What is a Voluntary Association? Rethinking Associational Life from Southeastern Europe: Concepts, Archives and Perspectives
Seminar #2

Associational life as public sociality: Α research project, a database, a case study

Efi Avdela University of Crete
Despo Kritsotaki Academy of Athens
Dimitra Lampropoulou University of Athens

In collaboration with the CETOBaC, the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and the Modern Greek History Research Center of the Academy of Athens

#SemMod
Programme 2025

Abstract

This seminar engages with the concept of “public sociality”, which encompasses different forms of collective public action, both formal and informal. Based on the research conducted within the project “Forms of public sociality in 20th-century urban Greece: associations, networks of social intervention and collective subjectivities”, the seminar highlights the main theoretical and methodological aspects of “public sociality”, presents the associations’ database created within the aforementioned project, and delves into a more specific paradigm, the case of Greek mental health related associations from the 1950s to the 1980s. With this tripartite structure we intend to flesh out the notion of public sociality and discuss the concepts, sources and methodologies we can use to examine collective identities and action in the 20th century. Among the main themes of the seminar are the meanings of collective subjectivity as envisioned by the subjects themselves and the agents they interacted with; the conceptualisation and transformation of the boundaries between private and public and state and non-state; and the political dimensions of voluntary action.

About the seminar cycle

This seminar cycle aims to bring together a network of scholars at different career stages and institutional affiliations who share a common interest in two key aspects: first, the study of voluntary associations; and second, a regional focus on Southeastern Europe, with particular attention to Greece and the (post-)Yugoslav region in the 20th and 21st centuries. Despite Southeastern Europe’s reputation for being less inclined toward civic engagement, recent research—including our own—has highlighted the central role of voluntary associations (udruženje/удружење or društvo/друштво in Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian and σύλλογοι or εθελοντικές οργανώσεις in Greek) in shaping social and political life since their emergence in the 19th century. Given the region’s profound socio-political transformations throughout the 20th century—ranging from imperial rule to nation-state formation, from liberal democracy to right-wing dictatorship and to “real socialism”—this project seeks to integrate Southeastern Europe into the global history of associations.
Over the course of three sessions, members of this research network will present recently published and ongoing research on the trajectories of volunteering and associational engagement. We will explore how individuals and groups navigated and shaped these networks over time, focussing on the lived experiences of association members and the interplay between personal agency, institutional structures, and broader social transformations. This seminar cycle aims to foster a dialogue on the key research questions driving participants’ work, the concepts they mobilize, and the sources available for studying associational life.