New Methods and Concepts for a Practice-Oriented History

This project will:Develop new ways of conceptualizing and mapping change over time that make use of information on practices. The pair ´task-oriented´ and ´occupations-oriented´ societies are examples of concepts to be tested.Develop new methods for linking historical practice data (in the form of verb-phrases) to other data (demographic, probate) in ways that optimize their usefulness and comparabilityApply and compare the usefulness of this approach in different European societies. Northern, eastern and southern Europe will be studied. Contribute to the digital humanities by expanding an existing database and working closely across disciplines (history, linguistics, science)The project has two main parts: Part A maps macro-level change by looking at work “variants” and if and how constellations of variants (expressed as verb-phrases) have changed over time. We also compare verb-phrase data to occupational descriptors. Part B gauges the importance of multiple sources of income on the micro level, i.e. with the help of four local case studies. Part B will dominate the first half of the project and part A will dominate the second part of the project.