Lived Experiences of the Westminster Parliament in History
Lived Experiences of the Westminster Parliament in History: People, Sociability, Communities & Space
One-day conference, University of Warwick
Friday 14 March 2025
This conference seeks to explore the complex historic interplay between people and the Westminster Parliament, shedding light on the evolving dynamics of its interactions with individuals and examining the changing social mores of institutional interactions, inclusion and exclusion over time. Through considering interdisciplinary perspectives and critical inquiry, it aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the private dynamics of one of the world's old public representative institutions.
Many attempts to describe Parliament have been written over the centuries but, with a few exceptions, the focus has been on the institution’s democratic, representative and constitutional function as an agent of national legislature and accountability, rather than its identity as an institution whose inner life is both shaped by and shapes its public role. Over history, Parliament has provided the setting and backdrop to a great deal of political turmoil. Yet it is this political context that has proved the dominant theme in the history that has been written about Parliament rather than broader discussions about the institution’s internal workings and individual interactions. While analysis of different historical periods brings crucial insights to this endeavour, a deeper understanding can be achieved through a multi-disciplinary approach that spans sociology, philosophy, psychology and ethnography.
This one-day conference will explore how Parliament has developed over time in connection to the individual behaviours and private experiences of its people, some of which were shaped by gender, race, and class. It asks: what are the hidden rather than displayed parliamentary rules, conventions, and expectations that have developed over this period, in terms of culture, approach, language, and behaviour, and how are they determined by private experience and individual agency? The history of emotions suggests one avenue of approach by stressing the importance of institutions in both the regulation of emotional norms and how they are experienced. Yet aside from a recent special edition of Parliamentary History, emotion and Parliament remains an underdeveloped field of inquiry, despite the development of analytical frameworks offering fertile ground for opening broader questions of the social and spatial dynamics of Parliament, such as; Barbara Rosenwein’s ‘emotional communities’, Monique Scheer’s ‘emotional practices’ and Matthew Roberts’ ‘affective politics’. Protagonists of a putative ‘philosophy of Parliament’ such as Paul Seaward help us explore an understanding that is rooted in history but touches on influences as diverse as feminist theory and sociology to understand the who, what, where, how, when, and why of Westminster’s parliamentary culture over time.
Please submit abstracts of 250 words for 20-minute papers and short biographies to Brendan Tam (brendan.tam@warwick.ac.uk) and Chloe Challender (chloe.challender@warwick.ac.uk) by January 13 2025
We welcome submissions on any aspect of the people, spaces and communities that have shaped the history of parliament. Topics and questions that papers might explore include (but are not limited to):
1) The interaction between the private, public and institutional elements of Parliament:
- The role of the personal within the public realm;
- The meaning and boundaries of the public and the private within the institution;
- How private space and personal time have intersected with institutional space and time;
- ‘Community’ and ‘communities’ in a parliamentary context.
2) Emotion and behaviour within Parliament’s history:
- How does an exploration of the role of emotions affect an institutional history or analysis: does it help us contextualise the myth of the rational actor?
- What is the interplay between emotion, speech acts, rhetorical strategies, and political dynamics? How has this shaped chamber and committee procedure and culture?
- What place has Parliament afforded to individual encounters and non-normative identities over history, and how have personal relations within Parliament shaped the institution itself?
- What is the role of intimacy, friendship and social ties within the institution?
3) Inclusion and exclusion in Parliament’s history:
- How have modes of inclusion and exclusion of particular groups or individuals affected the institution’s history during this period? How have they affected the structure and operation of the institutional regime?
4) Judicial and legislative history:
- How have lived experiences of Parliament affected the institution’s legislative and judicial roles over history?
References:
‘Special Issue: Passion, Politics and Parliament’, Parliamentary History 42 (1), 2023.
Barbara H. Rosenwein, Emotional Communities in the Early Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006)
Monique Scheer, ‘Are Emotions a Kind of Practice (and is that what makes them have history)? A Bourdieuian Approach to Understanding Emotion’, History and Theory, 51 (ii), 2012, 202
Matthew Roberts, The politics of feeling in British popular radicalism, 1809-48(Manchester University Press, 2022).
Paul Seaward, ‘Institutions, Events, and the National Palaver: on writing a history of parliament’, paper for Warwick History Seminar, 2021.
Keynote Speaker: Dr Paul Seaward
Submission Deadline: 13 January 2025
Notification Date: 22 January 2025
Further information and to submit abstracts: