Project acronym CASTELLANY ACCOUNTS
Project Record-keeping, fiscal reform, and the rise of institutional accountability in late-medieval Savoy: a source-oriented approach
Researcher (PI) Ionut Epurescu-Pascovici
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITATEA DIN BUCURESTI
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH6, ERC-2014-STG
Summary The present research project focuses on an unjustly neglected corpus of late-medieval sources, the administrative and fiscal accounts (‘computi’) of the castellanies – basic administrative units – of the county of Savoy. I propose a holistic model of analysis that can fully capitalise on the unusual wealth of detail of the Savoyard source material, in order to illuminate some key topics in late-medieval institutional and socio-economic history, from the development of state institutions through administrative and fiscal reform – with particular attention to the transition from personal to institutional accountability – to the question of socio-economic growth, decline, and recovery during the turbulent period of the late-thirteenth to the late-fourteenth century. More broadly, my research into these topics aims to contribute to our understanding of the late-medieval origins of European modernity. The advances of pragmatic literacy, record-keeping, and auditing practices will be analysed with the aid of anthropological and social scientific theories of practice. By comparing the Savoyard ‘computi’ with their sources of inspiration, from the Anglo-Norman pipe rolls to the Catalan fiscal records, the project aims to highlight the creative adaptation of imported administrative models, and thus to contribute to our knowledge of institutional transfers in European history. The project will develop an inclusive frame of analysis in which the ‘computi’ will be read against the evidence from enfeoffment charters, castellany surveys (‘extente’), and the records of direct taxation (‘subsidia’). The serial data will be analysed by building a database; the findings of quantitative analysis will be verified by case studies of the individuals and families (many from the middle social strata) that surface in the fiscal records.
Summary
The present research project focuses on an unjustly neglected corpus of late-medieval sources, the administrative and fiscal accounts (‘computi’) of the castellanies – basic administrative units – of the county of Savoy. I propose a holistic model of analysis that can fully capitalise on the unusual wealth of detail of the Savoyard source material, in order to illuminate some key topics in late-medieval institutional and socio-economic history, from the development of state institutions through administrative and fiscal reform – with particular attention to the transition from personal to institutional accountability – to the question of socio-economic growth, decline, and recovery during the turbulent period of the late-thirteenth to the late-fourteenth century. More broadly, my research into these topics aims to contribute to our understanding of the late-medieval origins of European modernity. The advances of pragmatic literacy, record-keeping, and auditing practices will be analysed with the aid of anthropological and social scientific theories of practice. By comparing the Savoyard ‘computi’ with their sources of inspiration, from the Anglo-Norman pipe rolls to the Catalan fiscal records, the project aims to highlight the creative adaptation of imported administrative models, and thus to contribute to our knowledge of institutional transfers in European history. The project will develop an inclusive frame of analysis in which the ‘computi’ will be read against the evidence from enfeoffment charters, castellany surveys (‘extente’), and the records of direct taxation (‘subsidia’). The serial data will be analysed by building a database; the findings of quantitative analysis will be verified by case studies of the individuals and families (many from the middle social strata) that surface in the fiscal records.
Max ERC Funding
671 875 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-05-01, End date: 2020-04-30
Project acronym CLIMSEC
Project Climate Variability and Security Threats
Researcher (PI) Halvard Buhaug
Host Institution (HI) INSTITUTT FOR FREDSFORSKNING STIFTELSE
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH2, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary Recent uprisings across the world have accentuated claims that food insecurity is an important trigger of political violence. Is the Arab Spring representative of a general climate-conflict pattern, where severe droughts and other climate anomalies are a key driving force? Research to date has failed to conclude on a robust relationship but several notable theoretical and methodological shortcomings limit inference. CLIMSEC will address these research gaps. It asks: How does climate variability affect dynamics of political violence? This overarching research question will be addressed through the accomplishment of four key objectives: (1) Investigate how food security impacts of climate variability affect political violence; (2) Investigate how economic impacts of climate variability affect political violence; (3) Conduct short-term forecasts of political violence in response to food and economic shocks; and (4) Develop a comprehensive, testable theoretical model of security implications of climate variability. To achieve these objectives, CLIMSEC will advance the research frontier on theoretical as well as analytical accounts. Central in this endeavor is conceptual and empirical disaggregation. Instead of assuming states and calendar years as unitary and fixed entities, the project proposes causal processes that act at multiple temporal and spatial scales, involve various types of actors, and lead to very different forms of outcomes depending on the context. The empirical component will make innovative use of new geo - referenced data and methods; focus on a broad range of insecurity outcomes, including non-violent resistance; and combine rigorous statistical models with out-of-sample simulations and qualitative case studies for theorizing and validation of key findings. Based at PRIO, the project will be led by Research Professor Halvard Buhaug, a leading scholar on climate change and security with strong publication record and project management experience.
