Social and Labour History News

Workshop in Berlin/Germany from 8 to 10 July 2025

The Centre Marc Bloch and the research program Europe in the Middle East – The Middle East in Europe (EUME) at the Forum Transregionale Studien invite scholars from the humanities and social sciences to apply for the workshop “Diasporas, Exiles, Migrants, and Refugees from Europe in the Middle East and North Africa in the 19th and 20th Centuries” to be held on July 8-10, 2025, at the Centre Marc Bloch in Berlin.

Diasporas, Exiles, Migrants, and Refugees from Europe in the Middle East and North Africa in the 19th and 20th Centuries

The workshop is organized by Alexandros Lamprou (Research Fellow, Philipps-Universität Marburg), Esther Möller (Centre March Bloch), Rim Naguib (EUME Fellow of the Gerda Henkel Foundation 2024/25), and Georges Khalil (Forum Transregionale Studien / EUME), and is financially supported by funding Alexandros Lamprou receives from the Gerda Henkel Foundation (Special Programme Forced Migration, Grant No. AZ 09/FM/22), and the Centre Marc Bloch.
The Middle East and North Africa are connected to Europe and other world regions by infrastructures, politics and the mobility of goods, ideas, images, and people. The selective historiography of these connections however is marked by boundaries and uneven power relations and capacities. In recent years, mobility from the South or the East of the Mediterranean northward has been increasingly framed as a concern or problem in European host societies. While there seems to be a consensus among scholars that mobility, migration, and exchange are common and constitutive features of human history everywhere, attention has rarely been paid to the long history of inverse movements of people from Europe southward and eastward, to North Africa and the Middle East.
Our workshop aims to look at the MENA region as a destination and space for Diasporas, Exiles, Migrants, and Refugees from Europe. This approach may contribute to a more nuanced assessment of the movements of people, and how they have reciprocally affected and shaped societies, economies, cultures, and thought, not only in the Middle East and North Africa but also in Europe. In contrast to the hegemonic political and media discourses and much of the scholarly literature on migration, that have tended to uncritically think of population movements in unidirectional terms – from the ‘Global South’ to the ‘Global North’ – we wish to reflect on the mobility of people from Europe towards the South and East, in the context of European colonialism, economic crises, political upheavals and wars, and to propose a reflexive approach to the study of human mobility in search of safety, freedom, and a better life.
We invite contributions by scholars who study the Middle East and North Africa as spaces of (post)colonial arrival, refuge, exile, migration, settlement, or transit for people from (East, West, South or North) Europe from the late 18th up until the end of the 20th centuries, a period that marked the beginnings and transformation of colonialism, the end of empires, the establishment of modern border-, passport-, citizen- and knowledge-regimes, of postcolonial rule – a period that witnessed major wars, crises, upheavals, and exponential growth. We would like to discuss movements of people, diasporic communities and relations, trajectories of exile and refuge, displacement, ethnic cleansing and settlement, experiences and regimes of arrival, protection, hospitality, or alienation. We are interested in the life and experiences of diasporas, migrants, exiles, and refugees from Europe in the Middle East. What was their place in the societies, economies or publics? What are the historical legacies of their presence, their lives, works, relations and ideas in post/colonial North Africa and the Middle East, and in Europe? How do their trajectories compare and relate to contemporary forms in the governance of diversity, mobility, and belonging, or could potentially modify the terms of the history of the respective issues or concepts? Such a broad perspective could relate for example the migration of Greek, Italian, Maltese, Jewish or Ukrainian workers or artisans to refugees from Russia, Poland, France, Germany, or the Caucasus, to the experience of diasporic communities from Europe that have been present in the Middle East and North Africa at least since the late 15th century, to broader discussions of the contexts and regimes of migration and mobility, nationality and foreignness. When and how, for example, did individuals or groups of people become diasporic, ex-patriate, foreign, native or minoritarian? How can we rethink the different categories at stake (nationals and foreigners, migrants or refugees, diasporas, settlers or natives) as well as the shifting boundaries between them?
The aim of this workshop is to bring together strands of research that have rarely been in conversation with each other due to scholarly and institutional arrangements that separate between specific areas of the world (such as the Middle East or North Africa) and systematic questions addressed from specific European or national locations as universal. Drawing on current approaches in global, transnational history and (post)colonial studies, we invite scholars to critically engage with (methodological) nationalism in the study of migration and displacement, exile or diaspora in historical and conceptual ways.
In connecting geographies and questions habitually thought of as separate, this workshop is intended as an invitation to think about how historical, spatial, cultural or conceptual imaginations of the nation and its fragments, regions and their boundaries, have been subverted or transformed by the movements of people from Europe who went to, lived in, or passed through North Africa and the Middle East. What potential might a decolonial approach to the questions of diaspora, exile, migration and refuge offer, and how does it challenge our understanding of areas or regions like West- or Eastern Europe, Near- and Middle East, or North Africa?

DISCIPLINES AND POSSIBLE TOPICS
We invite early career and established scholars to submit contributions from the disciplines or fields of History, Literary and Intellectual History, historical Sociology or Human Geography, Middle Eastern Studies or the study of Migration and Mobility. Possible contributions may treat, but are not limited to, the following topics roughly from the late 18th to the late 20th centuries:
- population movements and mobility from Europe to and through the MENA region;
- European diasporas, émigrés, exiles, workers, and refugees in the MENA region;
- the end of Empires and the displacement of people and communities;
- migration, exile, displacement, and refuge as consequences of crises and wars;
- colonial entanglements of population movement and displacement;
- expatriate communities and networks of mobility in the MENA and between MENA and Europe or other regions;
- diverse experiences of movement and displacement of refugees, host societies, colonial and national governments, and international organizations;
- regimes of arrival, settlement, and status;
- the question of race, religion, and language in addressing and understanding displacement, migration, exile, diaspora, refuge or arrival;
- the case of Palestine/Israel through the lens of diaspora, exile, migration, displacement or refuge;
- MENA as a transit space;
- population movements and border regimes, negotiations of legal and political statuses, and expressions of belonging;
- impacts of mobility on societies of arrival, and return.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE
The workshop organizers will evaluate the applications. *We kindly ask you to submit your application with a title and abstract of your contribution (up to one page) and a short academic CV (up to two pages) as one PDF file by March 12, 2025, 12.30h (noon) CET to:
eume@trafo-berlin.de*
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact one of the four organizers via e-mail:
lamprou@staff.uni-marburg.de / esther.moeller@cmb.hu-berlin.de / rime.naguib@gmail.com /
georges.khalil@trafo-berlin.de
Applicants will be informed about the outcome by March 31, 2025.
The invited participants will be asked to send a summary of their contribution by June 30, 2025, and subsequently to write a contribution to a series on “Diasporas, Exiles, Migrants, and Refugees from Europe in the Middle East and North Africa” on the TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research.

