Hengstberger Award Prize Winner 2026
Unhomely Childhood(s)
What is childhood? How did people in the past imagine childhood? And what happens when normative expectations are at odds with lived reality?
Childhood is not a timeless concept, but has undergone profound historical change. From the 18th century onwards, the idea of childhood as a distinct phase of life requiring special protection became increasingly established in Europe. This was accompanied by the increasing confinement of childhood to the domestic sphere: children’s upbringing increasingly took place within the family home and in educational and childcare institutions. Shelter, care, and privacy became hallmarks of the modern ideal of childhood. Yet this ideal was always countered by a different reality: the experience of unhomeliness in childhood.
The Hengstberger Symposium focuses on this other side of the history of childhood. The term ‘unhomeliness‘ is deliberately interpreted broadly: it does not merely denote the lack of a permanent home, but refers to a wide spectrum of precarious childhood experiences, ranging from orphanhood and neglect through poverty and social exclusion to violence and abuse. Spanning various historical periods from antiquity to the present day, the symposium examines different manifestations of unhomely childhoods, as well as the responses to these in public discourse and by state and religious institutions.The symposium thus systematically brings together aspects that have previously been considered separately in research. The contributions from international researchers across various disciplines in the humanities and social sciences focus on the treatment of orphans and neglected children, the living conditions of children in times of war and systematic violence, and the tension between care and control in the practices of churches, states and private organisations. Further topics include the relationship between childhood and work, the emergence and influence of social and religious ideals of the family, and the psychosocial consequences of neglect, exclusion and abuse among young people. Throughout, normative concepts and institutional practices are considered in relation to children’s lived realities and their agency. The aim is to refine the concept of unhomeliness in childhood as an analytical category for historical and interdisciplinary childhood studies and to open up new research perspectives.
Event dates: 23–25 June 2027
Dr. Charlotte Kirsch-Klingelhöffer
Theologische Fakultät
Universität Heidelberg
Kisselgasse 7
69117 Heidelberg
charlotte.kirsch-klingelhoeffer@ts.uni-heidelberg.de
Dr. Joey Rauschenberger
Historisches Seminar
Universität Heidelberg
Grabengasse 3-5
69117 Heidelberg
joey.rauschenberger@zegk.uni-heidelberg.de