Abstracts

1Corinne Rostaing – La non-mixité des établissements pénitentiaires et ses effets sur les conceptions de genre : une approche sociologique

2The prison is, contrary to most of the institutions as school or hospital, one of the uncommon mono-sexual institutions, with districts or establishments reserved for the one or the other sex. Before the French Revolution, the prisoners were mixed whatever are their age or their sex. In the 19^th century, the process of separation was realized. We shall try, at first, to understand the double process by which, both the staffs and the prisoners, one feminine entresoi builds up itself within the feminine detentions. The separation of the sexes contributes to produce gendered organizations, that is not neutral from the point of view of the sexual identifies, leaning on conceptions codified by the male and by the feminine, which they contribute to reproduce. The effects of the non-mixity in prisons will be analysed on the penitentiary structures. If certain specificities as the existence of small districts within masculine prisons can be understandable by the sub-representation of the women in prison, others are bound to gender stereotypes. We shall be interested in particular in the last part to the effects of the conceptions of gender on the feminine confinement in trainings, activities or labor type. The confinement is not thus designed in the same way by the administration which manages establishments for women and for men.

3Sylvie Duval – De la réclusion volontaire. L’enfermement des religieuses entre Moyen Âge et époque moderne

4During Modern ages in catholic countries the number of religious women (mainly coming from the upper classes) is very high. They mainly live within strictly enclosed monasteries located inside the cities. This “massive” confinement of non-married women can be explained by the convergence of religious, social and cultural factors towards the definition of a specific female virtue of confinement. This is, in fact, a new proposal for a more ancient virtue, that of virginity. The enclosure of female monasteries is indeed considered as a barrier which protects not only the purity of religious women, but also the morality of the nearby society. The assimilation by women themselves of this virtue of confinement attached to their sex makes possible their “voluntary” reclusion since the end of the Middle Ages, when monastic observant reforms promote strict enclosure for the monasteries. The female “consent” rely also on the recognition of the sacred status of nuns and on the obedience universally due to fathers during the Ancien Régime. The pressure put on young girls lacking religious vocation is however acknowledged and denouced, until the XIX^th century, during which this phenomenon progressively disappears.

5Xenia von Tippelskirch – Spiritualités en captivité et circulation d’écrits sur le cloître à l’époque moderne

6Convents may be thought of as places where in Early Modem Europe women could benefit from a privileged access to culture and knowledge. But could we conceive this as a specific knowledge about gender? i.e. about the specific role of women, about the relationships between only women and between men and women?

7From recent research three aspects emerge: we have to take into account the permeability of the convent walls, but it seems possible to distinguish a knowledge that circulated in between the walls of convents aiming at the creation of a perfect nun; then: projections that were activated in religious controversies were attacking the nun as a woman. Finally, we can speak of gender knowledge of women who passed only short time of their lives in convents, but who contributed actively to the construction of an imaginary. Their personal experience that they tried to circulate rather widely pushed them to sustain that convent live could not lead to spiritual perfection.

8Bernard Heyberger – Clôture féminine, violences, rapports de genre et crise de l’autorité. La congrégation des religieuses du Sacré-Cœur (Mont Liban, 1750-1786)

9Cases of sectarian abuses and utter violence in a female monastery, as the well documented tragedy which happened in the monastery of the Holy Heart of Jesus in Mount Lebanon (1750-1786), can help to reflect on the functioning (and the possible disfunction) of the female closure.

10A monastery of women stays always in interaction with the outside, through family ties and the reproduction of the social distinctions within the cloister, as well as through the role allocated to the male authorities, the bishop and the confessors, over the nuns. Conflicts which arise within the Church and the society could therefore have direct effects on the life of the cloistered community.

11A female monastery is an attempt to create a society of exception, which escapes the wordly ties, rules and disputes. But this ideal is hard to join. When the monastery is under the leading of a mystic visionary, whose direct communication with Jesus Christ is admitted by people around her, the nuns fall under her thumb. If the men who are in charge of controlling and supervising the life of the nuns, believe into the mystic inspiration of the visionary, they become themselves dependent of her, and unable to exert their authority. Confession becomes an instrument in the hands of the “saint”, for domination and manipulation of the consciences of the nuns. These who contest her mystic union and her charismatic authority are demonized and have to undergo harassment and violences, justified by a divine inspiration.

