Social Science History

Social science history consists of two subjects: political history and economic and social history. Being a part of the Faculty of Social Sciences, social science history has developed a profile of its own as a unit of historical social science. This has included increased integration of research activities through the cooperation and common projects of the two subjects, the multi- and cross-disciplinary cooperation across department, faculty and university borders, including established cooperation between the history departments at the University of Helsinki, as well as participation in several national and international research programmes and networks.

Interdisciplinary research on work, the labour market, education, knowledge, social capital and the welfare state, as well as economic and trade policy has created a strong bond between political history and economic and social history, and between history and the other social and cultural sciences. Many researchers in both subjects also contribute to gender history, which is being regarded more and more as an integral part of any research project in political history as well as in economic and social history. Social Science History is the host institution of the Nordic Centre of Excellence NordWel (The Nordic Welfare State – Historical Foundations and Future Challenges), and several researchers of economic and social history as well as of political history are working in research projects within the NordWel framework. (http://blogs.helsinki.fi/nord-wel/)

Social science history has made use of and contributed to the current tendencies of convergence between history and the (other) social sciences. Consequently, explicit theoretical and methodological ambitions are characteristic of research in social science history. This often includes an attempt to create novel linkages between separate theoretical debates in the context of empirical historical topics. Much of this research can be characterised as contemporary history.

In political history, historical sensitivity to the political and cultural meanings given to the past is a through-going ambition in much of this research. The same holds true of the role of conceptual history, not only as a specific field of research, but also as an approach applied in connection with various research problems. The research project Finland looks at Germany is focusing on ideal pictures, identity, facing the “others” and even on enemy images connected with Germany. The multidisciplinary research project Historical Consciousness in Finland is surveying the conceptions of the past held by people living in Finland. The project aims to study what Finns think about the past and how their conceptions of the past influence their views of the present and their expectations of the future. (http://blogs.helsinki.fi/historical-consciousness)

In economic and social history, long-term economic and social development has been studied from various angles. For example, questions of economic growth as well as of poverty and social and economic crises have been areas of long-term interest. Lately, the history of management, the Finnish model of capitalism, and economic institutions (e.g., cartels and competition policy) have also come to the fore. The project Ten Generations – Three Centuries: A Finnish History as Family Stories focuses on the intergenerational transmission of occupation and social mobility from a historical perspective. The history of Finnish consumption (e.g., drinking, gambling and design) has also been studied from several perspectives, and ethnicity, social networks, and environmental history have long been key issues in economic and social history research.

Further information:
www.valt.helsinki.fi/yhis/english/research.htm