Accidents and the State in the 20th Century

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Accidents and the State in the 20th Century

Veranstalter
Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies; USIAS Institut d'Études Avancées de l'Université de Strasbourg
Veranstaltungsort
FRIAS Albertstr. 19 D - 79104 Freiburg i. Br.
Ort
Freiburg
Land
Deutschland
Vom - Bis
09.06.2016 - 10.06.2016
Website
Von
Peter Itzen

Accidents are challenges to the structures of modern societies in the twentieth century. They expose structural weaknesses and often give rise to new developments and legal and social innovations that aim at preventing accidents or diminishing their impact. The consequences of accidents are enormous: They often lead to a huge death toll and vast economic costs and they disturb economic and social processes. In the workshop on ‘Accidents and the state’ we want to discuss, from a historical perspective, the changing relationship between accidents and the modern state during the 20th century. We are, for instance, interested in the following questions:

1. Accidents, legitimacy and the various expectations towards the state: How are accidents debated in a political context? Do accidents affect the legitimacy of the modern state? How are different responses by different states to accidents linked to particular expectations towards the role and the task of state?

2. Risks, citizenship and notions of social justice: How do social structures and notions of social justice relate to the response of the state to accidents? How are, on the other hand, notions of social justice influenced by accidents and emergencies? What is the role of varying concepts of citizenship for the perception of accidents and the development of responses to them?

3. The build-up of a regulative framework: What kind of legal, organisational and regulative solutions did the modern state develop as a response to accidents? How effective were the attempts by the state to regulate individual behaviour that was deemed to be dangerous and risky?

4. The emergence of a modern error culture: How does the reception of errors that can lead to accidents evolve over the 20th century? What characterises the relationship between acceptance and disciplining of citizens? Which role does the state and its institutions play in the development of learning processes? Does the public perception of individual and structural errors change during the 20th century?

5. Accidents, medicine and technical innovation: Which role do accidents play for the development of medical and technical innovations? How do different states promote or discourage the development of different cultures of medicine and technology?

Programm

Accidents and the State in the 20th Century

Workshop
9-10 June 2016
FRIAS, Albertstraße 19

June 9

15.30-16 h
Welcome and Coffee

16-18 h
Risk, citizenship, responsibility and social justice

Judith Rainhorn (University of Valenciennes)
Who sets the price for injured bodies? French mining companies facing State intervention against industrial hazards, 1898-1930s

Nadine Rossol (University of Essex)
Preventing Danger through Education: The State, Traffic Accidents and Citizenship in the First Half of the Twentieth Century

Patricia Faraldo Cabana (FRIAS)
Death on the roads and the need to regulate traffic. The influence of car accidents in the rise of regulatory law

Comment: Stefan Kaufmann (Freiburg)

18.30 – 19.30 h
Keynote lecture

Bill Luckin (University of Bolton)
Before the State: Highways, Communities and the Law in Nineteenth Century Britain

June 10

9-11 h
Naming and qualifying accidents

Peter Itzen (FRIAS-USIAS)
The Nature of Accidents and Social History

Nils Kessel (Institut Francilien Innovation Recherche Société (IFRIS))
Normal exceptions – A comparison of accidents and disasters in the fields of medicines and road safety

Birgit Metzger (FRIAS-USIAS)
What does «military accident» mean?

Comment: Helke Rausch (Freiburg)

11.30-13.00 h
Responding to accidents I: emergency systems and medical innovation

Frédéric Vagneron (Centre for Medical Humanities-Lehrstuhl für Medizingeschichte, Universität Zürich)
The “moment of the accident” and the multiple causation behind the rise of municipal ambulances and emergency rescue services in the European Urban Environment (1880-1914)

Charles-Antoine Wanecq (Sciences Po Paris)
Road accidents as an epidemic: the creation of the Emergency Medical Services (SAMU) in France (1956-1979)

Comment : Anne Rasmussen (FRIAS-USIAS)

14.00-15.30 h
Responding to accidents II: Concepts of rehabilitation and citizenship

Jonathan Voges (Leibniz Universität Hannover)
“Most accidents happen at home”. The Aktion Das Sichere Haus and the “securization” of West German households from the 1950s to the 1970s

Andrea del Campo Peirano (University of Manchester)
My gratitude to the great and honourable Trauma… I take it in my soul’. Integral rehabilitation for injured workers in the state traumatological hospital. Chile 1938-1942

Comment: Anne Rasmussen (FRIAS-USIAS)

16-17 h
Conclusion and Discussion

Kurt Möser (KIT Karlsruhe)

Kontakt

Birgit Metzger, Peter Itzen
FRIAS
Albertstr. 19
79104 Freiburg i.Br.

birgit.metzger@mail.uni-freiburg.de
peter.itzen@geschichte.uni-freiburg.de