Objectives

  1. The project undertakes basic research focusing on analyses of family networks in order to identify the various stepfamily formations that were created over time through consecutive marriages. The project creates integrated databases with information pertaining to different social strata based on serial and statistical sources.
  2. We collect and publish egodocuments (family correspondence, diaries and autobiographies), considered as agents of family construction.
  3. We apply the family patterns that emerge from this large-scale source analysis to the interpretation of individual case studies (handbook, monographs and collections of studies) by using a wide variety of written and visual documentation. These analyses promise to yield penetrating insights into stepfamily life, the ways the notion of family and actual families were constructed by cultural exchanges, and they will also serve as pilot studies aiming to improve the databases.
  4. We create an online exhibition and curriculum for university students will serve to mediate the results of the project to the general public.
  5. We foster scholarly communication and comparative approaches by participating in and organizing national and international conferences and workshops.