Social and Labour History News

The Interdisciplinary Journal of the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center, Eastern European Holocaust Studies, is cooperating with the French Holocaust research organization Yahad - In Unum for a special issue on 'Children and Childhood in the Holocaust in Eastern Occupied Territories.'
This issue aims to offer established scholars, early-career academics, and graduate students the opportunity to present their research. In particular, researchers from Eastern Europe are encouraged to submit their papers in English or Ukrainian language.

Children and Childhood in the Holocaust in Eastern occupied territories

For many children war and persecution meant the end of their childhood in “conventional sense” now and then. About 1,1 million Jewish children lost their lives in the Holocaust. Approximately 400,000 further underage victims from other ethnicities should also be acknowledged. The lives of those who survived were shaped by the traumatic experiences.

The research field of childhood experience in Eastern Europe under German occupation faces complex questions and moral dilemmas concerning the capacity of children to act and their liability. Approaches in Holocaust research with a socio-historical perspective therefore require an in-depth analysis of the society in the territories in which the Holocaust took place. Micro-historical approaches are developing increasingly complex analyses of individual crime scenes and more and more include the local community as an “actor”. Beyond the categories of “perpetrators, victims and bystanders” (Hilberg) emerges a “grey zone”, which reveals a range of choices for locals under German occupation.

Coping strategies with the German occupation were entangled with gender, material preconditions and, to a greater extent, age. The complex of childhood in the Second World War and the Holocaust has been portrayed heterogeneously in the post-war period. Children were generally excluded from history or memorized as vulnerable and inactive martyrs. From a historical perspective, this imagined passivity cannot be maintained. While Jewish children were marginalized, exploited, and murdered as victims of the nazi extermination policy soon after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, there were other conditions for children who belonged to the majority society in which they had to ensure their survival. Beyond German extermination policy in Eastern Europe, recent research shows a wide range of policies in treatment of children, such as the enslavement as forced worker (Ostarbeiter), the colonization of ethnic German children in what is now Ukraine, the forced Germanization of Polish children, the mobilization of Belarusian children in the White Ruthenian Youth Work, the penal camps and extermination for young Roma in Estonia, to name fates of children under German occupation in their various forms without claiming to be exhaustive.
This prompts us to ask how children navigated their choices for action under the constraints, demands and dangers they faced under occupation. And it seems like being a child was not solely a deprivation in the struggle for survival but could be used even more as a “resource” as the historian Yulia von Saal puts it. By focusing more on the “agency” of the child, completely new research perspectives emerge.
Beyond the genuinely historical perspective, newer research approaches, particularly from the memory studies, can be used to take an analytical look at the oral history testimonies of children and point out their special features. How do childhood experiences and narratives differ from those of adults? How can testimonies of children be interpreted with the right hermeneutics? Oral history is now considered to be the most versatile medium of children's memories, additionally autobiographies, drawings and all other material and immaterial cultures of children would be an interesting object of research. Furthermore, psychological research of children in the Holocaust and its aftermath concerning traumatic experiences are appreciated.

Given this background, a special issue of Eastern European Holocaust Studies will focus on the complex of children and childhood in the Holocaust in Eastern occupied territories. Articles of 7,000 words (including references) in English or Ukrainian are invited on any of the following themes:

- Relationships between Jewish and non-Jewish children before, during and after the war
- “Daily life” of Jewish children in camps and ghettos
- Means of survival. Hiding, evasion and help for Jewish children
- Means of resistance. Jewish and non-Jewish children's activity in the resistance
- Commemoration and Memorization. Representation of children in the Holocaust in memorial landscapes and collective memory
- Forced labor, captivity, reprisal and deportation. Nazi policy towards children in the occupied territories of Eastern Europe
- Germanization, colonization, politicization. Mobilization of children in the occupied territories of Eastern Europe
- Memory Studies and Oral History. Perspectives on childhood memories in relation to trauma and reliability
- Differences and perceptions. Comparative analysis of childhood and adult narrative
- Adultification. Children as family providers and as heads of families
- Perception of Gender. Normative expectations of “girls” and “boys” shaping their means and limitations for action
- Vulnerable bodies. Children as victims of sexual violence
- Orphanages as ambivalent spaces for survival and persecution
- In the “grey zone”. Children between forced requisition and collaboration
- Witnessing the Holocaust. Children as eyewitnesses of atrocities, shootings and violence
- Object history and immaterial legacies. Products of children during the Holocaust like drawings, magazines, games, diaries and jokes
- Justifying the Unjustifiable. The perpetrators' narratives of the murder of children during and after the Holocaust

Please submit abstracts of 500 words and a short bio until the first of November 2024. The language of submission can be English or Ukrainian. Article proposals can be submitted to Eastern European Holocaust Studies at eehs@degruyter.com to the guest-editors, Aiko Hillen (University of Cologne), Albert Hytry (Sorbonne University / Yahad - In Unum), and the editor Andrea Peto (CEU). Authors will be notified of acceptance shortly after. Part of the publication process will be an online workshop for the authors, where they have the opportunity to present their articles in advance and receive productive feedback.

https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/eehs/html#specialIssues

Berlin, 9-11 October 2024

Partant du constat que la mémoire coloniale reste encore vivace chez un bon nombre de populations qui ont connu la colonisation, il s’avère important de regrouper les scientifiques de la question dans un creuset de réflexion pour les jeunes chercheurs. Ainsi, en collaboration avec le centre Marc Bloc de Berlin ainsi que la fondation des jardins de Prusse et l’Association des historiens et Archéologues du Togo organise un colloque s’intéressant à la question de lu colonialisme allemand en Afrique. Ce colloque, en prenant en compte une approche pluridisciplinaire est une formidable opportunités pour creuser davantage les différentes facettes du modèle colonial allemand en Afrique. Il se déroulera du 9 au 11 octobre à Berlin en Allemagne. Il sera animé par des scientifique travaillant les questions coloniales venus d’Allemagne et d’Afrique.

Présentation

Ce début d’automne, le Centre Marc Bloch organisera, en collaboration avec la Fondation des Jardins de Prusse, l’Université de Lomé, la Humboldt-University of Berlin et l’Association des Historiens et Archéologues du Togo (AHAT) un colloque pour jeunes chercheurs et chercheuses consacré exclusivement aux nouvelles approches interdisciplinaires de l’écriture de l’histoire de la colonisation allemande en Afrique. Il sera question durant cette rencontre de présenter les nouvelles facettes ainsi que les paradigmes qui structurent une nouvelle façon de voir le processus colonial sous tous ses angles, notamment : le problème de la restitution des objets spoliés, l’histoire de l’art et la photographie coloniale, la question mémorielle, le révisionnisme colonial et la médecine coloniale. Le colloque qui aura lieu du 9 au 11 octobre 2024 et sa direction est assurée par le Prof. Martin Vogtherr de l’Université Technique de Berlin.

Dans le processus réécriture scientifique du passé colonial il est/était nécessaire, voire légitime de repenser le colonialisme allemand avec des narratifs, permettant de mettre à jour ce passé oublié, ou caché dans les sources dites « muettes[1] ». Cet impératif pose certaines interrogations qui méritent d’être posé durant le colloque à savoir : Comment repenser et réorienter les paradigmes de l’écriture de l’histoire de la colonisation ; Quels sont les nouveaux défis qu’il faudrait relever au moment où la question mémorielle du modèle de colonisation allemand ressurgit ? Quelles nouvelles approches permettent de réinventer et revisiter les aspects dits « invisibles » provenant des sources artistiques et photographiques ? Au-delà de ces questions d’autres questions secondaires seront parallèlement abordées, à titre d’exemple : comment les certaines images et photographies coloniales sont réduites au silence et qu’est ce qui se cache derrière ce silence ? Comment les œuvres muséale, images de la colonisation et les vestiges de ce dernier –par leur dimension de représentation et de recherche – s’expriment de manière fidèle ? Dans la photographie en rapport avec la colonisation (K. Azamede) apparaissent d’une part les « sujets » coloniaux, et d’autre part les « atrocités » de la colonisation, qui soulèvent un regard postcolonial. Bien que le colonialisme remonte à plusieurs décennies, il demeure encore dans la mémoire collective (des anciens colonisés comme les colonisateurs) et son héritage éveille encore le rapport avec la littérature à caractère colonial, la littérature de voyage ainsi que les musées et monuments.

Dans ce contexte postcolonial ce colloque se penche sur les approches méthodologiques en donnant la parole aux historiens et historiens de l’art, aux spécialistes en études culturelles, aux Sociologues et par-delà aux littéraires, puisque la colonisation et l’expansion coloniale a aussi joué un grand rôle, non seulement lors de la spoliation sécrète et parfois violente des objets d’arts et cultuels, mais aussi dans les productions littéraires et filmiques qui attirent une attention particulière sur le pillage, l’art spolié, et les collections.

L’approche réductrice liée aux narratifs historiques purs, devrait être plus élargie aux sociologues, aux anthropologues, de mêmes que les juristes (il est clair que le regard d’un ethnologue sur le processus colonial est plus ou moins différent de celui d’un économiste ou d’un politologue vu la diversité des domaines dans lesquels la colonisation a été impliqué) ; ce qui justifie la nécessité des regards croisés et approches interdisciplinaires des sciences humaines et sociales. L’émergence des approches récentes de l’écriture de l’histoire de la colonisation n’est plus à démontrer (approches de l’histoire de l’art et muséale) ainsi que la résurgence du débat sur la restitution et par-delà la réparation, en passant par le révisionnisme et la mémoire coloniale.

Afin de créer un espace de dialogue ouvert et international entre universitaires, chercheurs et étudiants qui mènent des travaux sur la colonisation allemande ou qui ont déjà consacré des études sur la question (pas seulement sous un angle historico-culturel, mais aussi artistique, socio-anthropologique ou encore littéraire), le Centre Marc Bloch –dans sa mission d’encourager la recherche et la discussion scientifique, interdisciplinaire de par son caractère binational – a décidé de donner à travers ce colloque un espace d’échanges et de discussion qui sera ouvert à partir de la matinée du 10 octobre par le Prof. Martin Vogtherr, Directeur Général de la Fondation des Jardins et Châteaux de Prusse (en abrégé : SPSG) à Potsdam. En outre, le Colloque bénéficiera d’un riche programme varié et constitué de panels diversifiés, à caractère international et enrichissant. L’évènement sera clôturé par la présentation d’une personne référence sur la question.

