Historical Social Research Research Articles

Back to Divination Practice: Cross-Cultural Characteristics of Dunhuang Birdsong Divination Book IOLTibJ747

Divination, as an important component of Chinese philosophy, plays an important role in reflecting the complex historical background in history and folklore. Especially in the Dunhuang region, which has experience in cross-cultural communication, the divination books unearthed from it have high reference value for understanding the complex historical background of Dunhuang at that time. This article selects the Dunhuang Birdsong Divination Book IOLTibJ747 as the research object, and through text analysis and historical analysis, re-examines the living conditions of the Dunhuang people during the Tibetan rule and the influence reflected by cross-cultural experiences. On the one hand, this article believes that IOLTibJ747 has a multilingual nature and integrates folk tales born in various cultural backgrounds, as well as the cross-cultural experience of the Dunhuang region during Tibetan rule in terms of bird species selection. On the other hand, this article believes that IOLTibJ747's emphasis on the spatiotemporal coordinates of divination and the selection of divination themes both point to the historical fact that war was the main topic of people's life in the Dunhuang region during the Tibetan rule. This article has certain reference value for exploring academic approaches to cross-cultural research, international relations research, and social history research through Zi Xue academic literature.

Islam dan Gerakan Sosial: Studi atas Resistensi Guru Tarekat Menghadapi Pemerintah Hindia Belanda di Jawa Timur pada Akhir Abad XIX-Awal Abad XX

This article proves several findings related to the crisis period involving the lives of teachers and religious practitioners in Java from the 19th to early 20th centuries. Even though their perspective on life is usually not concerned with world affairs, it is known that several Tariqa or Sufi teachers led social movements against the Dutch East Indies government. Of course, this was an anomaly, considering that usually the Company's enemies or people who the Company suspected from among Muslim religious leaders were kiai or hajjis. Tariqa teachers have a different identity from the two. Through social history research, by looking back at several records and reports left by the Dutch East Indies government, new information can be obtained about the involvement of this esoteric group in the arena of resistance against colonialists. Using historical research methods, several findings were obtained regarding the role of tariqa teachers in that period, especially in their efforts to build anti-colonial networks in East Java.

Expanding Perspectives in the Study of Chinese Social History

Over the past 20 years, the study of social history has become the most remarkable direction in the field of modern Chinese history. The research of modern Chinese social history has gone through three stages: disciplinary revival, system construction, and steady development. The era features of modern Chinese social history research mainly manifest in: prominent achievements in regional social history, with increasingly deepening theoretical research; the burgeoning research on modern rural history, moving towards in-depth exploration; and the attention-grabbing study of social gender history under new concepts. For traditional disciplines of modern Chinese history, the perspective of social history research has greatly expanded, mainly manifested in: breaking through traditional dogma, exploring new fields; shifting the perspective of observation, returning to the people themselves; and paying more attention to small events in the macro background, emphasizing a micro perspective.

Archives, prisons and person-centred historical praxis: doing social history research on incarceration in colonial Africa

Bringing together methods and perspectives from critical archive studies, African history, social history and critical prison studies, this article considers the opportunities, challenges and ethical considerations that arise when doing social history research on colonial African prisons using official archives. We argue that while such records can provide valuable information, engagement with these documents needs to be grounded in recognition of their ‘person-ness’. This involves acknowledging the power dynamics and coercion that shaped the creation and content of official archives, prioritising the experiences of incarcerated people, and using the records in a way that recognises the limits of consent in terms of their origins and use. By turning to a person-centred historical praxis, researchers can not only play a key role in furthering our knowledge of colonial carceral systems but can also help to challenge these systems and their afterlives.