PRACTICALITIES
Limited funding is available to support travel and accommodation for participants who come from outside Berlin and are not able to use funding from their institutions. We can offer lump sums to contribute to the costs of travel and accommodation: between 500 and 800 EUR for participants who travel from the Middle East or North Africa, up to 500 EUR for participants who travel from the US or European Countries, and up to 300 EUR for participants from within Germany. We ask applicants to
indicate in their application what support they may need to partially or fully cover the costs of travel, and up to three days of accommodation in Berlin.

Symposium at the University of Tours/France from 27 to 28 November 2025

The industrialization has profoundly transformed the world of labor and the nature of war. Wars themselves have become industrialized and have gradually increased in scale since the mid-nineteenth century. The Crimean War (1853-1856) and the American Civil War (1861-1865) were the first conflicts involving mechanized armies: more powerful gunboats, larger caliber artillery pieces and more efficient locomotives were all industrial products that made this change in scale possible.

Against this backdrop of industrialization of societies, economies and conflicts, we need to understand how wars disrupted the world of labor. The workers’ mobilization has always been central in the historiography of contemporary conflicts, especially of the First and the Second World War. Over the last few decades, the historiography has moved away from the simple story of mobilization of the industry for the war effort, and since the 1980s and 1990s has given way to a social and political history that pays more attention to trade union movements, work in the rear or in occupied territories, and the societal transformations that followed the conflict.

Under the influence of transnational histories, works on colonial empires and gender studies, new perspectives opened in this field of study. New attention has been paid to actors (female labor, but also racialized workers on the European fronts, the contribution of colonial workers to the global war economy, etc.) and their agency, exploring both individual and collective strategies of behavior and survival. While the study of forced labor has been central to the approach to Nazi and Soviet regimes at war (Bonwetsch, 1993; Plato, Leh & Thonfeld, 2010; Westerhoff, 2012), highlights of forced labor in colonial empires have effectively demonstrated links between European front and the French and British colonial empires, thus moving beyond the Western framework (Tiquet, 2019; Stanziani, 2020). This approach could be applied to other spaces and conflicts, as outlined out by work on the American Civil War (Lause, 2015; Zonderman, 2021) or the Vietnam War (Foner, 1989; Sears, 2010).

Recent historiography also showed that wartime work cannot be reduced to simple outputs of the war economy, or to paid employment alone. Industrial work cannot exist without agricultural work, domestic and reproductive labor, or administrative activities essential to the conduct of modern warfare.

This broad definition of wartime work is even more crucial given that many armies of the late 19th and 20th centuries relied on conscription. The largescale mobilization of the working population, including in armies based on voluntary service, greatly disrupted the workforces of belligerent nations, forcing governments to redistribute men as well as resources.

To better grasp the complexity of relation between labor and war, it is necessary to adopt the most encompassing perspective possible, whether in terms of typology - neither civil wars nor low-intensity wars are excluded from the reflection - or geography. By varying the scales, it will be possible to combine reflections on European, colonial and non-European spaces, as well as to shift the focus between the different spaces of societies at war: front, rear, metropole, colonies, peripheral fronts.

Lastly, this approach aims to be interdisciplinary, drawing on contributions from history – like the social history of war, whose objects of study go beyond the military sphere alone – as well as from economics and political economy. The focus on the ordinary actors of conflicts invites us also to engage with the sociology of labor. Furthermore, since the world of work during conflicts is the subject of innovations designed to include individuals in exceptional statuses, our discussions will include issues studied by legal science to provide a better legal framework to understand their participation in the war effort. 

Four questions will be explored during this symposium

Optimizing manpower in wartime

The first theme will examine the allocation of human resources to meet the respective, and potentially competing, needs of the civilian and military spheres. Studying the optimization of “human capital” leads us to consider labor in terms of manpower mobilization, which may involve withdrawing manpower from the conscript army, under specific legal regimes, but can also involve the mobilization of other categories of workers: foreigners, colonials, prisoners, women, etc.

Issues of labor mobilization take on a particular significance outside Europe, where colonial methods are applied, often diverging from the legal frameworks and practices in force in the metropoles.

Work in transitions from peace to war and from war to peace

The second theme will focus on labor in times of transition from peace to war and from war to peace. These pivotal moments, bringing societal reconfigurations, provide an opportunity to question the continuities and transformations of labor in the extraordinary context of war. While post-war reconfiguration of professional sectors has already been explored, an alternative perspective could be even more insightful – asking how world of labor may have been prepared - or not - for war. Thus, the continuity of labor between times of war and peace will be examined. Studies “from below” also enable us to put into perspective any transformations in professional identities brought about by war, whether positively through the reuse of skills and knowledge acquired under in military service, or negatively through the problematic vocational retraining of soldiers, particularly the wounded.

Social mobilization, work and conflict

The third theme will address the impact of war on social mobilization and labor struggles, whether accelerating or neutralizing them. Assessing the role of workers and peasants in revolutionary processes that take the form of civil wars (Russia, Spain) allows us to question the intersection between social mobilization and armed struggle. On the other hand, modern wars, insofar as they mobilize labor on massive scale, prompt diverse attitudes from workers' organizations, ranging from participation in “sacred unions” to opposition to wars perceived as contrary to workers' interests. The war's impact on the cohesion and social mobilization of the working class was an issue that ran through the entire period in focus, with constantly renewed logics. Additionally, we will be looking at the repression of social movements during armed conflicts. 

Gender and work during conflict

The fourth theme will explore the wars’ impact on gender norms in the workplace. Often presented as moments of feminization of the workforce to “replace” men away at the front, wars also reinforced gender stereotypes in the workplace. While the absence of men gave women access to new types of employment, new professional spaces and new activities, they often had to give them up in the post-war period. Furthermore, during these conflicts women continued work in traditionally feminine spheres, and even reinforced certain social imaginaries linked to women's work. Looking at the reconfiguration of the world of labor, this workshop aims to highlight the new forms of masculinity and femininity created by armed conflict, as well as the new realities of women's work in wartime.

Participation

The symposium will take place on November 27 and 28, 2025 at the University of Tours. Travel and accommodation expenses will be covered by the organization.

Papers of up to 50,000 characters (with spaces and including footnotes) will be pre-circulated in early November 2025, aiming at their subsequent submission to a peer-reviewed journal as part of a Special Issue.

Applicants are invited to send an abstract of their paper in French or in English (max. 1,000 characters) accompanied by a two-pages CV by Monday, March 31, 2025, to the following address: accoulon@univ-tours.fr

All applicants will be notified of the outcome of their application by the end of June 2025 at the latest.

