Preliminary Programme

This paper explores the role that the concept of psychological trauma played in psychiatric, political and cultural discourses of socialist and post-socialist Yugoslavia. It places Yugoslav psychiatric and non-psychiatric debates in a broader European and global context, asking how the socialist revolution and language of socialist reconstruction affected perceptions, expressions and narratives of psychological pain. The paper zooms in on two important wartime and postwar periods in the 20th century – the post-WWII years and the 1990s. It explores the conditions that enabled psychiatric silences, broader cultural and literary expressions of suffering, as well as the use of the medical language of trauma to articulate politically controversial issues which could not otherwise be expressed. Finally, the paper traces the trajectory of universalizing trauma discourses in Eastern Europe, asking how they were translated, adapted and resisted. (Show less)

In May 1979, 120 women from each of the five Nordic countries convened in Kungälv, Sweden, for a conference hosted by Nordiske kvinners bygga och planforum (Nordic Women’s Building and Planning Forum). The Kungälv meeting was one of a series of conferences held from the late 1970s on that provided important forums for feminist planners and architects to share ideas and strategies during a time when women had entered the built environment professions in larger numbers than ever before. Several influential organizations and research groups with an explicit focus on both the built environment and women’s role in society formed as a result, such as the pan-Nordic Forskargruppen för det nya vardagslivet (Research Group for the New Everyday Life). Attention to these feminist platforms allows for asking: Where and how did the points of crossover between Nordic women’s movements and feminist spatial planning occur? And how does the use of oral history methods to reclaim and interrogate these connections change our understanding of the history of women’s activism?

While such substantial questions have been addressed within the scholarship on feminism in the Nordic region and as part of the historiography of postmodernism in architecture, this paper draws more specifically on oral history narratives from women who were active in developing feminist knowledge with relevance to architecture and urban planning during the 1970s and 1980s. Oral histories allow for tracing how women translated feminist principles into alternative visions of the built environment and made room for women’s perspectives in professional discourse. By participating in housing activism, formulating design proposals, conducting research, and publishing reports, feminist planners and architects explicitly tied ideas from the women’s movement about social reproduction, care, and the economy to the (re)production of the built environment. The focus on everyday urban life across the Nordic countries allowed them to identify and challenge prevailing norms embedded in housing design, city planning, and social society more broadly, as well as increasing possibilities for providing funding and visibility for feminist work. Even as they collaborated across national boundaries in the Nordic region, activists maintained a focus on their various local contexts, and we examine these networks and their effects through a selection of events, collectives, and initiatives. Oral history narratives are particularly suited for unpacking these complex stories of motivation, translation, and agency that rooted everyday life and social activism in the built environment. (Show less)

The presentation deals with the importance of individual decisions and professional activities during the Estonian transition to democracy from 1990 to 1993.
The key factor in the transformation process in the 1990ties was the previous historical experience of independence and confidence in self-governance – in the aftermath of World War I and the Russian revolutions, the Republic of Estonia was established in 1918. In 1940, Estonia was occupied and annexed by the Soviet Union and regained its independence in 1991. The restoration of the Republic of Estonia and the transition to democracy brought about major changes in the state and legal life. After the Soviet period, the principles of Western legal culture were once again taken as models, and fundamental legal reforms were carried out efficiently in a very short time compared to Europe and the rest of the world.
In 2020-2021, to document explicit memories and perceptions, we interviewed Estonian judges and lawmakers (25 persons) who shaped the state and institution building. Through these interviews, the importance of (sometimes incidental) chances of central actors in the state-building appears. These stories show how crucial courage and openness to new ideas were in this decision-making and the impact of individual contacts in the turmoil of the 1990s.
Our presentation discusses how individuals influenced nation-building in the transition and shaped the current Estonian state and its legal thinking. (Show less)