Welcome to the Social History Society

Global Markets and Social Orders

Markets and societies are ever-changing systems of resource allocation and aggregates of relationships between individuals and groups. As such, market orders and social orders need legitimisation and are often the subject of attempts to reify social and economic relationships. Yet, equally, they have been open to forms of change, conflict and experimentation. This strand invites papers that study processes of “ordering” market and social relationships from the Middle Ages to the present. Papers are welcome which focus on specific situations in the past or the present that highlight how people as producers, employers, employees, consumers, voters, market actors, citizens etc., have been allocated their place within a given order or challenged their place within it. Issues addressed in this strand include, amongst others

• globalisation in world history
• divergence, ‘core-periphery’ and other models in global history
• civil society and challenges to the legitimacy of the global economic and political order
• intellectuals, social critique and the making (or unmaking) of social and market orders
• global stewardship, the ethics of consumption, social standards, sustainability and environmentalism
• the role of the state within the global order.

The strand explicitly encourages speakers to reflect on the theoretical frameworks offered, for example, by Foucauldian and post-colonial studies, political economy, critical social theory, and material culture studies. Speakers are also encouraged to submit papers with a global and/or comparative perspective.

Strand Convenors:
Stefan Schwarzkopf: s.schwarzkopf@qmul.ac.uk
Giorgio Riello: g.riello@warwick.ac.uk
Donna Loftus: d.loftus@open.ac.uk

Enquiries about specific strands should be addressed to the relevant Strand Convenors.
For general enquiries about the conference, please contact Linda Persson, the Administrative Secretary: L.Persson@lancaster.ac.uk

Papers presented at the Conference can be submitted to the Society’s journal, Cultural and Social History, to be considered for publication. For details, see
http://www.socialhistory.gellius.net/Journal.php