Il y a plus de dix ans déjà, le philosophe Étienne Balibar estimait que la notion de peuple et ses usages constituaient « un sujet qu’on pourrait croire labouré en tous sens » [Balibar, 2013]. La thématique était cependant revenue sur le devant de la scène après la vague révolutionnaire du « Printemps arabe », comme le révéla la succession de publications scientifiques qui lui ont été  consacrées dans les années 2010 [Berns et Carré, 2013 ; Moreau, 2015 ; Goin et Provenzano, 2016 et 2017]. Quelques années plus tôt, un imposant dossier de la revue Hermès évoquait pourtant un « temps d’éclipse » en constatant : « le mot ‘peuple’ ne se monnaie plus guère dans la communication politique ou médiatique ordinaire » [Durand et Lits, 2005].
Après les mouvements protestataires postérieurs à la crise financière de 2007-2008 (jusqu’aux « Gilets jaunes » en France), l’affirmation politique de courants désignés comme «populistes » et la globalisation d’une culture « populaire » ou « de masse » ont durablement ancré la catégorie de « peuple » et tous ses dérivés dans le débat public et la recherche, à l’échelle internationale. Nul besoin, aujourd’hui, de déconstruire des notions qui l’ont déjà été depuis longtemps [Bourdieu, 1983 et 1987 ; Grignon et Passeron, 1989 ; Badiou et al., 2013 ; Bras, 2018], jusqu’à considérer le « peuple » ou le « populisme » comme  « introuvables » [Rosanvallon, 1998 ; Rancière, 2013], voire à postuler une « adémie » (absence de peuple) au fondement de l’État moderne [Agamben, 2015]. Il est évident que le « peuple » est une construction sociale, produite par des acteurs aux intérêts divergents [Cohen, 2010], et qu’à ce titre le « peuple » est toujours à réinventer [Cohen, 2019].
Malgré sa plasticité, la catégorie continue à irriguer la recherche, au-delà de la vogue éditoriale des « histoires populaires » initiée par les travaux d’Howard Zinn [Zinn, 2002 ; Conner, 2011 ; Harman, 2015 ; Zancarini-Fournel, 2016 ; Noiriel, 2019 ; Tran, 2023], qui a elle-même fait l’objet d’une réflexion collective [Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, 2020]. Plusieurs thèses ou publications récentes montrent que le « peuple » est toujours au cœur des réflexions, sous une forme ou une autre, qu’il s’agisse de droit [Fernandez Andujar, 2024 ; Megahed, 2024], de science politique [Cucchetti, Dézé et Reungoat, 2021 ; Benedetti et Dupuy, 2023], d’histoire ancienne [Bernini, 2023], médiévale [Gauvard, 2024], moderne [Boulant, 2023] ou contemporaine [Pereira, 2023 ; Safronova, 2023 ; Tartakowsky, 2024], avec un questionnement particulier en matière d’histoire de l’éducation [Christen et Besse, 2017 ; Cabanel, 2023 ; Christen, 2023]. La notion fait même l’objet de renouvellements ou de prolongements audacieux. Le sociologue Abdou Maliqalim Simone, par exemple, a forgé le concept de « peuple comme infrastructure » (people as infrastructure), pour analyser la manière dont les réseaux interpersonnels pallient certaines déficiences techniques à Johannesburg [Simone, 2004]. Les études sur le métissage ont, quant à elle, suscité des travaux concernant le processus d’accession au « statut de peuple » (peoplehood) [Adese et Andersen, 2021], tandis les études sur le genre s’efforcent d’intégrer à l’analyse les catégories de « peuple » et de « populaire »  [Conway, 2021 ; Brugère et Le Blanc, 2022]. Loin des campus et des centres de recherche occidentaux, le gouvernement chinois promeut, quant à lui, le concept de politique « orientée vers le peuple » (people oriented), qui trouve un écho dans les sciences humaines et sociales [Chen, Gong, Lu et Ye, 2019]. D'une façon générale, les travaux de sciences sociales interrogeant les catégories de « peuple » ou de « population » percolent jusque dans le champ politique - il n'est qu'à voir la fortune politique du « populisme de gauche » tel qu'envisagé par Chantal Mouffe [Mouffe, 2018 ; Cevera-Marzal, 2021].
L’importance de la production scientifique actuelle mobilisant les catégories de « peuple », «populaire » et « populisme » justifie un retour réflexif sur la manière dont elles sont utilisées par les historiennes et les historiens. Comment peut-on parler de « peuple » sans tomber dans les écueils de l’essentialisme ou du nominalisme ? Comment saisir une réalité sociale au-delà des discours véhiculés par les sources ? Quelle valeur heuristique conservent la notion de « peuple » et ses dérivés en histoire sociale ?
Ce dossier de la Revue d’histoire sociale accueillera des articles interrogeant l’utilisation de la catégorie de « peuple » et de ses dérivés dans des travaux d’histoire portant sur toutes les périodes, quel que soit le type de « peuple » considéré – qu’il s’agisse d’une acception socialement restrictive (au sens de « classes populaires ») ou d’approches plus larges s’étendant aux « populations ». Ne seront retenus que les articles comportant une réflexion historiographique et/ou épistémologique.

Date de remise des articles : 15 juin 2025

Articles à envoyer à : Dominique Pinsolle (Dominique.Pinsolle@u-bordeaux-montaigne.fr), David Hamelin (david.hamelin@le-centre.pro) et Jérôme Lamy (jerome.lamy@laposte.net)