‶Don’t Say Neigh, Say Yay”

‶Don’t Say Neigh, Say Yay”

Crime and violence on the margins of society: How justice‐based power vacuums create deprived neighbourhoods

AbstractHow have crime, conflict, and violence shaped the social structure of neighbourhoods across diverse spatial and temporal landscapes in marginalised urban communities? To address to this central question, this study examines the socio‐political dynamics of New York City and Palermo, as well as the role of authoritarian actors, by juxtaposing different historical periods and contrasting the influences of political institutions with extra‐legal entities such as gangs and mafias. Utilising visual images, archival documents, and geographical mapping, the study introduces the concept of ‘justice‐based power vacuums’. This novel theoretical concept elucidates the mechanisms through which coercive power fosters social environments susceptible to extra‐legal domination, effectively entrapping vulnerable groups, be they ethnic or racial minorities or economically disadvantaged groups. I argue that while crime, conflict, and violence, especially under the auspices of gangs and mafias, often become the focal point, it is the obscured role of political authorities that stands as the genesis of such complex social problems. The present comparative historical social research indicates that recognising and addressing these obscured political influences is essential for a holistic understanding and subsequent mitigation of the structural challenges in urban social life that create deprived neighbourhoods across time and space similarly and perpetuate marginalisation in these communities.

Re-reading the 1972 Faure report as a policy repertoire: Advocacy of lifelong education as recurrent education with neoliberal tendencies

This paper explores transnational circulation during the early 1970s of lifelong education and recurrent education as ‘policy repertoires’ addressing redistribution of participation in organised (adult) learning throughout life. Focused on a re-reading of UNESCO’s 1972 report on lifelong education, the paper offers a critical analysis of the Faure Commission’s ‘position-taking’ with regard to its understanding of recurrent education as a policy repertoire. Frequently cited differences between the Commission’s policy recommendations for lifelong education and its position-taking regarding recurrent education are shown to have fragile empirical foundations. This paper argues that Faure’s report explicitly appropriated and openly incorporated arguments favouring recurrent education in its own policy recommendations for lifelong education. Mainstream interpretations of the Faure report are subsequently subjected to a critical analysis of putative neoliberal tendencies articulated by the Faure Commission’s own report. Key areas for further social-historical research regarding policy repertoires in the 1970s are identified.

The Position of Women in Islamic History

Before the arrival of Islam, they are known as the jahiliyyah. It shows a historical fact that the position of women is always placed in the position of objects and occupies the second position after men. The position of women is considered less favorable, so women are often used as objects of exploitation that exceed human limits. Then Islam came with teachings that respect the position of women in various aspects of life. The existence of a long journey about the position of women is interesting to analyze and important to study in depth. This research is an Islamic social history research using historical research methods: Heuristics, Verification, Interpretation, and Historiography. At this stage, the author presents the results of the synthesis obtained. This study aims to enrich the historical treasures of Islamic civilization related to the development of the position of women. However, the dynamics of the development of women's position also have many scientific sources that need to be studied more comprehensively. That is, we need to look at events far back to be able to analyze the dynamics of women's positions. The conclusion of this paper explains that in pre-Islamic perspectives starting from Greek, Roman, Jewish, Hindu, and Chinese civilizations, as well as pre-Islamic Arabs, it shows that women occupy a position as inferior until then Islam comes to change their social status with the concept of equality.

Az erdélyi menekült tanulók helyzete és sorsa Magyarországon társadalomtörténeti megközelítésben

Just as nowadays, it has always been an important task to settle and integrate refugees, at least temporarily. One of the most important challenges is the education of refugee students. Based on archival sources and the relevant international literature, I intend to accomplish two objectives in my study. On one hand, I am looking to answer the question how much Hungarian state education and civil society contributed to aiding the refugees from Transylvania after the Romanian attack in 1916. On the other hand, based on empirical research in social history, I would also like to highlight the consequences of the presence of refugee students and teachers in Hungarian schools, especially focusing on the changes in learning outcomes.

The Power of Their Will: Slaveholding Women in Nineteenth-Century Cuba

The Power of Their Will: Slaveholding Women in Nineteenth-Century Cuba

Perjuangan Umat Islam dalam Gerakan Front Anti Komunis di Indonesia, 1954-1958

This article is a social history research which in general is to analyze the events of the Anti-Communist Front movement. The method used in this article is the historical method and the data collection in writing this article uses library research. The results showed that the Anti-Communist Front movement was a movement aimed at fighting the ideology of communism. In this case, the resistance of the Anti-Communist Front movement was aimed at the PKI, because the PKI was a party that had a fairly large cadre, so with the large number of PKI cadres, it was feared that the ideology of communism would affect the beliefs or beliefs of Muslims. The PKI also had a strong political influence in Indonesia, especially in the 1955 elections, but what became the concern of the Anti-Communist Front was the PKI's revolutionary political attitude, so that the PKI often abused, slandered, and even killed the elite of Islamic political parties, the Kyai, as well as among the students for their political ambitions.

