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Home > Activities > Committees >Committee on Historical Demography

International Seminar on Kinship and Demographic Behavior

International Seminar on Vulnerable Populations: Definitions, Categories and Empirical Analysis organized by the IUSSP Scientific Committee on Historical Demography and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Social (EHESS) Paris, 15-16 July 2005

Call For Papers

Over the last two decades, the expression "vulnerable population" has become increasingly commonplace to designate very different groups. Popularly, the term refers to people under the threat of such natural disasters as hurricanes, earthquakes, and flooding. Demographically, the term refers to populations defined by specific social or economic characteristics - unwanted children, lonely mothers, widows, the elderly, the poor, and various racial and ethnic groups - that suffer greater risks of morbidity and mortality than wealthier and more privileged populations. Populations experiencing significant pressures on marriage and fertility are also demographically vulnerable. The lack of common definitions can lead to considerable confusion. In November 1999, for example, when the WHO/SEARO Regional Conference of Parliamentarians on the Health of Vulnerable Populations sought to define vulnerable populations they enumerated children, women, aborigines, landless peasants, day workers, illiterates, and the handicapped.
The IUSSP Committee on Historical Demography is hoping to make a significant contribution to the way we define vulnerability and measure its consequences by investigating vulnerable populations in different periods and in different world regions. We welcome proposals for both qualitative and quantitative studies of vulnerable populations in the distant past, the more recent past, and the present. We especially encourage critical approaches to the term vulnerability, that examine how different social and institutional systems defined the vulnerable and in so doing protected and assisted some while excluding others. What were the reasons for these decisions and what were their social and political consequences? What were the levels and mechanisms of assistance? Who was covered? We also welcome papers that focus on processes - social, economic, demographic, political, and familial - that created vulnerable populations. How important were life course changes in creating vulnerable populations? What effect did economic change, war, imperialism, and colonization have on the vulnerable? Did common processes in different times and places produce similar vulnerable populations? Finally, we encourage papers that analyze the consequences of vulnerability. What was the risk of mortality and morbidity among the vulnerable? How well were vulnerable populations protected?

The IUSSP Scientific Committee on Historical Demography invites researchers in the field to submit a 200-word abstract and curriculum vitae before February 1, 2005 to Patrice Bourdelais (Patrice.Bourdelais@ehess.fr ) with a copy to Caroline Baros (Caroline.Baros@ehess.fr ). While participants are encouraged to seek their own travel funding, the organizers will support the stay in Paris for all participants.

Program Committee: Patrice Bourdelais, chair (EHESS, Paris), James Lee (University of Michigan), Andrew Blaikie (Aberdeen University), Myron Gutmann (University of Michigan), David Hacker (Binghamton University-SUNY).