On the Case
Explorations in Social History
- Publisher
- University of Toronto Press
- Initial publish date
- Nov 1998
- Category
- Social History, General, General, Historiography
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9780802081292
- Publish Date
- Nov 1998
- List Price
- $54.00
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9780802043023
- Publish Date
- Nov 1998
- List Price
- $77.00
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781442678071
- Publish Date
- Oct 1998
- List Price
- $97.00
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Description
Case files, records from all kinds of social, medical, governmental, military, and other agencies, become available to researchers once confidentiality is no longer in question. Such records are an important source for scholars in social history and related fields, providing insight not only into the lives of ordinary people but into the workings of the agencies that kept the records as well. Case files contain a wealth of information and challenge researchers by their complexity and the variety of approaches and methodologies their analysis demands. On the Case is a timely book intended to provide a forum for discussing the theoretical and methodological issues that case files raise. The book brings together theoretical debates, new research, and new research methods and offers compelling illustrations of the drama, conflict, and power relations that the case file can capture.
This collection of essays features some of Canada's leading social historians. Readers will encounter an impressive array of case files, including psychiatrists' accounts of sexual deviants, employment records of sailors, state welfare and Indian Affairs reports, court records, the patient forms of hospital and asylum doctors, and state security files. While the contributors differ in choice of subject and approach, they share a commitment to the progressive traditions of social history. They recover the voices and actions of people – not only of those with power but also of those who seemingly have none.
Case files have proved crucial to scholars developing such new fields of historical study as sexuality, gay and lesbian lives, and domestic violence, and have reinvigorated work in more established fields of history such as immigration, security and intelligence, and the modern welfare state. On the Case is unique in offering new research as well as guiding readers through recent debates and the various theoretical and methodological challenges created by case files.
About the authors
Franca Iacovetta is professor emerita of history at the University of Toronto, and a past president of the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians. A historian of women/gender, migration, and transnational radicals, she has published eleven books, including Before Official Multiculturalism: Women’s Pluralism in Toronto, 1950s-1970s. Award-winning books include Gatekeepers: Reshaping Immigrant Lives in Cold War Canada and the co-edited Beyond Women’s Words. She lives in Toronto.
Franca Iacovetta's profile page
Wendy Mitchinson is a Canada Research Chair in Gender and Medical History and a professor in the Department of History at the University of Waterloo.
Other titles by
Cleaning Up
Portuguese Women's Fight for Labour Rights in Toronto
Before Official Multiculturalism
Women's Pluralism in Toronto, 1950s-1970s
A Nation of Immigrants
Women, Workers, and Communities in Canadian History, 1840s-1960s
Sisters or Strangers?
Immigrant, Ethnic, and Racialized Women in Canadian History, Second Edition
Edible Histories, Cultural Politics
Towards a Canadian Food History
Gatekeepers
Reshaping Immigrant Lives in Cold War Canada
Sisters or Strangers?
Immigrant, Ethnic, and Racialized Women in Canadian History, Second Edition
Women, Gender, and Transnational Lives
Italian Workers of the World
Gender Conflicts
New Essays in Women's History
Enemies Within
Italian and Other Internees in Canada and Abroad