Programme Le 9 octobre 2024

9h00 Arrivée et accueil des participants. Meet and Great. Accompagnement à l’hôtel

• 14h00-16h00 Rencontre avec les responsables du Centre Marc Bloch. J. Rowell/ E. Möller

Le 10 octobre 2024

8h30 – 09h15 Enregistrement et installation des participants/ invités Fogang T./ L. Keutner

• 9h15 – 09h30 Mot de bienvenue et ouverture de la cérémonie par les responsables du Centre. J. Rowell/ E. Möller
• 9h30 – 10h15 Présentation des Participants et conférences inaugurale (Keynote) – Exposé inaugural (Pr. Vogtherr). S. Baller (Moderation)

10h15 – 10h30 Photo de famille et pause-café

• 10h30 – 12h00 Exposés en plénière et discussions panel 1 : Reconstitution of the colonial traces and cultural history of colonial rule. (Reconstitution des traces de la colonisation et histoire culturelle de l’ordre colonial)

Président·e :  Dr. S. Baller

Modération : Chandra Feupeussi

• 1- Mbog Ibock : LA MÉMOIRE HISTORIQUE DU CIMETIÈRE MILITAIRE ALLEMAND DE YAOUNDE (1884- 1912) /Université de Douala
• 2- Ndayisaba éric : Sur les traces du passé allemand au Burundi : Histoire et mémoire du patrimoine colonial / ENS Bujumbura
• 3- Kouzan Koffi : Le palais des gouverneurs de Lomé : un emblème de la colonisation allemande au Schutzgebiet Togo (1898-1914) / Université de Lomé
• 4- Clarisse Nzeuchieu : Les facettes féminines au Kamerun : une redéfinition des acteur·ice-s de la violence coloniale, 1884-1915 /Université de Dschang.       

12h00 – 12h15 Pause-Santé     

• 12h15 – 14h15 Exposés en plénière et discussions panel 2 : Colonialism, revisionism, and the processing of narratives in the culture of remembrance. (Colonialisme, révisionnisme et mise à jour des narratifs dans la culture mémorielle)

Président·e : Dr. Romain Tiquet/

• 1- Fogang Toyem : Seuchenbekämpfungen in Kolonialbesitzen unter der deutschen Kolonialherrschaft (1890-1916) : Vom medizinischen Diskurs zur kolonialen Medikalisierung/ Humboldt-University of Berlin
• 2- Leo Keutner : Die Branntweinfrage vor dem Hintergrund vorkolonialer Geschichte Togos / Gerda Henkel Stiftung (Dortmund)
• 3- Amoussou Moderan/Gabriel Iiyambo :A German Horror Story, 1904-1912 : Remembering the deportation of Nama/Herero in Togo and Cameroon / Ruhr-Universität Bochum-University of Namibia
• 4- Abissi Angéline : LES FORMES PROTESTATAIRES ENDOGENES ET LES RESISTANCES AU TRAVAIL FORCE AU CAMEROUN SOUS ADMINISTRATION ALLEMANDE (1884 -1914) / Université de Douala
• 5- Kwami Agbeve : La rigueur allemande dans l’imaginaire des Togolais : entre nostalgie et aliénation / Université de Lomé. 

14h15 – 15h00 Déjeuner et fin de la journée    

Le 11 octobre 2024

• 09h30 – 11h00 Exposés en plénière et discussions panel 3 : Restitution, art history and colonial photography. (Restitution, histoire de l’art et photographie coloniale)

Président.e : Dr. J. Sissia

• 1- Jie-Jie : Spoliation des biens culturels issus des ex-colonies allemandes d’Afrique : la difficile problématique de la restitution (cas du trône Bamoun au musée de Berlin) /Université de Bertoua. 
• 2- Mbeng Dang : La problématique de la réappropriation des œuvres d’art de la période coloniale allemande au Kamerun : l’exemple du musée de Berlin /Université de Douala
• 3- Barbara Traumann : [Früher] Film und der Restitutions-Eklat von 1925 /Filmuniversität Konrad-Wolf 4- KOKOU AGBANYO : Deutsche koloniale Bauten und Ehrenmäler in Kolonialafrika : Überlegungen über die Bedeutung des Kulturerben in der Postmoderne / Technische Universität Berlin -Université de Lomé.    

11h00 – 11h30 Pause-Café        

• 11h30 – 13h30 Exposés en plénière et discussions panel 4 : Colonial revisionism and postcolonial representations of the memory process. (Révisionnisme colonial et représentations postcoloniales du processus mémoriel)

Président·e : Dr. Perpetual N.

• 1- Pascal Ongossi : Cette Afrique-là ! : Une mémoire postcoloniale de l’ère allemande /Friedrich-Schiller Universität Jena
• 2- Kam Kah Henry/Metangwe Ebune :Debates in the Cameroonian Press about Restitution of Art Works to the Country /University of Buea
• 3- Ibrahima Sene :Les voix de la diaspora africaine et des pétitions sur l’héritage colonial (2019-2023) /Universität Bayreuth
• 4- Aqtime Edjabou : Les centres des dynamiques discursives des mémoires de la colonisation allemande au Togo /Université de KARA (Togo)
• 5- Anne D. Peiter : Überlegungen zu erinnerungspolitischen Leerstellen bezüglich der deutschen Kolonialisierung Ruandas / Université de la Réunion         

13h30 – 14h30 Exposé final et épilogue : Yan Legall - Président Ahat /Technical University of Berlin -Université de Lomé -  Ouverture du débat

Fin des cérémonies

Note

[1] Ce sont les vestiges. C’est-à-dire tous les restes du passé comme les monuments, les objets d’art, les ossements, les outils, les bijoux etc…

Naples (Italy) and online, 5–6 December 2024

Organisers:
-  NextGenerationEU Project ‘Ondine’ (Dep. History, Humanities and Society – Tor
Vergata University of Rome);
-  Institute of History of Mediterranean Europe of the Italian National Research Council
(ISEM-CNR).
Dates and location: Naples, 5–6 December 2024 at Fondazione Banco di Napoli, and remotely
Languages: English and Italian  
Under the patronage of: Istituto Nazionale Ferruccio Parri and Fondazione ISEC
 
The workshop aims to highlight the multifaced and dynamic nature of gendered, economic, and
cultural practices in everyday life in maritime contexts in Early Modern and Modern times (17th–20th
centuries).  
 
The analytical tools for studying everyday life are manifold. What all approaches and methodologies
have in common is that they operate as critiques of everyday life. In other words, all possible
approaches have to analyse the ‘structures of the everyday’ (Braudel 1967, 1979) and/or how it was
experienced and produced over time more than the everyday itself (Olson 2011).
 
The first to introduce the concept of everyday – precisely the notions of routine and repetition – into
historiography was Braudel (1967, 1979), who through his ‘historical imagination’ emphasised what he
called ‘material civilisation’, i.e. the ways that women and men had of producing, exchanging, eating,
living, and reproducing at the dawn of capitalism. Braudel’s approach found inspiration in Lefebvre’s Critique de la vie quotidienne, vol. I (1947) and Matérialisme dialectique (1949), the works in which the French philosopher recognised daily life as the place par excellence of production – of a material, social and cultural nature – and appropriation. In this sense, everyday life becomes the battleground – or mediation ground – among nature, capitalism and human beings. It is also where individuals articulate (i.e. appropriate) themselves (Lefebvre 1947, 1949, 1961).During the 1980s in West Germany, the historiographical investigation of everyday life experienced a new impetus. The Alltagsgeschichte (Lüdtke, Medick) sprouted from the will to analyse the lives and survival strategies of the ‘nameless’ multitudes, the aspirations and everyday struggles of the kleine Leute (little/ordinary people) (Lüdtke 1989), the ‘peoples without history’ (Wolf 1982) or those ‘left behind’.This specific approach of ‘history from below’ principally aims to harmonise the micro and the macro levels of analysis by relating the everyday experiences of ordinary people with the major configurations/transformations of a political, economic, and social nature. On those bases, Alltagsgeschichte interprets human practices and experiences as inseparable from the context in which they originated. Moreover, since the everyday is the space of individuals’ articulation, any aspect of human practice in the everyday is a cultural matter.
 
As for gender aspects, we know that it is the everyday that makes ‘feminine women’ and ‘masculine men’ (Holmes 2009). Moreover, since there is almost an automatism in the association between the everyday and ‘women’s affairs’ and experiences, often women’s (daily) activities are considered trivial and oversimple, thus not worthy of analysis or interpretative effort (Lefebvre 1961; Randal 2008). In maritime social contexts, the issue is further complicated. If, on the one hand, in the last forty years, historiography has recognised the value of domesticity and female (re)productive contribution in fishing communities (Thompson et al. 1983; Norling 2000), on the other, port cities continue to be
considered ‘normal’ strongholds of masculinity and male (economic, social, and cultural) production.
 
Given the premises, we are soliciting proposals that deal with:
-  Economic practices in maritime environments (e.g. labour, business, and consumption); abstracts with a gender focus (i.e. history of women, masculinities, and LGBTQ+ communities) will be given priority;
-  Gender relations and production in maritime contexts; abstracts with an economic focus (i.e. labour, business, consumption, household management, and care of the person) will be given priority;  
-  (Pop) Representations and narratives of everyday maritime life (e.g. exhibitions, festivities, documentaries): abstracts with a gender and/or economic angle will be given priority.

Moreover, we would particularly welcome:
-  Proposals based on ‘non-official’ historiographic sources (e.g. paintings, photographs, comics, films, songs, etc.);  
-  Proposals that focus on gender, economic and cultural practices in imperial/colonial city-ports;
-  Proposals from scholars from disciplines other than history (e.g. anthropology, sociology, economics).
 
Please send your 20-minute presentation proposal to Erica Mezzoli at everyday.naples2024@gmail.com by 15 September 2024. The proposal should include:
- max 300-word abstract in English;
- max 250-word bio profile in English with affiliation, position and contact information;
- the language the proponent would prefer to communicate: Italian or English;
- the modality the proponent would prefer to communicate: in person in Naples or remotely.
 
The workshop is organised in the framework of the NextGenerationEU Project ‘Ondine. Women’s Labour and Everyday Life on the Upper and Eastern Adriatic Waterfronts, mid-19th century–mid-20th century’ (Funded by EU; CUP E53C22002420001) hosted by the Department of History, Humanities and Society of the Tor Vergata University of Rome.

Winter School at the University of Tübingen, 09 - 11 October 2024

The Exploring Gender, Human Capital, and Labour Intersections in Economic History winter school is an interdisciplinary meeting of economic and labour historians, and development and labour economists focused on discussing the interplay between gender, human capital, and labour. To understand how these developed over the past centuries, it is necessary to understand how they are linked and interact with each other as observing them in isolation provides only a partial picture. For example, recent publications highlight the centrality of labour and its relation to human capital in the emergence of modern economic growth, as well as the variegated working experiences of individuals based on their gender and ethnicity. At the same time, the relationship between human capital and gender has attracted attention, such as in ongoing debates around the effects of human capital on fertility and marriage patterns as well as the long-run legacies of colonial education systems on gender inequality. Other dimensions, such as the value of reproductive labour, inspire researchers to address questions around the relationship between gender and labour. Hence, together in this winter school, we will explore and discuss these intersections to contribute to a broader understanding of their past development.