Документи про реформу українського правопису в особовому фонді Василя Німчука

The article considers little-known and previously inaccessible archival documents on the reform of Ukrainian spelling from the personal fond of the corresponding member of the NAS of Ukraine, Doctor of Philology Vasyl Vasyliovych Nimchuk (1933–2017), stored at the Institute of Archival Studies of V I Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine. The purpose of the study is to analyze V. Nimchuk’s opinion on the reform of Ukrainian spelling in the 1990s, highlight the positions of like-minded people and opponents, recreate the course of events in preparation for this reform and reveal the role of the Ukrainian National Spelling Commission. The research methodology is based on methodological principles related to the general scientifi c principles of analysis and synthesis, historicism, scientifi c objectivity, systematic and interdisciplinary approaches. The study of archival documents was based on archival heuristics, archeographic methods, as well as historical criticism of sources. During the consideration of the materials of V. Nimchuk’s personal fond, special methods of historical-biographical and historical-social research were used, which made it possible to study archival sources on the problem. Scientifi c novelty. The documents on the reform of Ukrainian spelling from the personal archival fond of linguist V. Nimchuk were put into scientifi c circulation for the fi rst time. Conclusions. The analyzed archival documents on the draft Ukrainian spelling of 1999 signifi cantly supplement the information on the scientifi c, organizational and public activities of V. Nimchuk in his preparation. Epistolary documents deposited in the personal archives of the scholar reveal the peculiarities of discussions in Ukrainian society around spelling reform. V. Nimchuk’s archival heritage is an important source base for studying the role of scientists, other linguists and scientifi c institutions in preparing the reform of Ukrainian spelling in the 1990s. Prospects for further studies. The considered documents showed a signifi cant source and information potential of the archival heritage of the scientist, which will contribute to further research of his scientifi c work by historians and linguists.

A social history of racial disparities in breastfeeding in the United States

Over the past five decades in the United States, White women have breastfed at higher rates than Black women. While a small but growing body of social historical research has examined racial disparities in breastfeeding over time, empirical research, particularly quantitative research, has focused on single historical snapshots, unintentionally treating the persistent racial disparities in breastfeeding as a static phenomenon, rather than one with distinct social mechanisms at different points in time. Further, few studies on racial disparities in health deconstruct difference both within and across racial groups. But what if we thought about persistent racial disparities instead as discrete trends with distinct social mechanisms at different points in time? In a binary logistic regression of breastfeeding initiation rates from 1973 to 2015 using the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), I found that the persistent racial disparities were actually comprised of three distinct types of changing racial disparities: (1) increases in racial disparities that derive from improvements for Whites not captured by Blacks (1973–1982); (2) decreases in racial disparities that stem from improvements for Whites captured even more strongly by Blacks (1995–2006); and, (3) leveling off of racial disparities (2006–2015). Placing results of this quantitative analysis within the context of public policy and social movement history, I identify three distinct mechanisms that drive the different trends in racial disparities in breastfeeding. This paper contributes to the literature on motherhood, race, and health a more nuanced understanding of the social historical mechanisms that pattern breastfeeding, and more broadly, racial disparities in health.

Understanding Research Methodology: Social History and the Reformation Period in Europe

This article provides an overview of the social-historical methodology, highlights relevant scholarship on this approach, and offers specific examples of studies on the Reformation period in Europe that use the social-historical method. I begin by explaining how the social-historical methodology, otherwise known as new social history, originated from the historical method. While highlighting key scholarship on this approach, I outline how the social-historical method differs from the historical method. I also present two essential methodological features of social history, including using sources in new, more analytical ways. I conclude by presenting specific examples of how historians of the early modern period, such as Kirsi Stjerna and Merry Wiesner-Hanks, apply the social-historical method in their own studies. This last section focuses on works that explore women’s history, family life, work, and witchcraft, primarily during the Reformation period in Europe. My goal is to provide a resource for emerging young scholars, such as undergraduate students and newly admitted graduate students, who are interested in strengthening their own work by better understanding the social-historical research method and how it is used in the study of history and religion.