Bibliographie :
·       Jennifer Adese, Chris Andersen (ed.), A People and a Nation. New Directions in Contemporary Métis Studies, Toronto, UBC Press, 2021
·       Giorgio Agamben, La Guerre civile. Pour une théorie politique de la stasis, Paris, Points, 2015.
·       Alain Badiou, Pierre Bourdieu, Judith Butler, Georges Didi-Huberman, Sadri Khiari, Jacques Rancière, Qu’est-ce qu’un peuple ?, Paris, La Fabrique, 2013.
·       Étienne Balibar, « Son Nom est Légion », Tumultes n°40, juin 2013, p. 7-15.
·       Arnaud Benedetti et Vincent Dupuy (dir.), dossier « Le savant, le politique et le peuple : l’enjeu du siècle ? », Revue politique et parlementaire, n°1107, juillet-septembre 2023.
·       Julie Bernini, « Plaise au peuple ». Pratiques et lieux de la décision démocratique en Ionie et en Carie hellénistiques, Bordeaux, Ausonius éditions, 2023.
·       Thomas Berns et Louis Carré (dir.), « Noms du peuple », Tumultes n°40, juin 2013.
·       Laurent Besse et Carole Christen (dir.), Histoire de l’éducation populaire, 1815-1945, Lille, Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 2017.
·       Pierre Bourdieu, « Vous avez dit “populaire” ? », Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, 46, 1983, p. 98-105.
·       Pierre Bourdieu, « Les usages du peuple », dans Choses dites, Paris, Minuit, 1987, p. 178-184.
·       Antoine Boulant, La journée révolutionnaire. Le peuple à l’assaut du pouvoir, 1789-1795, Paris, Passés Composés, 2023.
·       Gérard Bras, Les voies du peuple. Éléments d’une histoire conceptuelle, Paris, Amsterdam, 2018.
·       Fabienne Brugère et Guillaume Le Blanc, Le peuple des femmes. Un tour du monde féministe, Paris, Flammarion, 2022.
·       Patrick Cabanel, L’école du peuple ? Histoire d’une hypocrisie sociale, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2023.
.    Manuel Cervera-Marzal, Le populisme de gauche. Sociologie de la France Insoumise, Paris, La Découverte, 2021.·       
.    Mingxing Chen, Yinghua Gong, Dadao Lu et Chao Ye, « Build a people-oriented urbanization : China’s new-type urbanization dream and Anhui model », Land Use Policy, vol. 80 (C), 2019, p. 1-9.
·    Carole Christen, À l’école du soir. L’éducation du peuple à l’ère des révolutions (1815-1870), Paris, Champ Vallon, 2023.
·       Déborah Cohen, La nature du peuple. Les formes de l’imaginaire social (XVIIIe-XXIe siècles), Paris, Champ Vallon, 2010.
·       Déborah Cohen, Peuple, Paris, Anamosa, 2019.
·       Clifford D. Conner, Histoire populaire des sciences, Paris, L’Échappée, 2011.
·       Janet M. Conway, « Popular Feminism: Considering a Concept in Feminist Politics and Theory », Latin American Perspectives, vol. 48, no. 4, 2021, p. 25-48.
·       Humberto Cucchetti, Alexandre Dézé et Emmanuelle Reungoat, Au nom du peuple ? Idées reçues sur le populisme, Paris, Le Cavalier bleu, 2021.
·       Pascal Durand et Marc Lits, « Introduction : Peuple, populaire, populisme », Hermès, La Revue, 2005/2 n° 42, 2005. p. 11-15.
·   « Faire une ‘Histoire populaire’ », dossier de la Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, n°67-2, 2020/2.
·       Miguel Fernandez Andujar, La participation du peuple à l’élaboration des normes, thèse de doctorat de droit public, sous la direction de Hubert Alcaraz et Susana Sanchez Ferro, Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour/Universidad autonóma de Madrid, 2024.
·       Claude Gauvard, Passionnément Moyen Âge. Éloge du petit peuple, Paris, Tallandier, 2024.
·       Émilie Goin et François Provenzano (dir.), dossier « Les rhétoriques du peuple », Exercices de rhétorique, 7, 2016.
·       Émilie Goin et François Provenzano (dir.), Usages du peuple. Savoirs, discours, politiques, Liège, Presses universitaires de Liège, 2017.
·       Claude Grignon et Jean-Claude Passeron, Le Savant et le Populaire. Misérabilisme et populisme en sociologie et en littérature, Paris, Seuil, 1989.
·       Chris Harman, Une histoire populaire de l’humanité. De l’âge de pierre au nouveau millénaire, Paris, La Découverte, 2015.
·       Jean-Luc Moreau (dir.), « À quoi bon le peuple ? », La Sœur de l’Ange n°14, Printemps 2015.
·       Victor Pereira, C’est le peuple qui commande. La Révolution des Œillets, 1974-1976, Bordeaux, éditions du Détour, 2023.
·       Jacques Rancière, « L’introuvable populisme », dans Alain Badiou et al., Qu’est-ce qu’un peuple ?, Paris, La Fabrique, 2013, p. 137-143.
·       Pierre Rosanvallon, Le peuple introuvable. Histoire de la représentation démocratique en France, Paris, Gallimard, 1998.
·       Anna Safronova, Histoire des coopératives russes et soviétiques (1860-1930). Moderniser le peuple, Paris, Classiques Garnier, 2023.
·       Danièle Tartakowsky, Les syndicats en leurs murs : bourses du travail, maisons du peuple, maisons des syndicats, Paris, Champ Vallon, 2024.
·  Abdou Maliqalim Simone, « People as Infrastructure: Intersecting Fragments in Johannesburg », Public Culture, vol. 16 no. 3, 2004, p. 407-429.
·       Lina Megahed, Le contre-pouvoir populaire : recherche sur le pouvoir du peuple en corps à partir du cas français, thèse de doctorat de droit public, sous la direction de Frédérique Rueda, Université de Bordeaux, 2024.
.    Chantal Mouffe, Le populisme de gauche, Paris, Albin Michel, 2018
·       Gérard Noiriel, Une histoire populaire de la France. De la Guerre de Cent ans à nos jours, Marseille, Agone, 2019.
·       Nicolas Tran, La Plèbe. Une histoire populaire de Rome, Paris, Passés Composés, 2023.
·       Michelle Zancarini-Fournel, Les luttes et les rêves. Une histoire populaire de la France, de 1685 à nos jours, Paris, La Découverte, 2016.
·       Howard Zinn, Une histoire populaire des États-Unis. De 1492 à nos jours, Marseille, Agone, 2002.

Panel in Barcelona/Spain from 28 to 30 January 2026

I want to invite you to participate in the Cruïlles / Crossroads conference, which will take place in Barcelona on January 28, 29, and 30, 2026. I (Daniel Canales, Universitat de Girona) and Jordi Sancho (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) coordinate the panel "Youth of the World, Unite: International Solidarities and Internationalism among Youth in the Second Half of the 20th Century (1945-2003)". Attached is the complete information for the panel, and you can find further details in the second circular of the conference: Segunda circular - Congreso Cruïlles / CrossroPanel in Barcelona/Spain from 28 to 30 January 2026

Youth of the World, Unite: International Solidarities and Internationalism among Youth (1945-2003)

Proposals should be sent by the deadline (May 1st 2025) to the following addresses: daniel.canales@udg.edu and jordisanchogalan@gmail.com