The winter school will provide a platform for scholars to share research, approaches, and methodologies for studying labour, gender inequalities, and the evolution of human capital. It comprises two days of academic presentations and a one-day methodological workshop. The methodological workshop consists of two parallel sessions: the first will explore the ways in which marginalized groups can be included in linked census datasets, while the second will provide insight into the processes of establishing and digitizing an archive. The methods workshop will enable researchers to develop their methodological toolkit, including techniques for exploring the winter school's core themes.

 

Keynotes will be given by:​

Prof. Jane Humphries | London School of Economics​

Assoc. Prof. Dácil Juif | Universidad Carlos III de Madrid​

​

Methodological workshops will be given by:​

Dr. Ryah Thomas | WU Wien​

Dr. Bruno Witzel de Souza | Georg-August-University Göttingen​

  Call for Papers

For the academic presentations we explicitly welcome contributions from across time and geographic areas. Abstracts no longer than 500 words and a CV should be submitted to econhist.tuebingen[at]gmail.com. Deadline is 7 August 2024. 

A limited number of stipends is available for travel and accommodation. 

 

Organisers:

Sarah Ferber​

Sophia Jung ​

Dr. Moritz Kaiser​

Caroline Namubiru​

 

https://sites.google.com/view/econhist-wstue2024

Workshop in Bielefeld (Germany), 12 to 14 September 2024

Containerisation began in the 1960s and massively reshaped the global flow of goods since the 1980s. While there is a plethora of economically oriented research on containerisation, much less is known about the people who un/load, process and move containers. Containerisation not only deeply affected dock work but was also accompanied by intermodal transport, the globalised movement of standardized containers between different transport modules. Moreover, containerisation had tremendous repercussions on port security. Thus, dock work, security and intermodal transport are the three integral fields studied at the workshop, which will geographically focus on North America, Europe, and Asia.

Containerisation and Dock Labour since the 1960s: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Work, Security, and Intermodal Transport in an Uncertain Setting

The main aim of the interdisciplinary workshop is to reformulate established and to elaborate new and innovative interpretations of containerised dock labour which are historically informed, socially rooted and culturally sensitive. The approach of the workshop is open to bottom-up perspectives and follows an understanding of globalisation which includes trans-local connections and entanglements. First steps towards employing relational micro-perspectives on containerised dock labour should also be made. A general aim is not only to foster a focused exchange of international scholars from several disciplines but also to initiate mutual learning.
Three main questions and their changes over time will be discussed in all panels:
- First, how has containerisation affected the three sectors (work, security, intermodal transport) of integrated dock labour and vice versa? Particular attention will be paid to the transitional phase from traditional to containerised dock labour.
- Second, what kind of (collective) actions were taken by dock workers in containerised settings, which self-perceptions of and public narratives about dock work(ers) can we find?
- Third, what can be gained analytically from seeing the multiple uncertainties of integrated relational dock work and containerisation not only as threats but also as opportunities for change and innovation?

Programm

Containerisation and Dock Labour since the 1960s: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Work, Security, and Intermodal Transport in an Uncertain Setting
(September 12-14, 2024, Bielefeld, ZiF)

Thursday, September 12
13.00-14.00 Registration and Snacks
14.00-14.30 Welcome / Aims of the Workshop

14.30- 18.00 Keynotes
Chair: Klaus Weinhauer (Bielefeld, D)
14.30-15.15Marcel van der Linden (Amsterdam, NL): Dock Labour and Global Labour History

15.15-15.45 Tea / Coffee

15.45-16.30 Hege Hoyer Leivestad (Oslo, NO): Containerization and Dock Labour: What can anthropology bring to the table?

16.30-18.00Discussion

18.30 Dinner at ZiF

Friday, September 13
09.00- 11.00 Panel 1, Dock Labour in Europe and in the USA
Comment / Chair: Lex Heerma van Voss (Amsterdam, NL)
Peter Turnbull (Bristol, UK): Europe
Peter Cole (Macomb, USA): US-Westcoast

11.00-11.30Tea / Coffee

11.30-13.30 Panel 1 continued: Dock Labour in Asia
Comment / Chair: Lex Heerma van Voss (Amsterdam, NL)
Rahul Maganti (Göttingen, D): Bombay
Laura Yan (Cambridge, UK): Singapore
Greig Taylor (Dubai, UAE): Vietnam

13.30-14.30Lunch

14.30-16:30 Panel 2: Container Logistics and Social-Political Responses: Practices of Comparing in a Logistics Revolution
Comment / Chair: Birte Förster (Bielefeld, D)
Chris King-Chi Chan (London, UK): (Hong-Kong): Social Movements and Port Development
Jesse Halvorsen (Los Angeles, USA): US-West Coast: Intermodal Transport

16.30-17.00Tea / Coffee

19:00 Dinner

Saturday, September 14
9.00-11.00 Panel 3: Ports in Times of Uncertainty
Comment / Chair: Silke Schwandt (Bielefeld, D)
Giorgos Poulimenakos (Oslo, NO): Port of Piraeus: The local and the global
Marcus Boeick (Cambridge, UK): Security in Ports

11.00-11.30 Tea / Coffee

11.30-12:30 Final debate and closing

Contact

Interested colleagues please register until August 20, 2024 at:
zif-conference-office@uni-bielefeld.de
Ms. Taugheda Helterhof

https://www.uni-bielefeld.de/einrichtungen/zif/events/#/event/7404

Slaveries and Post-Slaveries » Journal

This issue examines the long-term situation of Middlemen, both under slavery and in the post-slavery era. Enslaved themselves, overseers, and occasionally even recruiters of workers after the abolition of slavery, these intermediaries in the chain of command of coerced labor were essential to the smooth functioning of the slave and post-slave system. What role did they play? Were they agents of coercion or of worker protection?

Theme of this Issue

Within the vast topic of coercive labor, middlemen, who stood at the intersection of free, enslaved, and indentured status, play a central but relatively neglected role in historiography. This issue examines their long-term situation, both under slavery and in the post-slavery era. In slave-owning societies, for example, it is important to understand the role of plantation overseers. Enslaved themselves, overseers, and occasionally even recruiters of workers after the abolition of slavery, these intermediaries in the chain of command of coerced labor were essential to the smooth functioning of the slave and post-slave system. What role did they play? Were they agents of coercion or of worker protection?

Naturally, these relationships extended beyond the plantation; middlemen played an equally important role in family relations (e.g., as nannies) and in urban and commercial activities (slave traders, peddlers).

These questions need to be addressed both in terms of time – slavery and post-slavery – and space (the Americas, Africa, the Indian Ocean, Eurasia, etc.) in order to grasp the specific characteristics of plantation overseers in different geographical areas and periods. We will also examine whether the role of these overseers changed with the abolition of slavery and how, depending on the region, the type of crop (cotton, sugar, coffee, etc.), the production techniques (farm or factory work), or the type of activity (trade, domestic work). Do these factors also condition the race and gender variables of the workers and the race- and gender-defined attitudes of the slave drivers themselves? In what ways?

Before arriving at the plantation, the role of middlemen is equally central to the trafficking of captives, a phenomenon that has been relatively well documented since the early modern period. In the Atlantic, trans-Saharan, Indian Ocean, Mediterranean, and Eurasian slave trades, several powers intervened, relying on local personnel (recruiters, translators, overseers, etc.) who had to be identified and then followed until the “Middle Passage” or deportation to the place of work. After the abolition of slavery, these individuals were sometimes themselves responsible for the activities of the workers’ and their supervision in the various areas mentioned.

Scientific Editor

Alessandro Stanziani, CNRS-EHESS

Submission Procedures

Articles (no more than 45,000 characters, including spaces and references) should be submitted in French, English, Spanish or Portuguese to ciresc.redaction@cnrs.fr

by March 1, 2025.

They should be accompanied by an abstract of no more than 3,600 characters including spaces. The full list of recommended guidelines is available here. Articles will then undergo double-blind peer review.

Final versions of accepted articles must be submitted by December 1, 2025.

Selected References

• Almeida Mendes António de, 2008. “Les réseaux de la traite ibérique dans l’Atlantique Nord (1440-1640),” Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, no. 63/4, pp. 739–768.
• Balachandran Gopalan, 1996. “Searching for the Sardar: The State, Pre-Capitalist Institutions and Human Agency in the Maritime Labour Market, Calcutta 1880–1935’,” in Burton Stein & Sanjay Subramanyam (eds.), Institutions and Economic Change in South Asia, Delhi/New York, Oxford University Press, pp. 206–236.
• Carter Marina, 1995. Servants, Sirdars and Settlers. Indians in Mauritius, 1834-1874, Delhi/New York, Oxford University Press.
• Coquery-Vidrovitch Catherine, 2021. Les Routes de l’esclavage. Histoire des traites africaines, vie-xxe siècle, Paris, Albin Michel.
• Manjapra Kris, 2018. “Plantation Dispossession : The Global Travel of Agricultural Racial Capitalism,” in Sven Beckert & Christine Desan, American Capitalism. New Histories, New York, Columbia University Press, pp. 361–388.DOI : 10.7312/beck18524-016
• Mark-Thiesen Cassandra, 2012. “The ‘Bargain’ of Collaboration: African Intermediaries, Indirect Recruitment, and Indigenous Institutions in the Ghanaian Gold Mining Industry, 1900–1906,” International Review of Social History, no. 57/S20, special issue, pp. 17–38.DOI :10.1017/S0020859012000405 r 2012
• Newson Linda A., 2012. “Africans and Luso-Africans in the Portuguese Slave Trade on the Upper Guinea Coast in the Early Seventeenth Century,” Journal of African History, no. 53, pp. 1–24.
• Roy Tirthankar, 2008. “Sardars, Jobbers, Kanganies: The Labour Contractor and Indian Economic History,” Modern Asian Studies, no. 42/5, pp. 971-998. DOI : 10.1017/S0026749X07003071
• Sandy Laura, 2012. “Homemakers, Supervisors, and Peach Stealing Bitches: the role of overseers’ wives on slave plantations in eighteenth-century Virginia and South Carolina,” Women’s History Review, no. 21/3, pp. 473–494. DOI : 10.1080/09612025.2012.661157
• Stanziani Alessandro, 2018. Labor on the Fringes of Empire. Voice, Exit and the Law, Cham, Palgrave Macmillan.
• Stubbs Tristan, 2018. Masters of Violence. The Plantation Overseers of Eighteenth-Century Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia, Columbia, University of South Carolina Press.
• Witzenrath Christopher (ed.), 2015. Eurasian Slavery, Ransom and Abolition in World History, 1200-1860, London, Routledge.