Reconstruction of Anthropogenic Land-Cover Change for Middle America, 1500 CE

This project demonstrates how to use existing syntheses of many decades of historical social science research to produce empirically derived land-use maps in a GIS for large regions for a specific target year at a resolution appropriate to the calibration of existing anthropogenic land-cover change (ALCC) models. Disagreement among the outputs of various ALCC models results from differing estimates of population and assumptions about how much food a given population requires and the productivity per unit area of various types of cropping systems. The resulting ALCC model output of the spatial distribution of land uses at a given time becomes input for climate models, which thereby incorporate those uncertainties. To address the issue at a global scale, the LandCover6k working group of PAGES (Past Global Changes), has undertaken an international effort to empirically calibrate the HYDE ALCC model. This report on a contribution to that effort employs empirical data from previously published scholarship in geography, anthropology, and archaeology on the land use of Middle America centered on a target year of 1500 CE. Maps from those sources were digitized and georeferenced in a GIS (Geographic Information System) and used to digitize polygons in which each category of land use is known to have occurred during late precolonial and early colonial times, centered on the target year. The land-use typology used was agreed on at the first, 2015 LandCover6k meeting and includes five top-level categories: Pastoral; Urban and Extractive; Hunting, Fishing, and Gathering; No land Use; and Agriculture. This project further includes a dozen Agricultural subcategories specifically appropriate to Middle America in 1500 CE: agroforestry; orchards and orchard gardens; shifting cultivation; short-fallow cultivation; sloping-field terraces; bench terraces; cross-channel terraces; subsurface irrigation; floodwater irrigation; canal irrigation; recessional cultivation; and intensive wetland fields. The results are presented and discussed as sixteen GIS screenshots.

Research orientation among general practitioners compared to other specialties

Objective The volume of research work done by general practitioners (GP) is modest compared to other specialties. In order to find out reasons for this we examined the current situation concerning research orientation and factors relating to them among Finnish GPs compared to other specialists. Design and setting Data from The Physician 2018 Study were used for our research. The study was undertaken in collaboration with all five medical faculties in Finland and the Finnish Medical Association. It compiled information on physicians` social background, work history and career and research plans as well as their views regarding undergraduate and specialist training, values, and professional identity. Subjects The basic study population comprised all Finnish doctors under 70 years of age (N = 23,131). Questionnaires were sent to doctors born on even-numbered days (n = 11,336). Altogether 5,214 (45.8%) responded. Responses from GPs (n = 796) were compared with those of doctors in other specialties (n = 3,514). Main outcome measures and results The respondents were asked about their current intention to undertake a doctoral degree. Factors associated with this were analysed. Only 7.3% of GPs had completed a doctoral degree. The corresponding figure in other specialties was 32.3% (p < 0.001). In general practice the current intention to undertake a doctoral degree had only slightly increased over ten years. Most GPs had also decided not to undertake a doctorate. The main factors associated with the current intention to complete a doctoral degree were interest in attaining a senior position (OR 3.43, 95% CI 2.25–5.24), a position in a university hospital district (OR 2.89, 95% CI 1.69–4.94) or other sector than primary care (OR 1.87, 95% CI 1.18–2.96), one’s father being a doctor (OR 2.01, 95% CI 1.09–3.72) and male gender (OR 1.63, 95% CI 1.05–2.54). Conclusion Research work in primary health care has been quite sparse. In general practice there is a need to increase teaching and guidance in research work. Key points Research work in primary health care is not very common. Only 7.3% of GPs had completed their doctorate compared to 32.3% in other specialties. A main factor associated with the current intention to complete a doctoral degree was interest in attaining a senior position.