Summary
Recent uprisings across the world have accentuated claims that food insecurity is an important trigger of political violence. Is the Arab Spring representative of a general climate-conflict pattern, where severe droughts and other climate anomalies are a key driving force? Research to date has failed to conclude on a robust relationship but several notable theoretical and methodological shortcomings limit inference. CLIMSEC will address these research gaps. It asks: How does climate variability affect dynamics of political violence? This overarching research question will be addressed through the accomplishment of four key objectives: (1) Investigate how food security impacts of climate variability affect political violence; (2) Investigate how economic impacts of climate variability affect political violence; (3) Conduct short-term forecasts of political violence in response to food and economic shocks; and (4) Develop a comprehensive, testable theoretical model of security implications of climate variability. To achieve these objectives, CLIMSEC will advance the research frontier on theoretical as well as analytical accounts. Central in this endeavor is conceptual and empirical disaggregation. Instead of assuming states and calendar years as unitary and fixed entities, the project proposes causal processes that act at multiple temporal and spatial scales, involve various types of actors, and lead to very different forms of outcomes depending on the context. The empirical component will make innovative use of new geo - referenced data and methods; focus on a broad range of insecurity outcomes, including non-violent resistance; and combine rigorous statistical models with out-of-sample simulations and qualitative case studies for theorizing and validation of key findings. Based at PRIO, the project will be led by Research Professor Halvard Buhaug, a leading scholar on climate change and security with strong publication record and project management experience.
Max ERC Funding
1 996 945 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-09-01, End date: 2020-08-31
Project acronym LITTLE TOOLS
Project Enacting the Good Economy: Biocapitalization and the little tools of valuation
Researcher (PI) Kristin Asdal
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITETET I OSLO
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2014-STG
Summary What shall we live off in the future? Where will our food come from, and what will form the basis for our economies? A so-called “blue revolution”, where fish become farmed rather than caught, is increasingly presented as an answer to the above questions. This transformation of the economy exemplifies ongoing efforts to produce new forms of capital out of the ordering and reordering of life. These processes are intimately related to the expanding life sciences, the bioeconomy and what is sometimes called new forms of biocapital.
But how do such large transformations take place in actual practice, and by which means? This project argues that if we are to understand such major transformations we need to study “little tools”, that is, material-semiotic entities that carefully modify and work upon bodies, markets and science.
Emerging bioeconomies are expected not only to produce economic value but also to enact values in other ways that contribute to what this project refers to as “the good economy”. Such values include enabling sustainable fisheries, secure animal welfare or sustainable growth.
The main hypothesis of the current project is that the enactment of the good economy can be studied by valuation practices performed by material-semiotic little tools. The project will explore this hypothesis at multiple sites for biocapitalization: science, the market, policy and funding institutions. This project will focus on how these interact and encounter one another. The aim is twofold: first, to provide new empirical insights about how biocapitalization processes are enacted in practice and at strategic sites, using cross-disciplinary methods from actor-network theory, the humanities and economic sociology; second to contribute analytically and methodologically to the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) by drawing on resources from economic sociology and the humanities in order to provide an analytical framework for comprehending biocapitalization practices.
