Members of our research group have compiled a special issue for the journal Rethinking History on the topic of “The Politics of Voluntariness in Modern History.” The issue is edited by Jürgen Martschukat and Alexandra Oeser and all pieces are available for download as open access articles on the journal’s website.
In a total of five articles, historians and sociologists discuss voluntariness as a mode for political and everyday practices, also from the perspective of a history of the present. The articles deal with voluntary participation in the USA during the New Deal and Nazi Germany, with voluntariness as a resource in contemporary global, digitalized capitalism and voluntariness as a factor in vaccination campaigns in Germany since the end of the 19th century. They ask for the significance of voluntariness in German post-war migration regimes as well as for voluntariness as a feminist social practice, e.g. within debates regarding abortion assistance.