Liverpool University Press is pleased to inform you of the latest content in LABOUR HISTORY REVIEW, a highly regarded publication that is essential reading for those working in and researching social and political history, and the working lives and politics of 'ordinary' people.

Volume 89.2 includes articles on William Sharman Crawford and the politics of suffrage; boundary review and the organization and identity of the Peterborough Divisional Labour Party; the British Trade Union movement and Zionism, 1936–1967; plus, reviews of the latest books in the field.

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Table of contents

RESEARCH ARTICLES

‘THE MOST CONSISTENT OF THEM ALL’: WILLIAM SHARMAN CRAWFORD AND THE POLITICS OF SUFFRAGE

ANTHONY DALY

 

BOUNDARY REVIEW AND THE ORGANIZATION AND IDENTITY OF THE PETERBOROUGH DIVISIONAL LABOUR PARTY

SCOTT RAWLINSON

 

2023 LABOUR HISTORY REVIEW ESSAY PRIZE RUNNER-UP

NOT AN INDUSTRIAL MATTER: THE BRITISH TRADE UNION MOVEMENT AND ZIONISM, 1936–1967

JOHN RUSSELL

 

BOOK REVIEWS

BOOK REVIEWS

 

Thomas Fleischman: Leigh Claire La Berge, Marx for Cats: A Radical Bestiary, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2023.

Stephen Hopkins: Brigitte Studer, Travellers of the World Revolution: A Global History of the Communist International, London and New York: Verso, 2023.

Quentin Outram: Jack Taylor, Oil, Nationalism and British Policy in Iran: The End of Informal Empire, 1941–53, London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2024.

Mark Hurst: Matthew Gerth, Anti-Communism in Britain during the Early Cold War: A Very British Witch Hunt, London: University of London Press, 2023.

International Conference of the Network Labour Law History from a Global Perspective, Frankfurt am Main, 3-4 September 2024

Founders and Shapers of Labour Law. National and Transnational Perspectives

Following a successful conference in 2023, the Labour Law History from a Global Perspective network will meet for the second time, this year focusing on the law of labour from a biographical perspective. The focus will be on well-known labour lawyers, but also on people who have had an influence on labour law or the regulation of the world of work in other contexts. We are interested in what influence they had in their respective national contexts, as well as beyond – may that be transnational, transregional or translocal. The conference is co-organised by Johanna Wolf (MPILHLT) and Rebecca Zahn (Strathclyde University).

The conference will be hybrid. If you are interested in participating (in person or online), please send an email to wolf@lhlt.mpg.de until 25 August 2024.

Programm

Tuesdays, 03.09.2024
09:30–10:00 Arrival and Registration

INTRODUCTION 10:00–10:45
Thesis Paper on the State of the Art
Johanna Wolf (MPILHLT) / Rebecca Zahn (Strathclyde University)

Comment:
Christian G. De Vito (University of Vienna)

PANEL I / THE AMERICAS 10:45–12:00
Chair: Raquel R. Sirotti (MPILHLT)
Bora Laskin and the Shaping of Canadian Labour Law
Eric Tucker (Osgoode Hall Law School)

Slavery and Free Labour Under the Same Quill: Joze Thomaz Nabuco de Araujo and the Making of the Law of Labour in Nineteenth-Century Brazil
Marjorie Carvalho de Souza (Università del Salento)

12:00–13:00 Lunch break

PANEL II / AUSTRALIASIA 13:00–14:30
Chair: Prakhar Ganguly (MPILHLT)
The Eight Hour Day Movement and the Development of Australian Labour Law
John Howe (Melbourne Law School)

Transnational Legal Lives and Fiji's First General Strike 1920: Manilal Maganlal Shah
Jasmine Ali (Melbourne Law School)

Mediating Justice: Jurisprudence in India
Megha Sharma (Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence)

14:30–15:00 Coffee break

PANEL III / LAWYERS IN EXILE 15:00–16:30
Chair: Magdalena Gebhart (MPILHLT)
German Labour Lawyers in the British Exile
Rebecca Zahn (Strathclyde University)

Hugo Sinzheimer’s Influence in the Netherlands
Robert Knegt (University of Amsterdam, Hugo Sinzheimer Institute Amsterdam)

The Impact of German Exiles on Labour Law in Argentina: The Case of Ernesto Karz and Ernesto Krotoschin
Leticia Vita and Julieta Lobato (University of Buenos Aires)

17:00–18:00 Dinner

FIRESIDE CHAT: HOW DO WE REMEMBER LABOUR LAWYERS. THE ARCHIVING OF LEGACIES 18:00–19:00
Chair: Rebecca Zahn
Pascal Annerfelt (Hugo Sinzheimer Institute)
Anja Kruke (Archive of Social Democracy)
Paul Smith (Wedderburn Legacy)

Wednesday, 04.09.2024
PANEL IV / EUROPEAN NATIONAL PERSPECTIVES 10:00–11:30
Chair: Nina Cozzi (MPILHLT)
Paal Berg and Norwegian Labour Law
Alexander Sønderland Skjønberg (BI Norwegian Business School)

Gino Giugni
Irene Stolzi (University of Florence)

Eugenia Pragier and the Quest for Women's Labour Protection in Poland
Natalia Jarska (Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences)

PODCAST ON AFRICAN LEGAL HISTORY – HISTORY OF THE INVISIBLE 11:30–12:15
Chair: Johanna Wolf (MPILHLT)
Raquel R. Sirotti (MPILHLT)

12:15–13:15 Lunch break

PANEL V / EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVES 13:15–14:45
Chair: Manfred Weiss (Goethe University)
Eliane Vogel-Polsky
Anna Quadflieg (MPILHLT)

Between Paris, Geneva and Beyond: Albert Thomas, From National to International Labour Legislation
Adeline Blaskiewicz (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)

Paul Pic and the Others. The Transnational Insight of European Legal Culture on Labour at the Turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries
Virginia Amorosi (University of Naples “Frederico II”)

14:45–15:00 Coffee break

FINAL COMMENT 15:00–15:45
Thorsten Keiser (Justus Liebig University)
Stefan Berger (Institute for Social Movements)

Kontakt

wolf@lhlt.mpg.de

https://www.lhlt.mpg.de/events/38352/2077701

New Delhi/India, 17 to 21 February 2025

Actors and spaces have been at the forefront of global history, and we propose to probe a particular type of actor: intermediaries, and a particular type of space: intermediate places. This helps us investigate what lies in-between, the transitions and transformations people experienced in the past and experience in the present. In this Winter School, we aim to benefit from such insights in order to explore intermediaries and intermediate places.

inter School: In-between - Intermediaries and Intermediate Places in Global Labour - Past & Present

Labour history has experienced a profound change in the last twenty years, moving away from a Eurocentric model spotlighting the male, Western industrial worker to a global labour history that seeks to explore labourers, labour regimes and labour relations in different places and different time periods. Importantly, this has led to a questioning of any straightforward free-unfree divide which posits a shift from unfree to free labour that followed a scheme(s) of “modernisation”. In the last decades, labour historians have highlighted the need to move beyond the ‘free’/‘unfree’ divide (van der Linden and Brass, 1997; van der Linden 2008), expanding the range of labour relations under study, and insisting on the relevance of a processual perspective. Especially the latter approach highlights the complex making of labour coercion, and offers the possibility to rethink key concepts, e.g. the ‘working class’, and periodisations in labour history, questioning also the binary approach of ‘free’ and ‘unfree’ labour (De Vito, Schiel and van Rossum, 2020; Schiel and Heinsen, forthcoming).

This new approach has emphasised how ‘free’ and ‘unfree’ and in-between forms of labour co-exist and even reinforce each other.

Furthermore, actors and spaces have been at the forefront of global history, and we propose to probe a particular type of actor: intermediaries, and a particular type of space: intermediate places. This helps us investigate what lies in-between, the transitions and transformations people experienced in the past and experience in the present. In this Winter School, we aim to benefit from such insights in order to explore intermediaries and intermediate places.

Intermediate places include a wide variety of spaces where people have been forced to stay for a limited or transitional period of time, for example the ships which brought enslaved and indentured people to their owners or work sites, or convicts to penal colonies. Other examples include prisons and jails, penal settlements, concentration or prisoner of war camps, gulags, market places, work and living sites of indentured labourers, holding pens, depots where indentured and enslaved people were held, ports, private households, farmers, rural and other workers, who were evicted and had to take refuge in temporary settlements, which could include roadside settlements, school grounds, or public land. For some, time spent in such places were limited, for others it could span years, even decades, and for yet others it might have been a place where they died.

Intermediaries are understood here as people in intermediary positions and contexts. Intermediaries can and could be people who were coerced to inhabit such roles, such as enslaved or indentured overseers, indentured people, convicts, working as overseers, warders, or night-watchmen, or watchwomen, inmates of gulags or concentration camps, i.e. people in coerced contexts, holding a position of power, who, even though they were subjected to a coerced environment, held positions of power, as well as everyone in-between or who moved from one role to another (Arnold, 2015; Dimmers, 2023; Walker, 2007; Wiethoff, 2006). At the same time we want to explore intermediate roles for free or freer intermediaries, who worked and work in same or similar roles as coerced intermediaries and additionally for example as brokers, moneylenders, protectors of immigrants, or recruiters and traders (Bates, Carter, 2017; Delbourgo, 2009; Schaffer, Roberts, Raj, 2009; Schwecke 2021a, 2021b).

We welcome paper proposals that explore these topics in the past and present.

PhD students are invited to submit a paper proposal (approx. 500 words), abstract, a short summary of their argument, current affiliation, and short bio-note latest by 1 August, 2024 to: Michaela Dimmers, Max Weber Forum for South Asian Studies, New Delhi: dimmers@mwsindia.org

Subject: Winter school: In-between: Intermediaries and Intermediate Places

Candidates with PhD funding are expected to fund their trips. However, candidates without funding can apply in their application for support of their travel expenses.

You will be informed about the outcome of your application by 30 September, 2024.

Successful applicants will be expected to pre-circulate their papers among the participants by 1 December, 2024.

For further information and queries, please contact:

Michaela Dimmers, Max Weber Forum for South Asian Studies, New Delhi:
dimmers@mwsindia.org.

