VOICES at ENCHOS VI Conference

Dr Daniel Patterson, a historian on the VOICES team, recently travelled to Paris to present at the ENCHOS VI Conference. His talk focused on the challenges and opportunities in studying women’s occupations in early modern Ireland.

ENCHOS (The European Network for the Comparative History of Population Geography and Occupational Structure from 1500 to the present) has been hosting annual conferences in various European cities since 2017. Founded and coordinated by the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure (CAMPOP), ENCHOS provides a collaborative platform for scholars researching economic development, occupational structures, and population geography.

Daniel’s paper, The VOICES Project: Locating Women’s Occupations in Early Modern Ireland, outlined the innovative digital humanities approach used by VOICES. He discussed the specific challenges involved in extracting occupational data for Irish women from available historical sources, and outlined some of the methodologies being considered by the project to overcome them.

The ENCHOS VI Conference also offered valuable networking opportunities and insights into cutting-edge research by colleagues from across Europe. Presentations covered a range of topics, including women’s work in 18th-century England, comparative studies of the economies and occupational structures of France and England during the Industrial Revolution, gendered occupational structures in 19th-century Spain, and the decline of foot-binding and its impact on women’s work in 20th-century China.

We extend our gratitude to ENCHOS, CAMPOP, and Dr Alexis Litvine for inviting Daniel to share the work of VOICES at this excellent conference.