricultural production and the drinking cultures in rural societies. This panel aims to shed light on these issues by inviting scholars from different geographical and disciplinary backgrounds to contribute to a comparative understanding of the interrelated patterns of drinking cultures, agricultural production, rural societies and state regulations in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Co-organisers and presenters:
Co-organiser 1: Juri Auderset, Archives of Rural History, Switzerland
Co-organiser 2: Peter Moser, Archives of Rural History, Switzerland
Presenters 1: Juri Auderset & Peter Moser, Archives of Rural History, Switzerland
Your proposal should consist of an abstract (max. 200 words) and a short CV and should be submitted by 15th January 2017.
Please submit complete proposals to juri.auderset@agrararchiv.ch.