Omsk Industrialist Georgy Yakovlevich Serebryakov in the Conditions of a Civil War

The publication is a biographical study dedicated to a prominent representative of the pre-revolutionary Siberian industrial and commercial bourgeoisie, tobacco manufacturer George Yakovlevich Serebryakov. The work illustrates the social adaptation of a person to the conditions of state and political disasters caused by the events of the Revolution and the Civil War in the east of Russia, using the example of the personality of this figure, very famous in the circles of commerce and power. Based on the specifics of the study the theory of social adaptation, as well as the historical and biographical method, became the methodological basis for the preparation of this article and determined its genre. A connection is made between the question presented in the study and the historiography of the problem, with an emphasis on unexplored plots in the biography of the hero of the story, which allows us to confirm the novelty of this publication. To write the article, a complex of historical sources was used, concentrated in the case of G.Ya. Serebryakov as a justice of the peace (from the funds of the Historical Archive of the Omsk Region) and criminal case 1920-1921 initiated by the Cheka in relation to our hero (from the archive of the FSB of Russia in the Omsk region). This work is addressed to researchers of social history, the Civil War in Russia, the repressive policies of the Soviet state at an early stage and genealogy-practices.

Established-Outsider Relations and 'Figurational' Analysis

In the introduction to this HSR Special Issue we provide an exposition and over- view of Elias and Scotson's Established and Outsiders, seeking to identify the empirical and conceptual significance of the relational model of inter-group tensions contained therein. Our core argument is that Elias and Scotson wrote in the historical context of a British intellectual Zeitgeist in which a preoccupa- tion with 'established' groups followed from proto-Marxist political/macro- sociological concerns with the reproduction of social elites; and an engage- ment with 'outsiders', which followed from an ascendant micro-sociological concern with sub-cultural and 'deviant' groups who defined themselves in op- position to a dominant mainstream. Elias and Scotson's contribution, viewed in this vein, was to provide a radically relational theoretical-empirical model which synthesised micro, meso and macro sociological concerns with social power dynamics into a unified synthetic scheme. We propose that while such a model is entirely consistent with the broader conceptual architecture of Elias's approach, it is important also to recognise the not insignificant influence of Scotson's empirical work in informing the specific concerns of their study. We further reflect upon the origins of the study and its implications for our more general methodological questions relating to undertaking 'figurational analysis' in the context of historical social research.

Mapping spatial cultures: contributions of space syntax to research in the urban history of the nineteenth-century city

AbstractThe theory and methods of space syntax can help to rebalance the prevailing cultural perspective, which views maps as ideological representations, with an analytical approach that emphasizes maps as sources for understanding space and spatial relationships embedded in built forms. The quantitative descriptions of urban street networks produced by space syntax analyses can be used to formulate and test hypotheses about patterns of urban movement, encounter and socio-economic activity in the past that can help in the interpretation of other historical source materials to give an overall account of urban spatial culture. In this article, the authors explain how space syntax, a theory and method originally developed in the field of architectural research, is making a distinctive contribution to research in social and urban history. The key principles of the method are explained by clarifying the relationship of space syntax to HGIS (Historical Geographical Information Systems) and through a worked example of research undertaken into political meeting places. A survey of research into the urban history of the nineteenth-century city using space syntax is used to highlight a number of important methodological themes and also demonstrates the range of innovative contributions that this interdisciplinary approach is able to advance. A final, theoretical, section reflects on maps and the practice of ‘mapping’ from a space syntax perspective.

Polish Sociology in the Face of Social and Political Changes of the 20th Century

The author of this essay deals with the specif‌icity of sociology in Poland, reaching for the book of Antoni Sułek A Mirror on the High Road. Chapters from the History of Social Research in Poland (2019). Chapters of this book taken as a set constitute a review of the key issues that Polish sociologists strived to tackle in the 20th century. For approximately half of the book (6 chapters) Sułek focuses on issues of Polish sociology from the mid-1950s to the turn of the 1990s: the f‌irst is the change of theoretical and methodological paradigms in Polish sociology in the second half of the 20th century; the second is the successes of Polish sociology, but also its weaknesses — the author devoted much space to the theoretical limitations that prevented sociologists from predicting the formation of Solidarity in 1980. The third topic is the historical analysis of surveys conducted in the last decade of communism — their reliability as well as social and political functions. Finally, Sułek’s vision of socially-involved sociology appears. The strength of such sociology lies in its methodology, with which specific phenomena can be correctly def‌ined, impartially analysed, and systematically investigated. And this in turn enables evidence-based debate and policy.