Contact (announcement)

Michaela Dimmers, Max Weber Forum for South Asian Studies, New Delhi: dimmers@mwsindia.org

Doha/Qatar, 18 to 19 September 2024 or Davis/California, 16 December 2024

This conference aims to uncover the unwritten histories of migration through the material culture that people most valued and brought with them as they traversed the space of the Indian Ocean world and beyond. We invite papers about the flow of peoples in relation to their belongings across the Indian Ocean and Asiatic geographies.

Materiality of Migration in the Indian Ocean & Global Asia: Artifacts, Self-Fashioning, Belonging

This conference aims to uncover the unwritten histories of migration through the material culture that people most valued and brought with them as they traversed the space of the Indian Ocean world and beyond. Scholars have written extensively about the histories of trade, migration, and the circulation of objects in Asia and the Indian Ocean rim since ancient times. We build on this to foreground the critical importance of material belongings for migrants as they traveled beyond their homelands. As they detached themselves from their homelands, their attachments to portable objects helped their material and emotional survival on the move, and their anchorage in new places. We invite papers about the flow of peoples in relation to their belongings across the Indian Ocean and Asiatic geographies addressing these inquiries:

- How do the objects that migrants carry with them on their journeys connect them to multiple elsewheres, to the places and peoples they’ve left behind. And how do the objects help ease the feelings of unease, unfamiliarity, and otherness, thus creating new meanings and ways of being in new places?
- How did migrants use clothing, crafts, and home decorations as critical forms of self-fashioning, identity, and heritage that acquired new meanings as they traversed diverse communities and spaces?
- What stories of migration are made possible by tracing the histories of unwritten things that carry great meaning, value, and security for migrants? What tales do these objects tell about migrants’ dynamic relationships to multiple elsewheres?
- How do artifacts (contemporary art, trade objects, gifts, and mnemonic objects) that people use reveal about the unwritten histories of migration, the intermediary networks, places of transit, detention and waiting, and deferred destinations?
- How do objects of the diaspora (e.g., decorative arts, musical instruments, ritual objects, family memorabilia/heirlooms, moveable treasures) connect migrants to their homelands, as well as mediate their complex interactions with cultures beyond their homelands (cultural transmission, adaptation, and hybridity)?
- What role does gender play in the materiality and journeys of the artifacts carried by migrants and diasporic communities? How do women in diasporic/migrant communities specifically contribute to the making and preservation of practices related to objects which carry memorial and familial values?
- What role do objects play in the globalization of kinship ties and affinities, and in the formation of new diasporic communities?
- How are contemporary flows of migration and the inflow of global capital leading to novel forms of material expression in architecture and built landscapes?
- What are the artifacts of diasporic political associations, particularly expressions of dissent and aspiration given voice in diverse forms, such as labor songbooks, printing presses, and pamphlets that could connect dispersed peoples, and vast spaces to homelands?

The geographical scope of the conference is expansive, focusing on mobility and displacement within and across the western Indian Ocean, Arabian Gulf, South and Southeast Asia, East Asia, and Africa, as well as their secondary global diasporas. We invite papers focusing on historical and contemporary research projects.

This is a two-part in-person conference to be held in Doha, Qatar, and Davis, California, in the fall 2024, organized by the GA:MA Lab (Global Asia: Mobilities and Arts) based at the Institute for Creative Research (VCUarts Qatar). The Qatar conference will be held on September 18 and 19, 2024, and the UC Davis conference will take place on December 16, 2024. Participants need to specify whether they prefer to present at the Doha, Qatar or the UC Davis conference.

The Conference Call for Papers requires a brief abstract (maximum of 500 words) that should include a brief description of the topic and research questions, including the historical period and geographical scope; and a short biography of the author (100-150 words). Select papers will be published in the Monsoon: Journal of the Indian Ocean Rim, a journal published by the Africa Institute and Duke University Press. Please send all the requested materials and details (including your participation venue) to globalasiamobilitiesarts@gmail.com. Some funding for travel may be available for the selected presenters.

Contact (announcement)

Neelima Jeychandran (Virginia Commonwealth University, Qatar)
Nicole Ranganath (University of California, Davis, USA )
jeychandrann@vcu.edu
globalasiamobilitiesarts@gmail.com

Call for Articles for the special issue “Gendered labour history in Europe and beyond”

The Feminist Labour History Working Group of the European Labour History Network (ELHN) invite submissions for a special issue of Labour History: A Journal of Labour and Social History to be published in Nov. 2025.

Labour History is an Australian-based journal, keen to bring research from the ELHN to an international English-language readership (primarily the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada). The special issue’s focus on Europe and beyond during the 19th and 20th centuries will show how recent research in feminist/gendered labour history contributes to current global
labour history. Feminist/gendered approaches have transformed the field of labour history over the past forty years by addressing forms of organizing beyond the traditionally studied realms of parties and unions, expanding the categories of work/labour, worker and workplace and the sites, agendas and repertoires of labour activism. The rise of a new global labour history in the 21st century has further enhanced regional coverage, and promoted the inclusion of many types of labour relations and forms and levels of labour activism.

Guest editors Leda Papastefanaki (University of Ioannina & IMS/FORTH) and Eszter Varsa (Central European University) and an advisory editorial committee (Eloisa Betti, Eileen Boris, Natalia Jarska, Diane Kirkby, Françoise Laot and Susan Zimmerman) seek to highlight these new directions. We welcome papers addressing the intersection of class/caste and gender with other categories of difference, including age, citizenship, global inequality and the global division of labour, nationality, race/ethnicity, religion, sexuality, and social status. Within this common overall framework, papers may address the following themes, among others:

• Migration, mobility and migrant workers
• Unfree and coercive labour
• The feminization of work and occupations
• The relationship between paid and unpaid or subsistence-oriented work
• Commodification and decommodification of domestic and care work, reproductive labour/social reproduction
• The role gender has played in shaping labour law and practice of regulating labour and the impact of labour law and labour practices on gender and gender relations
• Trade unions and cooperatives locally, nationally and internationally.
• Legacies of colonialism
• Labour Feminist and women’s networks within and outside of unions

Submission details and timetable

Expressions of interest in being considered for the special issue should be sent to the guest editors by July 25th 2024. Please submit a file (no longer than 1–2 pages) which includes the paper title, an initial paper abstract, and a very short bio. We are interested in papers presented within the ELHN context and papers based on work not yet presented here. Articles conforming
to Labour History’s usual referencing style and length, with an Abstract and short author bio, are to be emailed, clearly marked ‘Europe and Beyond Special Issue’, to the guest editors and directly to the journal, admin@labourhistory.org.au, by Nov. 10th 2024. Following the usual reviewing process, revisions will need to be completed May 2025 for final editing.

Authors who can’t meet this deadline may still have their articles considered for publication in a subsequent issue of Labour History. For further information on the special issue, please contact the guest editors, Leda Papastefanaki (lpapast@uoi.gr ) and Eszter Varsa (VarsaE@ceu.edu). For other questions about the journal please contact the Editor, Diane Kirkby (diane.kirkby@uts.edu.au) cc’d to admin@labourhistory.org.au.

Reggio Emilia/Italy, 28-30 April 2025

On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Italy from Nazi-Fascism (25 April 1945-25 April 2025), we organize a conference on anti-fascism in recent decades in Italy and abroad.

Antifascism(s) from 1989 to the present. Actors, Meanings, Practices and Circulation

Anti-fascism emerged in Italy in the early 1920s to counter the tide of Fascism, but it soon became a global phenomenon, following the various autonomous trajectories of political émigrés and the international circulation of ideas. The original Italian political cultures that had eventually formed a united anti-fascist front by overcoming divisions and divergences thus travelled around the world and adapted themselves to different spaces and times (Garcia 2016; Brasken, Copsey, Featherstone 2020; Camurri 2024).

After World War II, anti-fascism was one of the pillars on which the European political and symbolic order was based, both to the east of the Iron Curtain – where it became a kind of state religion – and in the West (De Bernardi, Ferrari 2004). Here, it influenced the birth of mass democracy depending on the presence and strength of local resistance movements, without excluding countries that had a different timing such as Spain and Portugal (De Felice 1997; Gallerano 1993, 1999).

In the following decades, anti-fascisms had a complex life and were never just an object of memory, although the politics of memory and collective memories played an important role. Anti-fascisms came across new issues, cultures, vocabularies, repertoires of action and social actors who opened up new horizons of meaning by appropriating this tradition. Think, for example, of the Black Panther Party and the various themes it brought together and re-worked: anti-fascism, anti-racism, abolitionism, socialism, feminism, generational issues, the tension between historical decolonisation and postcolonial openings (Mullen, Vials 2020).

The fall of ‘real socialism’ between 1989 and 1991 strongly contributed to the erosion of anti-fascism on an international scale. In the European Community, anti-communism, anti-totalitarianism and the memory of the Shoah have progressively obscured anti-fascism as a symbolic foundational moment. Italy – the original cradle of anti-fascism – is probably the country where the crisis was felt the most (Luzzatto 2004). The end of the parties that had written the Italian Constitution and the birth of post-constitutional parties such as the Northern League, National Alliance, Forza Italia, Five Star Movement (M5S) weakened the link between anti-fascism and the Republican political field. In particular, the dissolution of the Partito comunista italiano has had a huge impact on the disintegration of anti-fascism in local and national institutions and in a part of Italian society that identified with it. In fact, the largest communist party in the Western world had based its post-war legitimacy precisely on the fight against Fascism and had therefore been one of the strongest vectors of transmission of this political tradition. At the international level, the implosion of the Soviet Union and the acceleration of neoliberal globalisation allowed for the affirmation of an extended neoliberal hegemony capable of destroying the breeding ground for any transformation project. In addition to being a symbolic and constitutional pact, anti-fascism was also a (positive) project for the expansion of democracy (De Luna, Revelli 1995: Rapini 2007, 2024). Finally, globalisation has confronted Italy with unprecedented problems such as increased immigration, inadequate citizenship laws and the climate crisis, or has exacerbated old problems such as racism, and anti-fascist cultures have struggled to find effective solutions.

While the period that runs from the birth of anti-fascism until 1989 – especially before 1945 (Droz 2001) – has been the subject of a rich international literature that cannot be summarised in a few lines, the crisis of anti-fascism in subsequent decades has been covered by a much more limited number of studies (Vergnon 2009; Garcia, Yusta, Tabet, Climaco 2016; Bray 2017; Bresciani 2017). Only more recently has there been a resurgence of interest (Chiantera-Stutte, Pagano 2023; Pirjevec, Pelikan, Ramet 2023; Fulvetti, Ventura, 2024). Still, knowledge about the various transformations of anti-fascism from 1989 to the present remains scarce or limited to the field of public memory (Focardi, Groppo 2013; Focardi 2020; Palheta, Roueff 2020; Bantigny, Palheta 2021; Hofstra 2022; Palheta Jones, Piotrowski, Schuhmacher 2024).

