The Voluntary Action History Society’s 8th International Conference will take place at the University of Liverpool between 2 and 4 July 2025.
The Conference will explore the historical development of voluntary action in all its variety in terms of subjects, types of activity, time periods, locations and uses.
This conference will, for the first time, foreground our sources and methodologies and the challenges arising from ‘critical’ rethinking of subjects; ongoing debates about the efficacy of empirical and theoretical approaches; changes in the context of research such as different sources of funding, issues of autonomy, social responsibility and academic freedom; and the expectations of unfamiliar audiences. The changes in our environment suggest that we cannot remain ‘the way we were’ but should embrace – at least to a debatable extent – new ways of doing voluntary action history.
Explorations of new and innovative ways of doing voluntary action history might involve:
• different sources – archival, oral, material culture, online
• different perspectives – micro or macro, top down or bottom up, horizontal analyses or singular instances
• different methods – qualitative, quantitative, mixed, multi-disciplinary.
Our intention is to hold the conference in the traditional way, face-to-face, in Liverpool, England, but there will be opportunities online for presenters of papers who are not able to attend in person.
Submitting an abstract
If you would like to propose a paper, please submit on our online form an abstract (500 words maximum) and a short biography (50 words maximum) later than 15 March 2025.
Use our online Google form for your abstract
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScYjbvQB0IYzljQYOCML2iXkqZv4da9ejbcQMTpDz5TXwukOQ/viewform
We will be happy to consider proposals for panels of up to four papers on a similar subject, although if this is your intention, please submit an abstract for each of the proposed papers.
Attending the event
Booking will open once the programme is finalised. Please note that all speakers must register for the conference.