How to do research on police and prostitution history? Historiography, sources and methodology (Belgium, 18th-19th centuries)

Auspert, Sarah [UCL] Renglet, Antoine [FUNDP]

Antoine Renglet and Sarah Auspert are both Belgian PhD candidates in history and currently visiting student researchers at the Center for the Study of Law and Society (University of California, Berkeley). Antoine is working on urban police forces and public order during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras. Sarah’s thesis is devoted to the prostitutes’ mobility in the eighteenth century. In this paper, they will focus on several key steps of historical research through the specific case of their ongoing thesis. They will present successively historiography, sources and methodology used in their PhD. The goal of the presentation will rather be to show the making process of a historical research than to draw conclusions on their specific topic. Hopefully this talk will provide the opportunity of discussing the broader way PhD students do research in social science.