The conference will focus on the last 35 years to answer the following questions: What forms, meanings and practices has anti-fascism taken in Italy and beyond? Which actors have picked up its tradition? What horizon of meanings can it open up in the present? What are the potential seeds of a future anti-fascism and where must we look for them?

Approach and conference themes
The conference has an interdisciplinary approach. It is aimed at scholars from all human and social sciences, in particular history, sociology, anthropology, political science, law, political philosophy, literature, pedagogy, linguistics, arts and media studies. The conference also adopts a multi-scalar approach: it calls for ‘micro’ analyses, biographies, national case studies, international macro-comparisons and transnational perspectives.

Proposals should include, but are not limited to, one or more of the following conference themes:

1) The political-institutional field
The first theme concerns the relationship between anti-fascism and international (e.g. EU, UN, ILO, etc.), national and/or local institutions. Proposals should address – but not exclusively – the following themes: regulations and legislation, political parties, public memory politics, political symbolism, toponymy, the meaning of urban space and the use of history and memory by political parties and institutions.

2) Anti-fascist actors and practices
The second theme focuses on individual and collective social actors who, over the last 35 years, have reclaimed the tradition of anti-fascism, adapting its meaning through concrete practices: student associations; anti-racist, pacifist, feminist, environmentalist, immigrant, teacher and workers’ groups or movements; schools and educational experiences.

3) Cultures and countercultures
The third theme looks at culture in its various forms, with a distinction between representations and languages (anti-fascist or pertaining to anti-fascism), on the one hand, and lifestyles, on the other: music, cinema, theatre, literature, TV series, figurative art, comics, posters and graphics, street art, the ‘style’ of subcultures (Hebdige 1979) and sport.

4) Global anti-fascism
The last theme does not focus on a specific object, but on a perspective: anti-fascism as a global and transnational phenomenon. It seeks to document, for example, what social and political conditions, networks or actors allowed – and still allows – books, words, symbols, theories, practices, memories and myths to travel through time and space (Bourdieu 2002).

Submission of abstracts
Abstracts should not exceed 500 words and may be written in Italian, French or English. They must be accompanied by a short bio of max. 150 words. They must be submitted by 15 September 2024 to antifascismconference2025@gmail.com. Authors will be notified of the selection of their abstract by the end of October 2024.

Participants/speakers must cover their own travel expenses. Accommodation and food will be provided by the conference organisation.

Languages of the conference: Italian, French, English

Date and location: The conference will be held in Reggio Emilia in the historical ‘casa Cervi’, where the “Alcide Cervi” Institute is based, from 28 to 30 April 2025, on the 80th Anniversary of the Liberation of Italy from Nazi-Fascism.

Organisers: “Alcide Cervi” Institute, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, “Ferruccio Parri” National Institute.

Scientific Advisory Board
Mirco Carrattieri, University of Bergamo, Liberation Route Europe
Donatella Della Porta, Scuola Normale Superiore, Florence
Greta Fedele, “Ferruccio Parri” National Institute
Filippo Focardi, University of Padova/Scientific Director of “Ferruccio Parri” National Institute
Silvana Patriarca, Fordham University, New York
Andrea Rapini, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia
Toni Rovatti, University of Bologna
Zanoni Mirco, Istituto “Alcide Cervi”

Bibliography
Bantigny L., Palheta U., Face à la menace fasciste, Textuel, Paris, 2021.
Bourdieu P., “Les conditions sociales de la circulation internationale des idées”, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, n. 145, 2002, pp. 3-8.
Brasken K., Copsey N., Featherstone D., eds., Anti-fascism in a Global Perspective: Transnational Networks, Exile Communities, and Radical Internationalism, Routledge, London-New York, 2020.
Bray M., Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, Melville House, New York, 2017.
Bresciani M., Quale antifascismo? Storia di Giustizia e Libertà, Carocci, 2017.
Camurri R., “Crossing Borders: esilio e antifascismo”, in G. Fulvetti, A. Ventura, eds., Antifasciste e antifascisti. Storie, culture politiche e memorie dal fascismo alla Repubblica, Viella, Roma, 2024, pp. 41-61.
Chiantera-Stutte P., Pagano, eds., La forza della libertà. L’antifascismo dall’Aventino alla Seconda guerra mondiale, M. Pacini, Pisa, 2023.
De Bernardi A., Ferrari P., Antifascismo e identità europea, Carocci, Roma, 2004.
De Felice F., ed., “Antifascismi e Resistenze”, Annali della Fondazione Istituto Gramsci, VI, La Nuova Italia scientifica, Roma, 1997.
De Luna G., Revelli M., Fascismo/antifascismo. Le idee, le identità, La Nuova Italia, Firenze, 1995.
Focardi F., Groppo B., eds., L’Europa e le sue memorie. Politiche e culture del ricordo dopo il 1989, Viella, Roma, 2013.
Droz J., Histoire de l'antifascisme en Europe (1923-1939), La Découverte, Paris, 2001 (1985).
Focardi F., Nel cantiere della memoria. Fascismo, Resistenza, Shoah, Foibe, Viella, Roma, 2020.
Gallerano N., “La memoria pubblica del fascismo e dell’antifascismo”, in G. Calchi Novati, ed., Politiche della memoria, Manifestolibri, Roma, 1993, pp. 7-20.
Gallerano N., ed., La resistenza tra storia e memoria, Ed. Mursia, Milano, 1999.
García H., “Transnational History: A New Paradigm for Anti-Fascist Studies?”, Contemporary European History, n. 4, 2016, pp. 563-572.
García H., Yusta M., Tabet X., Clímaco C., eds., Rethinking Antifascism: History, Memory and Politics, 1922 to the Present, Berghahn Books New York, 2016.
Hebdige D., Subculture: The Meaning of Style, Routledge, London 1979.
Hofstra, Anti-Fascism in the 21st Century, Conference in New York, 2-3 November 2022.
Jones A., Piotrowski G., Schuhmacher N., eds., “Antifascism from Below”, Partecipazione e conflitto, n. 1, 2024.
Mullen B. V., Vials C., eds., The US Antifascism Reader, Verso, London-New York, 2020.
Palheta U., Roueff O., eds., “Pratiques de l’antifascisme, France 2020. Table ronde AFA-PB, la Horde, Jeune Garde Lyon”, Mouvements, n. 4, 2020, pp. 147-166.
Pirjevec J., Pelikan E., Ramet S. P., eds., Anti-fascism in European history : from the 1920s to today, Central European University Press, Budapest, 2023.
Rapini A., “Antifascist Movements in Republican Italy (1945-2018)”, in A. Gagliardi, M. Pasetti, eds., “Fascism in the Public Sphere of Post-Fascist Italy”, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, vol. 29, n. 3, 2024, pp. 1-16.
Rapini A., Antifascismo e cittadinanza. Giovani, identità e memoria nell’Italia repubblicana, Bononia University Press, 2007.
Vergnon G., L'antifascisme en France. De Mussolini à Le Pen, Presses universitaires de Rennes, Rennes, 2009.

Kontakt

andrea.rapini@unimore.it

Florence/Italy, 6 December 2024 (hybrid)

Historical research in general and Holocaust studies in particular tend to cluster around specific contexts and perspectives: genocide of Jews only, or genocide of Roma and Sinti only, the Holocaust from gender and family perspectives, and the history of people with disabilities and the euthanasia program, to name at least a few. However, there is a need to break up these clusters of research from time to time and to combine approaches in novel ways, by acknowledging intersections and their impact on accounts of the past. The linking of perspectives on race and ethnicity on the one hand and disability on the other has been neglected in Holocaust studies and in European history.

Race, Ethnicity, Gender and Disability: Intersectional Perspectives on the Holocaust

When her parents wanted to place two-year-old Irene Tobias in a home for the mentally disabled in 1937, the director of the Protestant charity in Hamburg, Friedrich Lentsch, refused to accept her because she was Jewish. He argued that by taking in a Jewish child, the institution might lose its status as a charitable and non-profit organization because the treatment of Jews might not be exempted from paying tax. Even the state institutions that were supposed to take Irene refused to do so, citing the precedent set by Lentsch.

Rose Steinberg was born in 1917 in Pinsk. At the age of three she became deaf and was later sent to the best Jewish school for the deaf in Berlin, where she met her future husband Max. They moved to Paris, where Max played football in a sports club for the deaf. During the Nazi occupation of France, Max was arrested for being Jewish. During that time, he and Rose and their young child were selflessly supported by their non-Jewish deaf friends whom Max met at the sports club. Max was eventually deported to Auschwitz where he was killed. However, Rose and the baby lived to see the end of the war.

When noma, a rare water cancer, was discovered among Romani children in the so-called G*psy camp at Auschwitz, Josef Mengele selected two German-speaking doctors from Bohemia - Berthold Epstein and Rudolf Weiskopf - from among the Jewish prisoners to study the disease. After some time, the Jewish doctors managed to cure some of the children, albeit under limited conditions. As soon as Mengele learned of this, he had the cured Romani children put to death in the gas chambers. Jewish doctors could not save many Roma and Sinti in the camp, and the vast majority of those who were healed ended up in the gas chambers. Even so, strong bonds of friendship were formed between the doctors, both of whom survived the war, and some of the Romani survivors, which lasted even after the war, as in the case of Weiskopf and Josef Chadraba, who lost his wife and their seven children in Auschwitz.

Historical research in general and Holocaust studies in particular tend to cluster around specific contexts and perspectives: genocide of Jews only, or genocide of Roma and Sinti only, the Holocaust from gender and family perspectives, and the history of people with disabilities and the euthanasia program, to name at least a few. This development in research is well founded, and many of the important studies that advance our understanding of the Holocaust are the result of research that focuses on one of these specific perspectives.

However, we also believe that there is a need to break up these clusters of research from time to time and to combine approaches in novel ways, by acknowledging intersections and their impact on accounts of the past. While Holocaust scholarship on Jews and Roma has already produced publications that combine research on the genocide of these two (internally very diverse) communities (e.g., Joskowicz 2023, Adler - Čapková 2020), the linking of perspectives on race and ethnicity on the one hand and disability on the other has been neglected in Holocaust studies and more generally in research on European history.

We welcome proposals for articles that combine the categories of race and ethnicity with that of disability and focus on various life situations (both inside and outside camps).

Articles may focus on questions such as:

To what extent did the Holocaust experience of people with disabilities differ if they were Jewish or Romani?

What were the responses of people with disabilities or of (local / international) activists who supported people with disabilities, to the racial discrimination of Romani or Jewish disabled people?

How did the diverse Romani or Jewish communities and families treat their disabled members during the Second World War?

