Émilien Ruiz
Émilien Ruiz, Ph.D. in Contemporary History, is lecturer at the University of Lille, France. In the Silicosis project, he is conducting research in demographic history on morbidity and mortality associated with pneumoconioses and respiratory afflictions in the 20th century.
His work aims to deconstruct the discipline of statistics and the way in which it is used in political, administrative, academic/scientific and other contexts, without renouncing quantitative material as a relevant source for the social sciences.
In his doctoral thesis, "Too many civil servants? Contribution to a history of the State through its employee numbers (France, 1850-1950)”, he used a simultaneous analysis of the process by which civil servant numbers are generated, their use by contemporaries and the creation of an official civil service policy. This approach offers a rereading of the process of administrative development by examining the evolution of the number of State employees, while also questioning the relevance of applying the notion of “government by numbers” to the question of civil service numbers.
Key publications (in French, English and Italian)
- (in French) “Compter : l’invention de la statistique des fonctionnaires en France (années 1890 - 1930)", Sociologie du Travail, 52(2), avril-juin 2010, pp. 212-233.
- (in French) “Faire de l’histoire à l’ère numérique : retours d’expériences” (with Franziska Heimburger), Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, 58-4bis, supplement 2011, pp. 70-89.
- (in English) "Has the Historian’s craft gone digital? Some observations from France", Diacronie. Studi di storia contemporanea, n°10, 2012
- (in Italian, English and French) “Digital History. La storia nell'era dell'accesso” (co-direction, with Elisa Grandi and Deborah Paci), Diacronie. Studi di storia contemporanea, n°10, 2012
