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Historical Family Systems and the East-West Divide in Europe: Persistence of the Past or Persistence of Perspective?
Mikolaj Szoltysek, Research Scientist, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany
| What | MPC Seminar Series |
|---|---|
| When |
November 16, 2009 12:15 PM
November 16, 2009 01:15 PM
November 16, 2009 from 12:15 pm to 01:15 pm |
| Where | MPC Seminar Room, 50 Willey Hall |
| Contact Phone | 612-624-8806 |
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Abstract: At least since the 1970s, scholars have long been led to believe that it is possible to brand major areas of Europe as having a particular type of family system. This long preoccupation with distinguishing between the area of the allegedly “unique” Northwest European pattern, and other zones, turned out to be ill-informed. Nevertheless, this view has persisted. This paper starts with presenting proofs for arguing that such a rightful wish to classify and compare forms of household and family over time and between cultures was quite often based on the evidence that was no more than suggestive and felt short of exacting standards of proof, leading in consequence to unwarranted and tentative generalizations about family patterns in Eastern Europe. The attachment of scholars to a homogeneous view of ‘Eastern European families’, will then be confronted with the investigation into the largest collection of household listings ever assembled for preindustrial Eastern Europe (230 parishes, 1000 localities, 27,000 households, 156,000 individuals), from the areas of historical Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine. With the application of a variety of methodologies, three regional family patterns will be distinguished on the historical Polish territories, their main characteristics described and then juxtaposed against the major features of paradigmatic examples of the ‘Eastern European family type’.
Creating a National Data Enclave System for Health Data Resources