TIC-Collaborative is a collaborative digital humanities project, focusing on transnational ‘Intellectual Cooperation’ (TIC) in the long nineteenth century in general and transnational connections in the field of ‘social reform’ in particular. Using a Virtual Research Environment for the study of international connections, this project opens new perspectives on the history of social reform in and beyond the Low Countries in the period 1840-1940.
The sub-collaborative TIC Belgium focusses in particular on the networks of Low Country social and legal reformers. At a European level, the project shows the ways in which local and national welfare policies and legal regimes emerged in this period and demonstrates that such innovations were deeply embedded in transnational networks. The overall aim of the project is to demonstrate the interconnectedness of local activism, national reform agendas and the transnational circulation of ideas and practices related to welfare and legal reform, and to make an empirical contribution to the understanding of the transnational field of social and legal reform as both a social and discursive field. The project TIC-Belgium aims to demonstrate this, firstly, by looking at the range and relative strength of domestic, national and transnational ties of a carefully selected focus group and secondly, by examining the ‘mental maps’ of the reformers in question, as these can be gleaned from reform discourses in the development of welfare provisions and social change from the 19th century to the First World War.
This project is a BELSPO funded Brain-be project (Belgian Research Action through Interdisciplinary Networks), involving the following partners:
- Universiteit Gent, Research Unit Social History since 1750 / Ghent Center for Digital Humanities (coordination prof. dr. Christophe Verbruggen)
- Universiteit Maastricht (prof. dr. Nico Randeraad)
- Université catholique Louvain, Centre d’histoire du droit et de la justice (prof. dr. Xavier Rousseaux)
- Université libre de Bruxelles ReSIC- Research Center in Information and Communication (prof. dr. Seth Van Hooland )
- State Archives (prof.dr. Karel Velle)
Coordination team
Xavier Rousseaux (promotor), Jonas Campion
Researcher
Amandine Thiry (PhD Student)
Planning
October 2013 - December 2017
Funding
Belgian Science Policy (Belspo), programme Brain.be