Call for abstracts
Panel at the 2026 ESHS/HSS Joint Meeting
We are looking for one or two co-panellists to join our organised session provisionally titled 'Gender and labour in healthcare infrastructure in the long eighteenth century' at the 2026 Joint Meeting of the European Society for the History of Science (ESHS) and the History of Science Society (HSS) hosted by the University of Edinburgh, 13–16 July 2026 (Full details: https://hssonline.org/page/2026cfp).
This panel explores how gendered labour built and sustained healthcare infrastructure in the long eighteenth century. Who performed the work of healing, caring, and maintaining health—and under what conditions? From midwives and nurses to enslaved caregivers, hospital servants, and family members, much of this labour has been rendered 'natural' and thus devalued. What intellectual and religious discourses naturalized certain forms of labour, and what role did the emergence of a 'free' labour market play in reshaping healthcare practices?
Drawing on recent scholarship connecting the history of science with labour history, and on the entanglements of care and capitalism, we ask how attention to gender and work can deepen our understanding of medical practice and knowledge production—and how health history, in turn, can illuminate broader transformations in labour relations during a period of economic transformation and social dislocation.
We welcome papers from any geographic context and encourage contributions that cross historical sub-disciplines. Potential topics include:
- the gendering of healing practices and medical labour
- spatial and ecological approaches to sites of care
- care work across different labour regimes (e.g. slavery, serfdom, wage-labour)
- histories of extra-institutional support networks and mutual aid
- recovering the work of marginalised healers and caregivers
Please send a 200-word abstract and short bio by Monday 3 November 2025 to: eliska.bujokova@glasgow.ac.uk and marek.maj@eui.eu
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