Summary
What shall we live off in the future? Where will our food come from, and what will form the basis for our economies? A so-called “blue revolution”, where fish become farmed rather than caught, is increasingly presented as an answer to the above questions. This transformation of the economy exemplifies ongoing efforts to produce new forms of capital out of the ordering and reordering of life. These processes are intimately related to the expanding life sciences, the bioeconomy and what is sometimes called new forms of biocapital.
But how do such large transformations take place in actual practice, and by which means? This project argues that if we are to understand such major transformations we need to study “little tools”, that is, material-semiotic entities that carefully modify and work upon bodies, markets and science.
Emerging bioeconomies are expected not only to produce economic value but also to enact values in other ways that contribute to what this project refers to as “the good economy”. Such values include enabling sustainable fisheries, secure animal welfare or sustainable growth.
The main hypothesis of the current project is that the enactment of the good economy can be studied by valuation practices performed by material-semiotic little tools. The project will explore this hypothesis at multiple sites for biocapitalization: science, the market, policy and funding institutions. This project will focus on how these interact and encounter one another. The aim is twofold: first, to provide new empirical insights about how biocapitalization processes are enacted in practice and at strategic sites, using cross-disciplinary methods from actor-network theory, the humanities and economic sociology; second to contribute analytically and methodologically to the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) by drawing on resources from economic sociology and the humanities in order to provide an analytical framework for comprehending biocapitalization practices.
Max ERC Funding
1 495 079 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-09-01, End date: 2020-08-31
Project acronym LuxFaSS
Project Luxury, fashion and social status in Early Modern South Eastern Europe
Researcher (PI) Constanta Vintila-Ghitulescu
Host Institution (HI) FUNDATIA NOUA EUROPA
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH6, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary It is hard to give a broadly acceptable definition of the concept of luxury, which as a field of study has also been largely neglected by historians and sociologists. From a moral or philosophical point of view, luxury is seen as a form of decadence, although from the economic perspective it is seen as a force that drives development of the consumerist economy. Every society knows it in some form, regardless of the degree of economic development, reserving luxury to elite groups, who show their power and pomp through the display of luxury goods. The history of luxury is therefore, from this perspective, a history of power, reflecting the syncretism of cultural and political thought. Luxury and fashion as components of material culture can also be analysed through the lens of cultural history, since they play an important role in the creation of visual culture. This project proposes to analyse the Christian elites of Ottoman-dominated Europe in the Early Modern period from these perspectives, and to look at how they defined their social status and identity at the intersection of East and West. In such an analysis, the Westernisation of South-Eastern Europe proceeds not just through the spread of Enlightenment ideas and the influence of the French Revolution, but also through changes in visual culture brought about by Western influence on notions of luxury and fashion. This approach allows a closer appreciation of the synchronicities and time lags between traditional culture, developments in political thought and social change in the context of the modernisation or “Europeanization” of this part of Europe.
Summary
It is hard to give a broadly acceptable definition of the concept of luxury, which as a field of study has also been largely neglected by historians and sociologists. From a moral or philosophical point of view, luxury is seen as a form of decadence, although from the economic perspective it is seen as a force that drives development of the consumerist economy. Every society knows it in some form, regardless of the degree of economic development, reserving luxury to elite groups, who show their power and pomp through the display of luxury goods. The history of luxury is therefore, from this perspective, a history of power, reflecting the syncretism of cultural and political thought. Luxury and fashion as components of material culture can also be analysed through the lens of cultural history, since they play an important role in the creation of visual culture. This project proposes to analyse the Christian elites of Ottoman-dominated Europe in the Early Modern period from these perspectives, and to look at how they defined their social status and identity at the intersection of East and West. In such an analysis, the Westernisation of South-Eastern Europe proceeds not just through the spread of Enlightenment ideas and the influence of the French Revolution, but also through changes in visual culture brought about by Western influence on notions of luxury and fashion. This approach allows a closer appreciation of the synchronicities and time lags between traditional culture, developments in political thought and social change in the context of the modernisation or “Europeanization” of this part of Europe.
Max ERC Funding
1 437 500 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-07-01, End date: 2020-06-30
