CFP: Compensations: claims, assessments and public policy, a forthcoming special issue of Histoire & Mesure


The peer-referred journal Histoire & Mesure is planning a study day and a special issue on the topic of reparations and compensations. The journal is calling for papers about reparations and the methods of compensation after the destruction or destitution of private or collective property (monuments, buildings, regions). This topic will be considered with reference to the role and action of public authorities (political, military, or any other collective organisation) involved in the process of assessing and compensating, partially of fully, claims for compensation.
While this call for papers is open to inter-disciplinary approaches, including legal, economic and cultural aspects, proposals are expected to specifically address the methods used or developed for assessing claims.
Authors might want to investigate the initial procedures for dealing with claims: are criterias/methods for assessing/evaluating the destructions and damages specifically devised to start the procedure in compensation?
Authors might also want to focus on the evaluation/measure of the destructions and their compensation: how to value/ negotiate compensations, what are the units/scales of measure used, what equivalents can be used (monetary or others)? What is the impact of the procedures for assessing the damages on the development of knowledge and new expertise?
Please note that this call for papers excludes topics in relation to insurances and health security; also all papers must have a strong historical approach.

Key questions and themes to be discusses include (non-exhaustive list):
  • Expropriation: c18 and c19 public works (canals, roads, railways); modern urban development  or re-development.
  • Earthquakes (since Antiquity) and urban fires (since the Middle Ages/Early modern history).
  • Wars and reparations: WWI had a major impact in international discussions on reparations and indemnities through the forms of property damaged or destroyed (industrial and cultural) and the use of experts. Proposals to study similar war compensations in pre and post WWI are welcome.
  • Decolonisation and the compensations of colonists and colonised.
  • Destitution and restitution of the private or collective property of displaced/persecuted peoples (including populations from the former USSR).

The editorial board will select the proposals (to be submitted either in French or English) to a study day which will be held in Paris in April 2012. The deadline for sending the proposals is September 15, 2011. Proposals must not be longer than one side of an A4. Please attach a short CV (including your email, address and your academic institution). Authors will be informed of the outcome of this call for papers by the end of October 2011.

Further to the study day, the editorial board will select a number of papers which will have the opportunity to be published as per-referred articles (max. 70,000 characters) in a special thematic issue of Histoire & Mesure.

Please send a copy of your proposal to:
Morgane Labbé           morgane.labbe@ehess.fr
Alessandro Stanziani alessandro.stanziani@ehess.fr
Anne-Sophie Bruno  annesophie.bruno@gmail.com
Anne Varet-Vitu         anne.vitu@ehess.fr

Further information about Histoire & Mesure is available at http://histoiremesure.revues.org

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Christelle Rabier
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The London School of Econonomics and Political Science
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