Recent mobilisations on an international scale in protest oflsrael's aggression towards Palestine have drawn attention to the agency of youth-driven solidarity. The Palestinian reference, far from being a recent phenomenon, is in fact linked to the longstanding tradition of dissent among the youth, which played a significant role in the establishment of networks, practices and internationalist imaginaries during the second half of the 20th century. In this regard, this panel aims to deepen the understanding of the set of experiences that shaped the phenomena of internationalist solidarity through three main directions. Firstly, the relationships, influences, and cross-experiences among different actors who contributed to the cultures of internationalist militancy will be emphasised. Secondly, the agency of transnational solidarities as a mobilising force intertwined with local claims and with the potential to imagine a fairer and more equitable world will be assessed historically. Finally, the analysis will be extended to encompass other strategies and resources, including cinema, the press, and music, in the construction of aesthetic codes, sensibilities, and values that facilitated identification with imagined networks and global structures of feeling. In this regard, and recognising the need to engage in dialogue with other disciplines, we invite the submission of papers that explore the interactions and synergies among sectors, ideological currents, and cultural resources in internationalist youth activism throughout the period 1945-2003. In a similar vein, we are interested in fostering dialogue with other geographical areas and phenomena beyond the European continent. The aim is to decentralise approaches that have generally prioritised the contexts of democratic Europe. Ultimately, the objective is to analyse how these intersections were articulated and how they transformed the strategies, discourses, and practices of youth political activism in the second half of the 20th century and the early 21st century.

The overarching objective of this panel is to enhance our comprehension of the social and political movements of this period by investigating the diverse political, social, and ideological intersections that influenced their internationalist dimensions, as well as the long­term repercussions they exerted on contemporary politics and culture. Proposals for consideration will be accepted in any of the three official languages of the conference: Catalan, Spanish, and English.

We are at your disposal for any questions or clarifications.

Daniel Canales Ciudad, Departament d'Història i d'Història de l'Art, Universitat de Girona

The Study Group for Minority History is pleased to invite interested scholars to submit their abstracts for the international conference “Life under the Red Banner: Minorities in Socialist Europe“, to be held on 11-12 September 2025 at the University of Basel, Switzerland. Deadline for applications is 1 April 2025.

CfP: Life under the Red Banner: Minorities in Socialist Europe, 11-12 September 2025, University of Basel, Switzerland

About the conference
Socialist regimes have built their ideology around the concept of equality. Committed to a communist classless society, those regimes – established under the banner of “Marxist-Leninist” or other socialist traditions – devised and introduced policies based on the belief that the quest for economic equality would gradually eliminate social divisions based on nationality, religion, and/or gender. On the other hand, diverse minorities were often drawn to socialism, as it held the promise of doing away with the discrimination and persecution they experienced under imperial rule or nationalist regimes in Europe.

In practice, however, socialist states closely engaged with their minorities and implemented a wide arsenal of policies that were directed towards their minorities, ranging from promotion, protection and accommodation to forced assimilation, repression and exclusion. Thus, the lived experiences of minorities under socialism exposed numerous tensions between the ideology of a classless society and the persistence of ethnic, religious, and social distinctions.

This conference aims to critically examine the discrepancies between the ideology, theory, and practice of minority policies in socialist countries, and discuss the everyday experiences of minority life under socialism through a comparative and transnational lens. Drawing on examples from different Soviet republics, countries of the socialist bloc, as well as non-aligned socialist states, such as Yugoslavia and Albania, this conference aims to draw scholarly attention to how various socialist regimes came to shape the status, rights, and experiences of different, and often marginalized, ethnolinguistic, religious, sexual, and social groups.

By underscoring intersectionality among this diversity of experience, the conference aims to encourage dialogue between scholars working on different aspects of minority history and the history of marginalized groups under socialism, and foster new perspectives on the divergence between socialist ideology, political practices, and minority life in the modern period, contributing to a better understanding of everyday life under the “red banner”.

Key Themes
- The conference organisers welcome papers that address, but are not limited to, the following topics:
- The role of ethnolinguistic, religious, and gender differences in a socialist society
- Minorities’ temptation for socialism and its consequences for minority politics
- Divergence and discrepancies between socialism, minority protection, and minority rights;
- Socialist policies on language, religion, and culture of the minority communities;
- Intersectionality of experiences of ethnolinguistic, religious, and sexual minorities in socialist states;
- The position of GSRM/LGBTQI+ communities under socialist rule;
- Case studies of minority resistance, collaboration, or adaptation under socialism;
- (Post-)socialist transitions and their effects on minority populations.

Conference Organizing Committee
Olena Palko (University of Basel), Julia Elena Grieder (University of Basel) with the support of the BASEES Study Group for Minority History

Submission Guidelines
The conference organisers particularly welcome PhD students and early career scholars to apply. To apply, please submit an abstract of 250-300 words, along with a short bio (150 words) to juliaelena.grieder@unibas.ch by 1 April 2025.

Notification of acceptance by 1 May 2025.

Selected papers will be considered for publication as a themed section in the peer-reviewed online open-access academic journal, “Euxeinos. Journal of the Swiss Academic Association for East European Studies.”

The organisers also aim to cover accommodation (up to max. two nights) and travel costs for accepted participants, travelling within Europe.

The latest issue of Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques has published! This is a special issue entitled, “Forum on Modernization in France and Africa”. 

Please visit the Berghahn website for more information about the journal: www.berghahnjournals.com/historical-reflections  

Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques  
Volume 51, Issue 1: Forum on Modernization in France and Africa.  
Edited by Amelia H. Lyons and W. Brian Newsome 
Table of Contents  

Articles 
Agents of Modernity in Late Imperial France and Africa 
Amelia H. Lyons and W. Brian Newsome 

A Technocratic Ideal: The Jeune Cadre and the Limits of Modernization in Postwar France 
Drew Fedorka 

Interns of Empire: Shaping Elite Opinions at the Height of the Algerian War of Independence 
Brooke Durham 

Expertise in the Age of Development: Gender, Race, and French Social Programs in Newly Independent Francophone West Africa 
Amelia H. Lyons 

Fiduciary-Republican Property: From the Ancient Dominium to Modern Constitutionalism 
Bru Laín 

“Jewish Algeria today is English Algeria tomorrow”: British Protestant Missionaries in Fin-de-Siècle Algeria, 1883–1901 
Rachel Eva Schley 

Book Reviews 
Enrico Beltramini, Radu Sava, and Elisabeth C. Macknight 

Journées d'études à l'Université de Tours, les jeudi 27 et vendredi 28 novembre 2025

L'industrialisation des sociétés a transformé en profondeur les mondes du travail et des armées. Les guerres elles-mêmes se sont industrialisées et ont, par à-coups successifs, changé d'échelle depuis le milieu du XIXe siècle. Les guerres de Crimée (1853-1856) puis de Sécession (1861-1865) ont été les premiers conflits à reposer sur l'action d'armées mécanisées : canonnières plus puissantes, pièces d'artillerie d'un calibre plus conséquent, locomotives plus performantes sont autant de produits industriels qui ont permis ce changement d'échelle.

