2020.06.30 Economic Crisis and Biopolitics: The Outbreak’s Pattern within Interwar Sources

Considering that History is not a suitable field for evaluating the experiences of the present, but is a reference axis for their reflection, the central thematic of the seminar is the utilization of infectious diseases in order to apply techno-economic models of centralized character. Attempts will also be made to highlight aspects of economic policy - especially in times of recession - in the light of health crises. More specifically, during the Greek interwar period, the organization of health services (as well as the stabilization of the country's public finances) is related to the action of the League of Nations, as far as the project of refugee settlement is concerned, as is known from the present state of art. But what is the role of the Greek State or local actors before, but also after, the period of the intercession of international institutions?

The material of the seminar seeks to highlight the interaction between global and local, but also the concurrence of theory with the documentary material, which are two of the main methodological axes of the TransMonEA project.

 Catherine Bregianni 

Economy and transnational health policies, with an emphasis on the Great Depression.

Short historiographical accounts and new sources of the Financial Committee of the League of Nations.

The historiographical approaches of the epidemics emphasized the demographic and economic changes that they brought about, especially in Early Modern European History (see mainly the studies of E. LeRoy Ladurie). Annales School's emphasis in the study of epidemics is based on the fact that the ruptures they bring to both the economy and society are ultimately evolving in the longue durée: this approach enables us to investigate deeper into economic centralized policies in the framework  of biopolitics (Foucault,2004).

In more recent times, transnational health policies are in line with the management of the economic space: the example of  the League of Nations as an actor in health policies during the Greek interwar is indicative of the homogenized  management of the economy and social welfare, while the implementation of early health policies framed the evolution of state mechanisms in Greece (Gardikas, 2018).

 Nikos Tompros 

Pandemics in local level: The Flu of 1918 in Patras and the recording of its economic and social effects on the archival material. 

The research on the 1918 flu epidemic in Patras, the deadliest epidemic that hit the city in the 20th century, aims to capture the economic, social and psychological consequences of an epidemic outbreak in a local community at the end of World War I., their duration and, finally, the policy pursued by the public authorities to deal with the disease. The case study of Patras will be linked to the global spread of the Spanish flu in the historical context of the A’ World War, while the demographic changes caused by the disease in the microscale of the region will be examined.

 Manolis Arkolakis 

Industrial Revolution and the Formation of the Welfare State: the Turning Points, from the German Economic Protectionism of the late 19th century to the Interwar Period.

According to Polanyi, the welfare state at the end of the 19th century - and the social protection policies that gradually supported it - came as a result of society's reaction to the effects of economic liberalism. Foucault, on the other hand, has been focusing on public health control and regulation policies since the late 18th century, focusing his analysis on health care initially on mechanisms such as the military sector. But can supposedly conflicting approaches be productive in a specific historical analysis? The examination of a legislative corpus of the Greek State regarding the formation of an embryonic form of the welfare state during the interwar period, perhaps, could help in answering the question.

 Video of seminar: https://youtu.be/jK_lhjB-qEE