Session Information
17 SES 03, Disability and Health
Paper Session
Contribution
A common reflex both in social-cultural and in educational histories is to consign attempts at societal reform to the realm of governmental and/or congregational institutes (see, e.g.: Porter, 1994). This is true also for reform initiatives in the domain of preventive and curative health care. The latter are seldom associated with the industry and related circles, even though research on health institutions like ‘open-air schools’ (see, e.g.: Thyssen, 2010) has found clear links between them. Indeed, in many European countries industrialist initiatives preceded those from the governmental or congregational side. Economic values pursued (efficiency, rationalization, etc.) may have spurred captains of industry to be proactive, innovative and thus creative. Creativity, however, needed input from outside the economic world, in particular from the arts (literature, painting, philosophy, design, dance, etc.). A central assumption of this paper is that, from a somewhat informal stage of society, captains of industry – supported by artistic-intellectual milieus – may have been able to act in a more problem-focused way than State and Church-related instances. Whether this led to truly creative and innovative solutions remains a question to be answered. A key hypothesis of the paper, in each case, is that industry-related entrepreneurship in the domain of health reform was inspired essentially by educational conceptions.
Sanitary reforms advocated by industrialists and their entourage in the whole of Western Europe are indeed believed to have implied more than attending to the condition of (newly constituted) labour populations. Aiming to change individual and collective actors in society, their making sense of life and conditions shaping it, as well as their self-understanding, these reform efforts seem to have pursued primarily educational purposes and educativeimpacts. As of the mid-nineteenth century, attention was, for instance, focused progressively on the ‘sanitation’ of society, understood not literally (cf. Osterhammel, 2009), but as the regulation of body and mind, social behavior, and interpersonal relations. Upon these interest domains a fully-fledged ‘sanitary offensive’ was grafted, which led to the creation of such health care provisions as ‘preventoriums’ and ‘sanatoria’, dispensaries, anti-alcoholism and -tuberculosis campaigns/societies, etc. (see, e.g.: Connolly, 2004; Hoffmann, 2008).
It is in this context that the paper will concretely analyze some Luxembourgian health reform initiatives among which are counted, for instance, the ‘Croix Rouge Luxembourgeoise’, the ‘Société Luxembourgeoise d'Hygiène Sociale et Scolaire’, the ‘Ligue Luxembourgeoise Contre la Tuberculose’, a sanatorium-preventorium called ‘Maison des Enfants’ and various dispensaries. To investigate the extent to which these Luxembourg reform projects creatively combined existing elements from neighbouring and other European countries into innovative solutions, they will be brushed against comparable creations outside of The Grand Duchy. From this should emerge a sharper ‘image’ of the educational/educative quality of the reform projects analyzed. ‘Literal’ images, sometimes more than textual sources, visualize, propagate and at the same time question reform efforts in areas like the one investigated. Therefore, these often underused sources will be analyzed critically alongside textual ones as part of a ‘perspectivist’ approach.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Cynthia A. Connolly, “Pale, Poor, and ‘Pretubercular’ Children: a History of Pediatric Antituberculosis Efforts in France, Germany, and the United States, 1899-1929.” Nursing Inquiry, 11, 2004, pp. 138-147. Gottfried Boehm, “Sehen. Hermeneutische Reflexionen”. In: Ralf Konermann (Ed.), Kritik des Sehens. Leipzig: Reclam, 1999, pp. 272-298. John Cunliffe & Guido Erreygers, “The Enigmatic Legacy of Charles Fourier: Joseph Charlier and Basic Income.” History of Political Economy, 33, 3, 2001, pp. 59-484. Michel Espagne, Archiv und Gedächtnis. Studien zur interkulturellen Überlieferung. Leipzig: Leipziger Univ.-Verlag, 2000. Marco Hoffmann, Le développement du travail social au Luxembourg à travers l’activité centenaire de la Ligue médico-sociale. Luxembourg: Ligue luxembourgeoise de Prévention et d’Action médico-sociales, 2008. Sebastian Konrad & Shalini Randeira (Eds.), Jenseits des Eurozentrismus. Postkoloniale Perspektiven in den Geschichts- und Kulturwissenschaften. Frankfurt/M.: Campus, 2002. Matthias Middell, “Von der Wechselseitigkeit der Kulturen im Austausch. Das Konzept des Kulturtransfers in verschiedenen Forschungskontexten.” In: Andrea Langer & Georg Michels (Eds.), Metropolen und Kulturtransfer im 15./16. Jahrhundert. Prag - Krakau - Danzig - Wien. Stuttgart: Steiner, 2001, pp. 15-51. Jürgen Osterhammel, Die Verwandlung der Welt. Eine Geschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts. München: Beck, 2009. Dorothy Porter (Ed.), The History of Public Health and the Modern State. Amsterdam-Atlanta: Rodopi, 1994. Karin Priem, “Photographic investigation of childhood: visual perceptions of poor children around 1900.” In: Christine Mayer, Ingrid Lohmann & Ian Grosvenor (Eds.), Children and Youth at Risk: Historical and International Perspectives. Frankfurt: Peter Lang 2009, pp. 35-48. Geert Thyssen, “The Open-Air Schools of Dudelange and Esch-sur-Alzette. A Threat to the Regular School System in Luxembourg or a Peripheral Phenomenon?” Forum für Politik, Gesellschaft und Kultur, 301, 2010, pp. 40-42. Bénédikte Zimmermann & Michael Werner, “Histoire Croisée and the Challenge of Reflexivity.” History and Theory, 45, 1, 2006, pp. 30-50.
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