Dans ce contexte d'industrialisation à la fois des sociétés, de leurs économies et des guerres, il devient alors nécessaire de comprendre comment les conflits armés bouleversent les mondes du travail. La mobilisation des travailleurs a toujours occupé une place centrale dans l'histoire des conflits contemporains, en particulier dans les études de la Première et de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Cette histoire est depuis plusieurs décennies sortie du simple récit de la mise au service de l'appareil productif et industriel en vue d'un effort de guerre et a laissé place, notamment à partir des années 1980 et 1990 à une histoire sociale et politique prêtant attention aux mouvements syndicaux, au travail à l'arrière comme au travail en contexte d'occupation, et aux recompositions sociales qui en ont découlé. 

Sous l'effet des approches transnationales, des travaux sur les empires coloniaux et des études de genre, de nouvelles perspectives se sont ouvertes dans ce champ d'études. Une attention nouvelle a été portée aux acteurs (main-d'œuvre féminine, mais aussi travailleurs racisés sur les fronts européens, contribution des travailleurs coloniaux à l'économie de guerre globale, etc.) et leur agentivité, explorant tant les stratégies individuelles que collectives. Si l'étude du travail forcé a été centrale dans l'approche des régimes nazis et soviétiques en guerre (Bonwetsch, 1993; Plato, Leh & Thonfeld, 2010; Westerhoff, 2012), des mises en lumière du travail contraint dans les empires coloniaux ont permis - avec profit - de dresser des ponts entre les théâtres européens et les empires coloniaux français et britanniques, sortant ainsi du seul cadre occidental (Tiquet, 2019; Stanziani, 2020). Cette extension des horizons pourrait être appliquée à d'autres espaces et conflits, comme l'ont esquissé de premiers travaux sur la guerre de Sécession américaine (Lause, 2015; Zonderman, 2021) ou la guerre du Vietnam (Foner, 1989; Sears, 2010).

Les renouvellements historiographiques récents ont également invité à considérer que le travail en temps de guerre ne saurait se réduire à la production directement liée à l'économie de guerre, pas plus qu'aux seules formes rémunérées d'activités productives. Le travail industriel ne peut de fait exister sans le travail agricole, le travail domestique et reproductif, ou encore les activités administratives, essentielles à la conduite des guerres modernes. 

Cette définition large du travail en temps de guerre est d'autant plus cruciale que les armées de la fin du XIXe et du XXe siècle sont pour beaucoup des armées de conscription. La mobilisation large d'une grande partie des hommes de la population active, y compris dans les armées qui reposent sur le volontariat, perturbe fortement les mondes du travail des nations belligérantes et oblige les gouvernements à répartir les hommes autant que les moyens. 

Pour mieux saisir la complexité des liens entre travail et guerres, il est donc nécessaire d'adopter une vision la plus englobante possible, que ce soit du point de vue de la typologie des guerres, puisque ni les guerres civiles, ni les guerres de basse intensité ne sont exclues de la réflexion, ou de l'espace géographique. En variant les échelles, il sera ainsi possible de mêler les réflexions portant sur les espaces européens, coloniaux, non européens, ainsi que de déplacer la focale entre les différents espaces d'une société en guerre : front, arrière, métropole, colonies, théâtres périphériques.

Enfin, cette approche vise à s'inscrire dans une démarche interdisciplinaire, faisant appel aux apports de l'histoire – en particulier d'une histoire sociale de la guerre dont les objets d'étude excèdent la seule sphère militaire – mais aussi de l'économie et de l'économie politique. La volonté de s'intéresser aux acteurs ordinaires de ces conflits implique de mobiliser les apports de la sociologie du travail. En outre, les réflexions incluront des enjeux étudiés par la science juridique, tant le monde du travail durant les conflits fait l'objet d'innovations afin d'inclure les individus dans des statuts exceptionnels pour mieux encadrer en droit leur participation à l'effort de guerre.

 

4 axes problématiques seront proposés afin de structurer le déroulement des journées d'études

Optimiser la main-d'œuvre en temps de guerre

Un premier axe entend inscrire les réflexions sur le travail en temps de guerre sous l'angle de l'allocation des ressources humaines en fonction des besoins respectifs, et potentiellement concurrents, des sphères civile et militaire. Cette étude de l'optimisation du "capital humain" conduit à interroger le travail sous l'angle d'une mobilisation de la main-d'œuvre, qui peut alors être soustraite à l'armée de conscription, sous des régimes juridiques particuliers, mais aussi passer par la mobilisation d'autres catégories de travailleurs : étrangers, coloniaux, prisonniers, femmes, etc. 

Les questions de mobilisation de la main-d'œuvre prennent une dimension particulière dans les espaces dits périphériques, notamment extra-européens, où elles s'effectuent selon des méthodes coloniales, en décalage avec les cadres et les pratiques en vigueur dans les métropoles. 

Le travail lors des transitions de la paix vers la guerre et de la guerre vers la paix 

Un deuxième axe portera une attention renforcée au monde du travail dans les temps de transition de la paix vers la guerre et de la guerre vers la paix. Ces moments charnières, par les reconfigurations et ajustements qu'ils supposent, permettent d'interroger les permanences du travail et ses transformations dans le contexte extra-ordinaire de la guerre. Si les recompositions des secteurs professionnels après les guerres ont commencé à être interrogées, renverser la perspective pourrait être d'autant plus fructueux en se demandant comment les mondes du travail ont pu être préparés - ou pas - aux conflits. Les continuités du travail entre les temps de guerre et de paix seront ainsi interrogées. Des études "par en-bas" permettraient aussi de mettre en perspective les éventuelles transformations dans les identités professionnelles apportées par les conflits, que ce soit positivement par le réemploi de compétences et savoirs acquis sous statut militaire, ou négativement par le problématique reclassement des soldats, notamment des blessés.

Mobilisations sociales, travail et conflits 

Un troisième axe sera consacré aux effets qu'ont les conflits sur les mobilisations et les luttes sociales, qu'ils en soient les accélérateurs ou qu'ils aient au contraire pour effet de les neutraliser. L'évaluation du rôle des ouvriers et paysans dans des processus révolutionnaires qui prennent la forme de guerres civiles (Russie, Espagne) permet d'interroger la porosité entre mobilisation sociale et lutte armée. D'autre part, les guerres modernes, en ce qu'elles mobilisent massivement les mondes du travail, suscitent des attitudes diverses des organisations ouvrières, entre participation à de temporaires « unions sacrées » et opposition à des conflits perçus comme contraires aux intérêts des travailleurs. En particulier, ce que la guerre fait à la cohésion des mondes du travail et à leur mobilisation sociale est une problématique qui traverse l'ensemble de la période, selon des logiques sans cesse recomposées. Plus globalement, on s'intéressera à la question de la répression des mouvements sociaux durant les conflits armés.

