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Thank you for your great poster! And congratulations for your PhD thesis. This conference has made me think about the concept of agency and its definitions. What parts or elements of human life are not agency? Can we call submission or compliance (not going against parents) as agency? I don’t know if these questions have any relevance in your study, but I coudn’t help asking them.
Thank you for congratulations, comments and questions Pirjo! I think that we can consider submission or compliance agency if it is a way to reach a goal that a person pursued.
Thank you for your presentation! I liked that your research is on both men and women – I would imagine it opens a more rounded view on agency. Finding a way into a topic is exciting, and I think you have found it in researching premarital relationships. Good luck with your doctoral defence!
Thank you Heidi for your kind remarks and encouragement!
Dear Mari,
thanks for your poster! I liked your contextualization of agency and your gender perspective. I think the intersectional approach may offer new ways to re-think agency and its role in historical explanations.
Thank you Sari!
Dear Mari,
Thanks for an informative paper. I liked the way you discussed subordination (or using the rhetoric of subordination) as both a form and a restriction/limitation of agency. Since your research is almost complete so you may be in a position to think about it in the light of Mona Gleeson’s keynote regarding significance: how necessary is having agency to having significance in history?
Thank you Raisa for a very good question! For which I unfortunately do not have a solid or straightforward answer.
I agree with Mona Gleason on that the matter depends on how we determine agency and especially how we determine significance in history. Historians have in many ways already shown that people with very little power such as children and youth, women, people who were enslaved, racialized people and people with disabilities had agency. Of course there is the risk of the agency trap, i.e. we find agency when we look for it (or don’t find it) and this gives meaning for the group of people or a phenomenon in the past we are studying. To turn our attention to experience is one and most likely very fruitful way of avoiding the trap. Another one is to concider how we determine agency.
I consider that every human being deserves their place in history and thus have historical significance. Their significance depends on the scale and focus of the historical study. If we look at a little boy in a peasant village in Swedish countryside and his significance to the thirty years war, we may find that he did not contribute to the war very much. But if we consider his place with in a family, to his family members or how the family considered his wellfare and opinions, he most likely had a great significance. This may be a very self-evident or simplistic viewpoint, but it is how I see the situation.
In my study on the 17th century young men and women I have found that even in cases where people were in a subordinated position, they could use their position and argument from that viewpoint. Agency was connected to negotiation and influencing rather than openly contradicting the authorities. Thus their agency is not about going against their elders and authorities but by trying to influence them. This is a subtle way to influence on people around you who make decisions concerning you. In this way the people were part of their communities and had historical significance.
I would also like to ask how we as historians give meanings to and value agency. Having agency was important for people in the past and it explains their place, deeds and interactions within a community, but it does not need to determine our history writing. Agency should be a concept that is used to analyse the lives of people in the past not a concept that we use to motivate our postmodern day history writing or understanding of historical significance.
The agency of young women and men in university towns in the 17th century is a great topic, especially relationships and how they argued in the court of law. I like that you are trying to understand both young men and women at the same time. The intersectionality of age, place in community and family, marital status, etc. is important too. It seems your study could be in a good position to comment on how agency must not be understood only in terms of the individual. Any thoughts on this?
Heidi Morrison
10.3.2021 17:26
Thank you Heidi for a very good question! Actually, in my thesis I also discuss the agency of institutions which in this case means the academic consistories of the universities. Roger Smith have written on institutional agency and Peter Seixas on collective agency. Based on their work I have analysed the agency of young women and men as well as the institutions from the viewpoint of interaction.
Mari Välimäki
10.3.2021 19:27