Abstract

In the past two decades the history of sexuality has experienced a significant development alongside a quick increase of perspectives and research methods. Nevertheless, although the cultural approaches have been very successful, we observe some difficulty in renewing the field rooted in the social history perspective.
After Philippe Ariès’s, Jean-Louis Flandrin’s or Michel Foucault’s groundbreaking works historians have often addressed the relationship between sexuality and power. Yet they have most often done so in a general and very abstract manner, proposing – as did Foucault or Laqueur – macro-historical models that ignored class differences or group-specific practices. Consequently, women and men actually having sexual intercourse have tended to disappear completely or to appear merely as subjects of state policies and scientific discourses or as masses reacting to economic and social evolutions. This is particularly true of women and men out from the lower and lower middle classes, about whom sources are most of the time scarce and fragmentary.
This orientation has resulted in historiography neglecting differences between local sexual cultures influenced by social and economic as well as political, religious or cultural factors.
Furthermore, several recent historical, sociological and anthropological studies have shown the interconnections between confessions or political ideologies and sexual behaviour in various situations, such as adoption, contraception or illicit conducts. This conference seeks further to explore the link between sexuality, politics and religion while taking into account cultural heritage as well as the actors’ and actresses’ own experiences and desires.
Besides, sexuality has always been considered to be bound to family and kin conceptions or to practices that have fundamental political and religious implications. The congress will be about the conceptualisation of these different historical fields.
This congress will further aim at renewing the work on relationships between politics, religions or kin and sexuality, favouring a social dimension: thus, it shall focus on practices, conditions of life and strategies concerning the protagonists’ sexual lives. In this perspective, the question of the legitimacy of certain ways of sexual behaviour will be addressed to assess the potentiality of social, political or cultural innovations through nonconformist or “deviant” sexual behaviour.
So, the reflection on the connections of political-religious spheres and ways of sexual behaviour shall not merely ask about state or church interventions with populations – top down – but also shed light on the actual effects of institutional policies on the studied groups, taking into account the interactions between social conducts, popular believes and actions by the authorities.
The outlook should take account of the diversity of social and historical contexts, as well as classes and “milieus”.

Approaches and questions
All contributions proposing a reflection about the relationship between sexuality, kinship and politics are welcome. The topics could be related - albeit not exclusively - to the following questions:
What possible sources, whether written or figurative, are likely to open up new perspectives in the field of the history of kinship and sexuality, related to politics?
What new approaches and methods, which a focus on actors of sexual life and including the political dimension, have proven their worth?
Are some conceptions of family and kinship, or practices in these fields, linked with specific behaviour patterns or sexual characteristics?
What was the actual impact of policies implemented by the authorities on selected groups?
Can political, religious or ideological factors help to explain the differences between several sexual cultures?
How did political or religious ideologies influence sexual attitudes among selected groups?
To what extent did the strategies used by the actors of sexual life (for example in the field of illicit sexuality, contraception or homosexuality) produce specific political answers? Can we speak about interactions between powers and actual social groups? So, could sexual policies have been an answer to a social demand?
Are the construction and the evolution of political and sexual identities linked with specific political or religious conceptions?
Did the creation of specific sexual “milieus” have an impact on cultural or religious policies?

Practical information :

Please, submit your abstract (apr. 2500 signs) to Sandro.Guzzi-Heeb@unil.ch until 30.11.2016
Contributions can be made either in English or French (and possibly German).
Supervisor: Sandro Guzzi-Heeb, Université de Lausanne.
Organisation : Sandro Guzzi-Heeb, Aline Johner, Chiara Mascitti, Lucas Rappo (Université de Lausanne), Loraine Chappuis (Université de Genève)