 Genre et travail durant les conflits 

Un quatrième axe proposera de s'intéresser à ce que les guerres font aux normes de genre telles qu'elles s'expriment dans le travail. Souvent présentées comme des moments de féminisation de la main-d'œuvre pour "remplacer" les hommes partis au front, les guerres ont également été des moments de renforcement des stéréotypes de genre dans le monde du travail. Si du fait de l'absence des hommes, les femmes ont pu accéder à de nouveaux types d'emploi, de nouveaux espaces professionnels et de nouvelles activités, elles ont souvent dû les rendre dans les après-guerres. De plus, le travail des femmes durant les conflits s'est également effectué au sein d'espaces traditionnellement féminins et a même renforcé certains imaginaires sociaux liés au travail des femmes. Il s'agira donc, au travers des reconfigurations des mondes du travail, de mettre en évidence les formes nouvelles de masculinités et de féminités que créent les conflits armés ainsi que les réalités, nouvelles ou non, du travail des femmes en temps de guerre.

Modalités de participation

Les journées d'études se tiendront les jeudi 27 et vendredi 28 novembre 2025 à l'université de Tours. Les frais de déplacement et d'hébergement seront couverts par l'organisation.

Ces journées mettront en dialogue des articles d'un maximum de 50 000 signes (notes et espaces compris) partagés au préalable avec les participant·e·s (début novembre 2025), en vue de leur soumission ultérieure à une revue à comité de lecture dans le cadre d'un dossier thématique.

Nous invitons les personnes désireuses d'y contribuer à faire parvenir un résumé de l'article projeté (1 000 signes max.) ainsi qu'un court curriculum vitae d'ici le lundi 31 mars 2025 à l'adresse suivante : accoulon@univ-tours.fr

L'acceptation ou non des propositions sera notifiée au plus tard fin juin 2025.

Comité d'organisation

• Damien Accoulon (Université de Tours), accoulon@univ-tours.fr
• Clément Collard (Sciences Po Paris), clement.collard@sciencespo.fr 
• Candice Grelaud (Université Lumière Lyon 2), candice.grelaud@ens-lyon.fr 
• Gwendal Piégais (University College Dublin), gwendal.piegais@ucd.ie 

Comité scientifique

• Jérôme Bocquet (Université de Tours)
• Emmanuelle Cronier (Université de Picardie Jules Verne)
• John Horne (Trinity College Dublin)
• Julie Le Gac (Université Paris Nanterre)
• Elisa Marcobelli (Université de Rouen Normandie)
• Stéphanie Sauget (Université de Tours)
• Xavier Vigna (Université Paris Nanterre)

Bibliographie indicative

Bieber Hans-Joachim, Gewerkschaften in Krieg und Revolution: Arbeiterbewegung, Industrie, Staat und Militär in Deutschland: 1914-1920, Hamburg, Christians, 1981, 1248 p.

Bonwetsch Bernd, « Sowjetische Zwangsarbeiter vor und nach 1945: Ein doppelter Leidensweg », Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 1993, vol. 41, no 4, p. 532‑546.

Culleton Claire A., Working Class Culture, Women, and Britain, 1914-1921, New York, St. Martin's Press, 2000, 221 p.

Daniel Ute, The War from Within: German Working-Class Women in the First World War, Oxford, Berg (coll. « The Legacy of the Great War »), 1997, 343 p.

Fauroux Camille, Produire la guerre, produire le genre : des Françaises au travail dans l'Allemagne nationale-socialiste (1940-1945), Paris, Éditions EHESS, 2020, 310 p.

Feldman Gerald, Army, Industry and Labour in Germany, 1914-1918, London, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014 [1966], 586 p.

Foner Philip Sheldon, U.S. Labor and the Viet-Nam War, New York, International Publishers, 1989, 180 p.

Haimson Leopold H. et Tilly Charles (eds.), Strikes, Wars and Revolutions in an International Perspective: Strike Waves in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989, 536 p.

Horne John, « Labor and Labor Movements in World War I » dans Jay M. Winter, Geoffrey Parker et Mary R. Habeck (eds.), The Great War and the Twentieth Century, New Haven, CT, Yale University, 2000, p. 187‑228.

Lause Mark A., Free Labor: The Civil War and the Making of an American Working Class, Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 2015, 296 p.

Marcobelli Elisa, Internationalism Toward Diplomatic Crisis: The Second International and French, German and Italian Socialists, Cham, Springer International Publishing, 2021.

Peschanski Denis et Robert Jean-Louis (eds.), Les ouvriers en France pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale : actes du colloque, Paris-CNRS, 22-24 octobre 1992, Paris, Institut d'histoire du temps présent, 1992, 511 p.

Plato Alexander von, Leh Almut et Thonfeld Christoph (eds.), Hitler's Slaves: Life Stories of Forced Labourers in Nazi-Occupied Europe, New York, Berghahn Books, 2010, 552 p.

Procacci Giovanna (ed.), State e classe operaia in Italia durante la prima guerra mondiale, Milan, Franco Angeli, 1983, 340 p.

Robert Jean-Louis (ed.), Le syndicalisme à l'épreuve de la Première Guerre mondiale, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2017, 392 p.

Sears John Bennett, « Peace Work: The Antiwar Tradition in American Labor from the Cold War to the Iraq War », Diplomatic History, 2010, vol. 34, no 4, p. 699‑720.

Stanziani Alessandro, Les métamorphoses du travail contraint : une histoire globale (XVIIIe-XIXe siècles), Paris, Presses de Sciences Po, 2020, 328 p.

Tiquet Romain, Travail forcé et mobilisation de la main-d'œuvre au Sénégal (Années 1920 - 1960), Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2019, 282 p.

Westerhoff Christian, Zwangsarbeit im Ersten Weltkrieg: deutsche Arbeitskräftepolitik im besetzten Polen und Litauen 1914-1918, Paderborn, Ferdinand Schöningh, 2012, 377 p.

Xu Guo Qi, Strangers on the Western Front: Chinese Workers in the Great War, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 2011, 366 p.

 

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Grelaud Candice
Doctorante en histoire contemporaine - Université Lumière Lyon 2
Laboratoire d'Etudes Rurales

Editors: Carlotta Sorba (Università di Padova / European University Institute), Michele Magri (Università di Padova).