To what extent did gender play a role in solidarity networks that bridged identities based on race/ethnicity and disability?

Proposals that use the sources produced by Roma and Sinti, Jews or people with disabilities themselves are especially welcome.

We welcome potential authors of articles for a special issue that we plan to publish with one of the leading peer-reviewed journals in the field. Abstracts – approx. 800-1000 words –should be submitted to Monika Baar at monika.baar@eui.eu by 31 July 2024. Questions about the project may also be sent to this address. Decisions about the acceptance of abstracts will be made shortly after the submission deadline.

The first drafts of the articles will be due by 20 November 2024 to be discussed during a hybrid workshop taking place at the European University Institute in Florence on 6 December 2024 under the organization of Monika Baar (EUI) and Kateřina Čapková (Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague).

Kontakt

monika.baar@eui.eu

Aubervilliers/France, 14 November 2024

Cet appel à communication porte sur la propagation des maladies à bord des navires et leur impact sur les ports entre le XVIe et le XXe siècle. Cette journée d’étude est l’occasion d’aborder, sous un angle inédit, les maladies qui sévissent à bord et à terre, et qui sont liées par le phénomène de l’embarquement. Comment s’articule la gestion des mesures sanitaires et des malades dans des ports secondaires non dotés de quarantaines, mais touchés par des vagues épidémiques circulant par le petit cabotage ? Comment les ports, où certaines escadres relâchent avec des centaines de malades nécessitant placement dans des hôpitaux, isolation et soins, gèrent-ils l’arrivée de ces flux importants ? Comment la maladie modèle-t-elle, à bord, l’espace du navire lorsqu’il est nécessaire d’isoler et de soigner les membres d’un équipage ? Ces questions ne sont pas exhaustives et ouvrent la voie à de nombreuses autres réflexions possibles.

Argumentaire

Transporteurs d’agents pathogènes, les navires véhiculent virus et bactéries dont la prolifération est renforcée par la promiscuité et par les difficiles conditions de vie à bord. L’intensification des circulations maritimes à partir de la période moderne entraîne, de fait, une accélération de « l’import-export épidémique »[1] pouvant entraîner des flambées de certaines maladies en mer comme à terre. Les exemples sont nombreux : de la propagation de la variole à l’Île Bourbon à partir de 1729 à l’épidémie de typhus qui ravage l’escadre du comte Du Bois de la Motte entre 1757-1758 avant de décimer la population de Brest. Les passages entre terre et mer sont fréquents et se multiplient avec l’internationalisation des ports et l’augmentation des flux commerciaux. Il n’est donc pas étonnant que l’arrivée dans les ports des navires ait pu susciter une « onde de crainte » que l’on cherche à atténuer par la mise en place de politiques sanitaires longtemps dominées par le modèle marseillais (quarantaines, visites sanitaires des navires, désinfection des marchandises, etc). La préoccupation pour la santé des gens de mer, qui se développe significativement après la Guerre de Sept Ans (1756-1763), place ainsi le XVIIIe siècle au cœur de la problématique, mais nous souhaitons ouvrir la réflexion à une période plus large s’étendant du XVIe au XXe siècles.

En lien avec l’axe 3 du projet GEMER qui porte sur la santé et la démographie des marins et de leurs familles, cette journée est l’occasion d’aborder, sous un angle inédit, les maladies qui sévissent à bord et à terre, et que relie l’embarquer ensemble. Comment s’articule la gestion des mesures sanitaires et des malades dans des ports secondaires non dotés de quarantaines, mais touchés par des vagues épidémiques circulant par le petit cabotage ? Comment les ports, dans lesquels certaines escadres relâchent avec des centaines de malades nécessitant placement dans des hôpitaux, isolation et soins, gèrent-ils l’arrivée de ces flux importants ? Comment la maladie modèle-t-elle, à bord, l’espace du navire lorsqu’il est nécessaire d’isoler et de soigner les membres d’un équipage ? Ces questions ne sont pas exhaustives et ouvrent la voie à de nombreuses autres réflexions possibles.

L’appel à communication concerne bien sûr les trois territoires constitutifs du projet GEMER (Cancale et le Plessis-Bertrand, le bassin de la Seudre, et l’Étang de Berre), mais il ne leur est pas limité. Les sujets attendus pour cette journée d’étude porteront sur les maladies et épidémies (la variole, le choléra, le typhus, la peste, entre autres), « embarquées » et « débarquées » à la faveur d’une escale ou d’un retour au port et véhiculées par les « gens de mer », c’est-à-dire les pêcheurs et les navigants, ainsi que par l’ensemble des individus qu’ils sont amenés à côtoyer à terre, dans leur vie professionnelle (artisans en lien avec le milieu maritime ; confréries) et quotidienne (famille plus ou moins élargie).

Afin de favoriser la discussion autour des liens entre terre et mer, seront examinées avec attention les propositions mobilisant des sources inédites relevant de l’histoire économique et sociale et de l’histoire urbaine (actes notariés, comptabilités d’hôpitaux, délibérations des gouvernements urbains etc.).

Modalités de soumission

Les communications seront de trente minutes, suivies de dix minutes de discussion. Une discussion générale est prévue à la fin de chaque demi-journée.

Les propositions de contribution doivent se faire en lien avec la thématique définie en utilisant le formulaire en ligne, accessible ICI.

Elles devront être envoyées

avant le 15 juillet 2024.

Le comité d'organisation informera de l’acceptation ou non des propositions avant le 31 juillet 2024.

Pour toute question ou information complémentaire, contactez : laure-helene.gouffran@univ-ubs.fr.

Responsables scientifiques

• Anne Forrer, UBS, Lorient
• Laure-Hélène Gouffran, UBS Lorient
• Isabelle Séguy, INED

University Aix Marseille, 2-3 October 2024

Providing an intercultural and interdisciplinary space for exchange and discussion for researchers, this workshop aims to take a closer look at the nuanced interplay between gender and warfare throughout history and the multifaceted relationship between gender, conflict and society.

PhD students and postdocs from various disciplines are invited to present their research on the topic and engage in discussions meaning to enhance understanding of gender as a category in warfare.
The aim of the workshop is to question how gender influences the perception of war, violence and warfare, as well as shaping experiences, roles and remembrance. We will practice critical analysis skills for examining gendered narratives in conflict scenarios and also create a space for networking between researchers working in related fields.
Research on conflict tends to be focused on combatant experiences, excluding others’ experiences and perceptions of warfare.

Topics to be discussed include:
Female Militarisation (women in military adjacent organisations)
Occupation (how does this impinge on gender roles?)
Internment, POW Experiences (‘feminisation’ of male civilians/combatants/sexualization of female internees)
Gendering in Medical Care
Gender and Trauma
Women and Peace Movements
Reconstructing/Reimagining the Male Body After Amputation
Aspects of Women's Sexuality During Occupation Times

We encourage topical presentations as well as on methodological aspects.

Workshop languages are German and English

Programm

Please send a 300 word abstract and a short bio. Presentations should be no more than 20 minutes.
We're interested in projects at any stage and in any form, i.e finished projects, parts of projects, early stage projects. We want to create a space for discussion and the exchange of ideas.

The workshop will take place in Aix en Provence.
Travel bursaries are available for those without funding.

Kontakt

ae.gehl@fu-berlin.de; Maria.tudosescu@etu.uni-amu.fr

The Centre for Port Cities and Maritime Cultures (PCMC) at the University of Portsmouth, and History Department at Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) invites manuscripts for consideration in an edited volume which explores the role of port cities in the context of global studies in social and cultural maritime history.

Call for Manuscripts: Port Cities in Global History

The book has been inspired by the conference ‘Port Cities in Comparative Global History: Potentials and Issues’ held in Hong Kong in June 2023. The edited collection aims to explore emerging scholarship and new, original, research aspects of maritime society and culture within the urban maritime sphere.

We welcome submissions on (but not restricted to) the following topics:
- Modern and early-modern time periods
- Port city culture and the built environment, to include institutions, living patterns or infrastructure
- Multinational maritime histories of work, migration, cultures, public health, and/or diseases
- The impacts of imperial and global factors on port cities, including the integration or acknowledgement of previously overlooked, hidden, underexplored, or ‘challenging’ maritime histories
- The shared histories, cultural exchange, or hybridisation that happens within the port city milieu
- New approaches to colonial and imperial histories within the port city – reimagining and re-telling stories that restore balance and agency in unequal power relationships
- Cross- and trans-disciplinary opportunities for maritime heritage on land (e.g., practice-based museum professionals, academics, practitioners in the sciences, arts and/or digital technologies)

The volume will be published in English (UK). Please submit abstracts of 300 words max and 5 keywords, with the author(s) name, institutional affiliation, contact email, and a short biography of 100 words max to melanie.bassett@port.ac.uk no later than Sunday 8th September 2024 with ‘Port Cities CfM’ in the subject line. Submissions from Postgraduate and Early Career Researchers are encouraged.

The book’s editorial team will advise authors whether they have been accepted by Friday 11th October 2024. Full manuscripts of c. 8000 words (including footnotes) will be expected to be submitted by April 2025. The editors will advise on submission guidelines and the publishing timeline. We intend to submit the full publication manuscript by August 2025. The collaboration between PCMC and HKBU has been facilitated by Lloyd’s Register Foundation who funded the ‘Lloyd’s Register Surveyors in China, 1860 - 1930’ project.

Contact (announcement)

melanie.bassett@port.ac.uk

https://www.port.ac.uk/research/research-groups-and-centres/centre-for-port-cities-and-maritime-cultures

Berlin, 31 October - 1 November 2024

It is time to bring nation-building and migration into deeper conversation through historical, historiographical and political vantage points and to discuss perspectives for the future. At the end of this anniversary year, we invite you to reflect on these issues in an international and interdisciplinary context.

75 Years of the Federal Republic - 75 Years of Immigration: Contemporary History as Migration History

2024 marked the 75th anniversary of the adoption of the Basic Law and therefore the foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany. Over the last three quarters of a century, migration has been a defining, if often controversial, political, economic, social and cultural phenomenon. Migration-related issues such as flight, expulsion and asylum, planned labor migration ("guest work"), family reunification, freedom of movement in the EU, as well as undocumented migration have, in turn, had a decisive impact on the history of the Federal Republic of Germany. During this period, through the broader political framework (the Cold War, fall of the Iron Curtain, reunification, EU enlargement, etc.), the migration processes (first Europeanization, then globalization) and migration as a reference point for state self-positioning, social controversies and historical-political identity have been transformed several times.

