Call for papers: 14th SIEF Congress ,,Current images of socialism“ (Santiago de Compostela, 14-17/04/2019
The aim of the panel is to discuss the current representations/images of socialism, as communicated by the generation of personal witnesses, and how the existing attitudes and values of the respondents are influenced by the fact that they lived in socialism. The contributions shall also concentrate on the ways, how these ideas are transmitted to the younger generation (children, grandchildren): How does the next generation deal with the experience of their ancestors, how do the (grand)children feel about it and how do they integrate this experience into their own identities?
Due to unsufficient coverage of this era in the national school curricula, the youngest generation´s ideas and knowledge about the everyday life in the period of socialism are habitually shaped by the family memory (Welzer 2014). The panel shall deal with the relation between the family memory and the often ambivalent public discourses: How the period of socialism is transmitted also at the cultural and political level of remembering.
The papers should focus mostly on contemporary societies. There exist a variety of research designs related to the intergenerational transfer of representations in post-socialist countries in Europe. There are several countries, like Slovakia, where systematic research using the oral history method is still in the beginnings; whereas it is more developed in countries like Czechia or Estonia. One of the panel’s goals is to present small pieces of the mosaic coming from the often exotised Eastern part of Europe and try to fill the blind spots on the map.
Deadline for abstract is 15. 10. 2018!
More information you can find here.