12Marine Coquet – Coloniser par la voie pénale : de l’idéal familial à la réalité coloniale des rapports entre les sexes dans la colonie pénitentiaire du Maroni (Guyane française, xix^e-xx^e siècle)

13As from the second half of the nineteenth century, the prison territory of Maroni, situated in the West of French Guiana, is only assigned to manage the transportation of the convicts condemned to penal labour. The administration of the penal colony is charged to experiment the general principles of penal colonization, described by the law of May 8^th, 1854. Among its tools, gender relations are organized in order to build ex nihilo a settlement that can satisfy Parliament’s expectations. Family has to be the way to moralize the convicts, men and women, but it is also an economic and demographic necessity without which the penal colonization cannot have any future. The analysis of classes, “races” and gender relationships has to take into account the penal and colonial dimensions of the French imperialism policy. This territory, closed and opened in the same time, is submitted to different temporalities which constrain during almost a century its reason of being: colonization by convicts. Linked to others power relations, gender relations are always adjusted and necessarily in movement, so that the colonial administration can continue to exercise its domination on territory and people.

14Claire Garnier – Comment une religieuse soigne-t-elle le corps d’un homme ? Clôture religieuse et action hospitalière dans l’espace français aux xvii^e-xviii^e siècles

15The Hospitalieres’s enclosure is a type of confinement extant in Ancien Régime hospitals. Religious men could circumvent enclosure by opting for secular orders. However, the Periculoso decretal of 1298 and the 1563 Council of Trent imposed full enclosure for religions women. This study examines how the principle of enclosure adapted to hospital activity to which, following the Catholic Reformation, many religions women dedicated their lives. It examines the writings of Vincent de Paul and sources from Parisian, Auvergnat, and Canadian hospitals and demonstrates how the principle of female enclosure adapted to hospital activity. It further shows how these adaptations made it possible for women to care for the bodies of sick men.

16Veerle Massin – De l’usage de l’enfermement comme outil d’intervention et de savoir sur le sexe. L’enfermement des jeunes délinquantes (Belgique, 1920-1970)

17Confinement seems to be more legitimate for delinquent girls than for delinquent boys. Why? This paper focuses on how a discourse on sex and sexuality was mobilised to concretise and legitimate the confinement of delinquent girls in Belgium (1920- 1970) and to justify some confinement practices. Sex and sexuality verbalised would be tools allowing to act on a certain category of the population, in this case delinquent girls. The paper is based on research that focused on the trajectories of confined delinquent girls, the social and judicial contexts of these trajectories, institutional practices (intra-muros), and the experience of these confined girls. We try to understand how the “delinquent girl” can be a discursive creation, the link between this discourse and a girl’s sexuality, and how this discourse is articulated with practices. This study is an opportunity to question the identity of the delinquent girl through confinement.

18Christian Knudsen, Élisabeth Lusset et Julie Claustre – Genre, sexe et pénitences dans les monastères anglais à la fin du Moyen Âge

19While the requirement of celibacy was important for both monks and nuns – it is the former which traditionally received more notice from ecclesiastical authorities. Indeed, while fornication of any sort was condemned by the medieval Church, fornication with a nun was classified as one of the maiora crimina which incurred the highest ecclesiastical legal condemnation. However, while legislative sources emphasize the culpability of the sexual partners of nuns, they tell us very little about the degree of guilt attributed to the nuns themselves, and the punishment assigned to them. Similarly, although the physical chastity of monks was de-emphasized in comparison to nuns in monastic writings of the later Middle Ages, it was still expected of them. In this essay, I will demonstrate that although ecclesiastical discourse treated fornication seriously – particularly fornication with a nun, ultimately, the consequences of sexual misconduct were not particularly severe for either sex. Moreover, despite the greater weight legislative sources place on female chastity, the types of penance allocated to religious men and women were remarkable similar. However, despite being accused less, nuns were far more likely to be convicted of sexual misconduct and be allocated penance as a resuit. This discrepancy seems to be the resuit of a greater difficulty for women to clear themselves by compurgation which could be negated by affirmative evidence such as pregnancy.

20Regis Schlagdenhaujffen – Genre et sexualité dans l’univers concentrationnaire nazi

21Supported by declarations of men and women deported to Nazi concentration camps, the purpose of this article is to inquire on how gender can be established as a classificatory category within a single sex group. In this article I shall analyze successively how men and women’s intimate and emotional relationships are lived in former concentration camps. Some differences were noticed in this context, as far as gendered ways of thinking intimate relationships between the same sex persons are concerned. The aim of such an analysis is to provide a better understanding of how gender and sex (male as female) play an important part in the co-construction of representations of concentration camps. It shall also highlight what has been more generally known as “recluse sociability” in extreme situations.