It is time to bring nation-building and migration into deeper conversation through historical, historiographical and political vantage points and to discuss perspectives for the future. At the end of this anniversary year, we invite you to reflect on these issues in an international and interdisciplinary context. We welcome historical-political case studies, analyses of the politics of remembrance, historiographical contributions, reflections on the interdependence between politics and migration, as well as contributions to debates on current migration and integration policy fields, discourses and controversies. In addition to case studies, comparative or theoretical conference contributions that transcend the nation-state/national-historical perspectives are also welcome.

Possible topics of interest include:
a. Phases, forms and regimes of migration [old and new labor migration incl. GDR; political flight and asylum (Article 16 GG, Geneva Refugee Convention); flight and expulsion 1944/45-1949; ethnic German (Aussiedler) immigration; East-West migration during the Cold War; EU internal migration, quota refugees; family reunification; skilled workers’ migration].
b. The institutional-political-administrative framework of migration and integration (state, economy, civil society, culture, religion).
c. Discourses and paradigm shifts on migration and integration.
d. International comparisons of Germany as a country of immigration with other countries.
e. Cultural and religious foundations and conflicts in the migration society.
f. Diasporas, communities and migrant minorities.
g. Lives in between and/or hybridity: Between country of origin, country of destination and minority existence.
h. Historicizing migration - remembering migration - representing migration in commemorative politics and the landscape of remembrance.
i. Post-colonial and post-migratory perspectives on Germany as a migration society.
j. In search of a new “us” within the German migration society.

This English-language conference is aimed at scholars from the humanities and social sciences (anthropology/ethnology, geography, history, political science, law, religious studies, sociology, etc.). Abstracts for conference contributions (papers) are selected on a competitive basis in a peer review process. The number of speakers is limited to approximately 20 persons (plus audience). Young researchers (doctoral students, post-docs) are particularly invited to apply. Half of the places will be reserved for them. Accommodation is available in hotels or the Humboldt University guest house (from approximately € 80-100 per night). Financial support for participants to subsidize travel and accommodation costs will depend on the approval of additional funds that have been applied for.

The conference will conclude with a public evening event on European migration policy (in German). This panel, co-hosted by the Evangelische Akademie Berlin at the Französische Friedrichstadtkirche in Berlin-Mitte, will consist of leading figures in academia and politics (Prof. Dr. Petra Bendel; Prof. Dr. Naika Foroutan; Armin Laschet, MdB; Prof. Dr. Jan Lucassen; Federal Minister Cem Özdemir, tbc).

Abstracts in English for conference contributions (max. 600 words) and a short CV (max. two pages) with a selection of a maximum of three relevant publications can be submitted until July 18, 2024. While the conference language is English, conference papers can be submitted in German or English. The conference contributions will be made internally available before the conference begins. The submission deadline for papers is October 1, 2024. Publication of selected papers in an edited volume or in a peer-reviewed journal is planned.

Further information can be found at www.hu-berlin.de/75Jahre (not yet online). For questions regarding CfP and abstract please contact: ohliger@network-migration.org. Please send your application by e-mail as a pdf document in ONE single file to the following e-mail address: maeve.mcgrath@hu-berlin.de. You will be notified of the results of your application by the end of July.

Contact Information
Prof. Dr. Ufuk Topkara
Humboldt Univewresity Berlin
Unter den Linden 6
D-10099 Berlin
T.: 0049/30/2093-98099

Contact (announcement)

maeve.mcgrath@hu-berlin.de

Pierrefitte-sur-Seine/France, 23-24 January 2025

Dans le cadre de l’exposition Made in France, une histoire du textile qui se déroulera du 16 octobre 2024 au 25 janvier 2025, les Archives nationales organisent un colloque de clôture centré sur le rôle joué par l’État dans l’encadrement et le soutien de l’industrie textile, de Colbert à nos jours.

Argumentaire

À l’heure où l’industrie textile est au cœur d’une prise de conscience environnementale et éthique, revenir sur son histoire et sur ce qu’elle a représenté aux yeux de l’administration est un moyen de saisir l’importance économique et sociale majeure qu’elle a occupée en France, avant qu’elle ne s’effondre à la fin du XXe siècle.

Des draps de laine du Nord ou du Languedoc aux soieries lyonnaises, en passant par les toilesde lin de Bretagne ou le coton du Beaujolais, cette industrie a façonné des paysages, dynamisé l’innovation et construit économiquement des régions. La France incarne aujourd’hui l’image de la mode et de la haute couture, mais elle a été durant trois siècles le centre d’une production textile variée, extrêmement puissante et exportée dans le monde entier.

À l’initiative de cette réussite française l’Etat, royal, impérial ou républicain, a façonné les productions textiles à travers son implication dans les règlements, l’encouragement à l’innovation et à la compétitivité, sa volonté de connaissance de la production sur le territoire français comme à l’étranger.

Une mise en perspective internationale serait un contrepoint nécessaire afin de comprendre les différences et les similarités des politiques publiques menées à travers le monde. Comment cette industrie était-elle soutenue et encouragée par les gouvernements en dehors de la France ? Cette comparaison permettrait de mettre en perspective et de relativiser la notion de production nationale.

De plus, le regard international pourrait également se porter sur ce qui caractérise les productions françaises. Comment parler de Made in France quand les matières premières, lesteintures, les cotons, ont été et sont encore produits à l’étranger pour un usage en France. Le textile made in France existe-t-il encore aujourd’hui et comment s’affirme sa spécificité ? Quel est son avenir ?

Enfin, il apparaît essentiel de consacrer un volet de ce colloque au coûts humains, sociaux etenvironnementaux, et à la façon dont l’État a appréhendé ou non ces différents aspects dans sa politique économique et sociale. Il convient de ne pas oublier la face sombre de cette industrie en la confrontant à son histoire et ses dérives : son lien avec l’esclavage dans sa production et son commerce, mais aussi l’exploitation des enfants, des femmes et des ouvriers. Comment cette industrie est-elle devenue l’une des plus polluantes au monde ? Quels sont les enjeux dela prise de conscience récente de la nécessité de produire différemment ?

Toutes ces thématiques pourront être abordées à travers des communications de 20 minutes.

Les actes feront l’objet d’une publication.

Date et lieu

Dates du colloque : 23 et 24 janvier 2025

Lieu du colloque : Archives nationales, site de Pierrefitte sur Seine

Modalités de contribution Date limite de réception des propositions : 20 septembre 2024

Un résumé de 500 mots accompagné d’une biographie de 100 mots est à envoyer à

• anne-sophie.lienhard@culture.gouv.fr
• alexia.raimondo@culture.ouv.fr
• esclarmonde.monteil@culture.gouv.fr

Les réponses seront apportées dans un délai de deux semaines

Comité de sélection

• Anne-Sophie Lienhard, Archives nationales
• Esclarmonde Monteil, ministère de la Culture
• Alexia Raimondo, Archives nationales

In the fall of 2021, the Umeå Local of SAC published Swedish syndicalism as a simple PDF file. In 2024, SAC releases the text as a printed book, ebook and audio book in collaboration with Federativ Publishing House. The text has been refined before printing and SAC’s central committee has added a preface.

Buy the book >>here>>

The book as printer-friendly PDF >>here>> (vertical A4) and >>here>> (horizontal A4)

Articles on the book’s subject matter
Below, we list articles about the book and a selection of other texts related to the book’s subject matter.

Basic book on syndicalism – some tips on how to use it by Rasmus Hästbacka on the website Libcom
What is union action? Bust the myths! by Rasmus Hästbacka in the US labor magazine Industrial Worker
Ten years ago, Chicago teachers gave us all a jolt of hope by Alexandra Bradbury on the website of Labor Notes
Let’s find alternatives to striking by Kristian Falk and Rasmus Hästbacka on the union website Organizing Work
What worked and what didn’t: A history of organizing at Starbucks by Nick Driedger on Organizing Work.
The ABC of syndicalist sections by Rasmus Hästbacka on the website Znetwork
It starts on your job: Syndicalist proposals by Rasmus Hästbacka on Libcom
Don’t complain, organize! by Ellen David Friedman on Labor Notes
A syndicalist strategy for the Swedish labour market by Jenny Stendahl, Erik Bonk and Rasmus Hästbacka on the website Counterpunch
The upside-down pyramid on Organizing Work
Bust the myths about collective agreements by Emil Broberg and Rasmus Hästbacka on the website Znetwork
Swedish unions, why do we suck? by Rasmus Hästbacka on Organizing Work
Sweden’s unions need to wake up to new forms of exploitation by Volodya Vagner in Jacobin Magazine
Swedish syndicalists organizing at Zalando by Jon Bekken on Libcom
Boom without bust: Solidarity unionism for the long term by MK Lees and Marianne Garneau on Organizing Work
Socialist leaders won’t save unions – Interview with Nick Driedger about the “rank-and-file strategy” on Organizing Work
Big strikes and the sabotage of the labor movement by Marianne Garneau on Organizing Work.
Syndicalism for the 21st century: From unionism to class-struggle militancy by Torsten Bewernitz and Gabriel Kuhn on Counterpunch
The case for building new unions by Tom Wetzel on the website Black Rose, a shortened text from Wetzel’s book Overcoming Capitalism.
Anarcho-syndicalism: A historical closed door…or not? by Harald Beyer-Arnesen in the US labor magazine ASR
Let’s build class unions by Rasmus Hästbacka in the Industrial Worker
Make economic democracy popular again! by Rasmus Hästbacka on the website Znetwork
Militant unions – the backbone of ”movement socialism” by Edvin Dahlgren on Znetwork
A history of IWW’s organizer training program by Marianne Garneau on Organizing Work
(R)evolution in the 21st Century? by Rasmus Hästbacka on Znetwork

There are many good union podcasts in English. For instance, check out Wobcast, produced by members of the North American union IWW.

What is the difference between the book Swedish syndicalism (2024) and the PDF (2021)?
As said, the script was refined before printing and a preface was added. The book reflects bylaw changes made at the 2022 SAC congress.The refinement also means that the term non-binary has been included in the text. It refers to persons who do not identify as male or female. The term LGBTQIA has also been added. It is an abbreviation for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and asexual persons.

The Archives contestataires of Geneva have developed a database of primary sources on environmental struggles in West (French-speaking) Switzerland in the second half of the 20th century. The site environnement.archivescontestataires.ch offers an overview of the main archival holdings on the subject in Switzerland, enriched with brief descriptions, metadata and tags to facilitate research.

The site also offers two bibliographic brochures in PDF format on the themes of "Ville et transports" and "Production, énergies, écologie" (in French) guiding through books and grey material collections hold by Archives contestataires. Users are invited to indicate other documents that could be included.

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Archives contestataires
2bis rue de la Tannerie - 1227 Carouge
archivistes@archivescontestataires.ch
www.archivescontestataires.ch