Within the framework of the 16th Congress of the Spanish “Association of Contemporary History” (Logroño, Spain, September 7-9, 2023), the workshop “Peace and Peacemakers in the Contemporary World: Diplomacy, Negotiation, and Coexistence” will be held (workshop No. 22). We are glad to announce that it is now possible to submit paper proposals (deadline is January 9, 2023).
Anyone willing to participate can send a title and a summary of the proposal (maximum 500 words), a brief CV and his/her institutional affiliation through the official website of the Congress (https://ahc2023.unirioja.es/contenido/talleres). In case of doubt or questions, you can contact the workshop coordinators: Carlos Sanz Díaz (carlos.sanz@ghis.ucm.es) and Dario Migliucci (dariomigliucci@hotmail.com).
Military confrontations, civil wars and revolutions have always had a privileged space within history as a discipline. Violence, in fact, have often been seen as the motor force of historical change. This workshop, by contrast, is conceived as a place for reflection on the agency, in the making of our contemporary world, of those people who have worked for the maintenance of peace, the resolution of international conflicts and coexistence between groups that share the same territory in a context of strong tensions. The chronological framework of the workshop stretches from the end of the 18th century to our present time.
Proposals addressing both theoretical issues and specific case studies will be welcomed. We will be pleased to consider papers examining the way in which peace has been approached in the past by historians and other social sciences experts, as well as papers concerning the work of specific authors who have devoted part of their activity to the study and practice of peace. We are also interested on the heterogeneous conceptualizations of peace elaborated over the last decades (mere absence of war, synonymous of social justice, etc.). The workshop will be also open to studies on the intellectual and political flourishing of idealistic approaches (such as Kantianism or Wilsonianism) as well as on its implementation in the 20th century (League of Nations, United Nations, etc.).
Papers related to the work of negotiators, diplomats, military, social agents, and other actors who have managed to maintain or achieve peace in highly conflictive scenarios (treaties, commitments, search for balance between powers or blocs, etc.) will also be very welcome. We are also highly interested in approaches oriented towards the construction of a history of peace “from below”, including the work of pacifist movements (anti-military, anti-nuclear, etc.) and the daily struggles for coexistence of neighborhood associations, religious groups, cultural movements, and common people, often in contexts marked by long-lasting intergroup conflicts.