Introduction: Raising the Nation

Barron, Hester; Siebrecht, Claudia

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-34084-5_1

Cited by 2 publications

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“…22 A recent edited collection by Hester Barron and Claudia Siebrecht, Parenting and the State in Britain and Europe, c. 1870-1950 (2017), has also been significant in this trend, showing the benefits of comparing democratic and fascist regimes across Europe, and of centring parents as units of analysis. 23 This analysis aims to subvert and challenge accounts by, for example, Emile Durkheim, Michel Foucault ormore recently -Nikolas Rose, which placed families, citizens and children as objects within national, psychological and educational interventionsabsorbing and reflecting, rather than reshaping, social and cultural norms.…”

Section: Redefining Familymentioning

confidence: 99%

Agents of Change? Families, Welfare and Democracy in Mid-to-Late Twentieth-Century Europe

Crane

2023

Contemporary European History

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Families have always been vulnerable. They have long been torn apart by the mass migrations of warfare, the oppression of minority groups, the closure of international borders and the refugee crises governed ‘from above’. Families have also always been powerful symbols. Nationalist–populist movements have capitalised on fears about familial decline and liberal democracies have built moralistic views of the family into their welfare systems. Yet, this special issue aims to demonstrate that families have not merely been objects or subjects buffeted by political and social change. Rather, families have also consistently acted as ‘agents of change’. This is not to valorise the family – families have been patriarchal, damaging and oppressive as well as supportive, empowering and caring. However, this is to say that historical work must take ‘the family’ seriously as an active participant in shaping historical change.

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Section: Redefining Familymentioning

confidence: 99%

Agents of Change? Families, Welfare and Democracy in Mid-to-Late Twentieth-Century Europe

Crane

2023

Contemporary European History

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“…26 Of course, the family was not 'discovered' in 1945: the 'family unit [has long been seen] as a building block of state power', one around which images of nationhood have been continually created. 27 The family could be used within nations to both include and exclude. 28 But, as Tara Zahra argues, the family did become more ideologically significant after the liberation of Europe in 1945.…”

Section: Family Reunion In Post-war Europementioning

confidence: 99%

‘There is No Icebreaker like a Tiny Child’: Reuniting British Military Families in Cold War Germany

Huxford

2022

Contemporary European History

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Family reunion had a deeply practical and symbolic significance in post-war Europe. Through the case study of British military families living in Germany, this article examines both official discourse and families’ own experiences of reunion and life overseas in the first decades of the Cold War, through the three national but also international visions of the family: as emblems of familial and domestic stability, as ‘unofficial ambassadors’ promoting European unity and as friendly faces of Western democracy. In all cases, the article shows the ways that official messages were embraced, subverted or ignored by families, highlighting the value of exploring context-specific agency. Military families seemingly lived in a world of limited choices, but a range of life narratives show how they came to see aspects of their family life as resolutely theirs.

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Introduction: Raising the Nation

Cited by 2 publications

References 0 publications

Agents of Change? Families, Welfare and Democracy in Mid-to-Late Twentieth-Century Europe

Agents of Change? Families, Welfare and Democracy in Mid-to-Late Twentieth-Century Europe

‘There is No Icebreaker like a Tiny Child’: Reuniting British Military Families in Cold War Germany

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