Social Movements and Political Representation

Another field of research strength is social movements and political representation. Bi-monthly meetings of our core group of fourteen colleagues, PhD students and research Masters students, provide focus for our strategic ambitions through critical discussion of grant applications, book proposals and article drafts, as well as delivery of working papers. Our geographical range focuses primarily, though not exclusively, on the United States, Britain and Europe since the late eighteenth century.

The book series Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements, co-edited with Stefan Berger at the Institute of Social Movements at Bochum University, is linked to this field of research strength.

Within this field of research strength, we have pursued research along two key themes.

First, we have analysed the role of war in forging modes of political representation and social contestation from the early middle ages to the Cold War, often also analysed in connection with our research on environmental history and heritage. This theme includes the role and perception of refugees during wartime especially in the context of political and humanitarian mobilisation, war memories from medieval Scotland and Europe to the Cold War, and the role of war memories in peace movement mobilisations.

Highlights of working with the public include 'The Stirling: 100' exhibition together with the Stirling Smith museum as well as a series of events as part of the official commemorations of the Battle of Gallipoli in Scotland in 2015, including a creative writing competition for school children from across Scotland.

In the context of this field of research strength, colleagues from History provide leadership within the Faculty of Arts and Humanities by co-directing the Eighteenth-Century Studies at Stirling (ECSS) group, together with colleagues from English Studies. ECSS brings together research students and colleagues working on aspects of the eighteenth-century Anglo-American world.

We also explore the role of religion in debates about political representation and social movements, ranging from questions of religion in the role of kingship in medieval Europe, to the religious underpinnings of social and political reform movements and concepts of social propriety and decency. This research agenda benefits directly from interaction with colleagues from the Politics subject group in our Division and in the Division of Literature and Languages.