In recent decades, the ‘material turn’ in the social sciences and historiography has highlighted how material culture shaped individuals' past social experiences, worldviews, and political spheres. This approach has contributed to the renewal of political history by focusing on its most tangible aspects. It is particularly crucial for the long 19th century, a key period in the development of modern politics. Artifacts of common and everyday use, clothing, and personal accessories – such as cockades, rosettes, medals, pins, etc. – along with various gadgets, technical and scientific instruments, and natural relics, were imbued with political meanings and messages, playing a central role in this process. Research has shown how these objects, operating on multiple dimensions – communicative, emotional, and performative – made political ideas tangible, aroused support and promoted mobilisation.

A fundamental yet relatively unexplored characteristic of these objects is their intrinsic mobility – both in time and space. Whether handcrafted or more widely manufactured as consumer goods, political objects circulated through domestic and public spaces, often crossing national borders via local and global networks of production and trade. Nineteenth-century activism, driven by diverse demands across various contexts and shaped by transnational and imperial dynamics of mobility, dialogue, and exchange, further facilitated and accelerated their movement. These objects circulated both physically – often evading censorship and restrictions – and through the symbols and figurative languages, iconography, and imagery they conveyed. In different contexts, objects and symbols could also be reworked, adapted, and reinterpreted for new uses and practices, which gave their mobility both a spatial and a temporal dimension. They thus became instruments capable of connecting different insurrectional centres across Europe, reaching peripheral areas, and fostering interaction between revolutionary cultures in the Euro-Atlantic space and globally, while also connecting national and transnational counter-revolutionary movements. They played a significant role in shaping movements for nation-building, colonial and imperial expansion and their oppositions, debates around slavery and abolitionism, liberal, constitutional, and democratic movements and their opponents, as well as social and women’s rights activism.

This special issue of Contemporanea aims to reflect on the mobility of political material culture, analysing how its circulation and transformation, both physical and symbolic, generated connections between contexts and movements, disseminated and popularised images and imagination, and redefined and influenced political sensibilities and practices during the long 19th century. Contemporanea invites proposals that explore, but are not limited to the following themes:

• Itineraries of moving political objects across local, transnational, imperial, and global scales, and their role in connecting different political spaces;
•  Circuits of production, trade and consumption;
•  Re-appropriation, re-use, and reinterpretation in new contexts, meanings, and practices;
•  Obstacles to the mobility of objects: censorship, borders, and confiscations;
•  Objects as instruments of transnational mobilisation and the construction of political networks.

Proposals of approximately 500 words, written in either Italian or English and accompanied by a brief curriculum vitae of the author, must be sent by March 17, 2025, to the editors, Carlotta Sorba (carlotta.sorba@unipd.it) and Michele Magri (michele.magri@unipd.it), copying the journal’s editorial office (contemporanea@mulino.it). Selected essays must be submitted in their final form by October 4, 2025, and will be subject to a double-blind peer review process. The special issue is scheduled for publication in spring/summer 2026.

For more information about the journal, see: https://www.mulino.it/riviste/issn/1127-3070.

Contemporanea is indexed by: Web of Science (AHCI), Scopus Bibliographic Database, Historical Abstracts, America: History and Life, ERIH Plus, Articoli italiani di periodici accademici (AIDA), JournalSeek, Essper, Bibliografia storica nazionale, Analecta-Spoglio dei periodici italiani, Dialnet, Catalogo italiano dei periodici (ACNP), Google Scholar, Primo Central (ex Libris), EDS (EBSCO).

Conference in Berlin from 17-19 September 2025

Has the Second World War ever truly ended? While the battles ceased decades ago, the war’s legacy endures − etched into the fabric of Europe’s landscapes, inscribed onto human bodies, and anchored as a cultural memory. The ruins of war persist both materially and symbolically − in the architectural remnants of destruction, in the physical and psychological scars carried across generations, and in the ruptures within language and representation. As we move into an era where the last living witnesses are disappearing, the question arises: what remains of the war, and how does it continue to shape historical consciousness?
This memory studies conference examines the material, cultural, and memorial afterlives of WWII, interrogating the role of broadly defined ruins and materiality in post-war and contemporary memory cultures and historical narratives. By bringing together scholars from various disciplines, the conference will critically engage with not only what is left of the war, but also how these remnants continue to mediate the past and shape its understanding. The academic event will finally engage in a reflection on European memory cultures of the post-war era contextualizing them within contemporary socio-political challenges.

The conference will centre on three main aspects:

1. Theoretical reflection on the materiality of memory: How does the past persist in the present through physical remnants? This theme will explore the theoretical foundations of how memory is embedded in material traces and how these remnants continue to shape contemporary perceptions of history. 2. Rethinking post-war memory cultures from the present: This section explores the constantly moving, changing nature of memory in terms of contemporary challenges. It investigates how new geopolitical and civilizational changes, as well as new forms of violence particularly Russia’s war against Ukraine—, have affected the memory of World War II. How have these developments reshaped or corrected cultural patterns and perceptions of the “other”? Furthermore, how do emerging digital technologies and unregulated social media influence the ways in which WWII is remembered and commemorated? 3. Case studies linking theory and memory practices: Presentations in this section will delve into specific examples of symbolic and literal ruins of World War II, contested narratives about war, the intergenerational transmission of complex memories and trauma etc., and the influence of the war on culture and language. What new approaches have emerged for processing and coming to terms with 1945 and the post-war era? How has WWII’s legacy remained tangible across various domains of life?
 

By integrating theoretical perspectives with empirical case studies, the conference aims to provide a comprehensive exploration of what remains of WWII in contemporary memory cultures, and what challenges memory cultures face in present times. It is directed to scholars of various disciplines, including history, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, psychology, linguistics, literature, art history, political science, law, etc. Comparative and interdisciplinary studies are particularly welcome.

We propose the following specific thematic blocks for presentations, yet other proposals are welcome as well:

• The materiality of memory – theoretical perspectives
• History of traces, ruins and remnants of war
• Destruction of artworks and cultural heritage
• Body and representation
• Transgenerational and cultural transmission of trauma
• Narratives, textbooks, and memory cultures
• Oral history, testimony, literature
• Digital technologies and new challenges

  To apply, please, send the following documents by email to the address: genealogies@enrs.eu
The application deadline is 11 May 2025

• Abstract (maximum 300 words)
• Brief biographical note (up to 200 words)
• Scan/photo of the signed Consent Clause

Applicants will be notified of the results in early June 2025. Written draft papers (2.000–2.500 words) should be submitted by 25 August 2025.

The conference language is English. The organisers provide accommodation for the participants. There is no conference fee.

  https://enrs.eu/edition/genealogies-of-memory-2025

by Colm Murphy

The transformation of the Labour Party by 1997 is among the most consequential political developments in modern British history. Futures of Socialism overhauls the story of Labour's modernisation and provides an innovative new history. Diving into the tumultuous world of the British left after 1973, rocked by crushing defeats, bitter schisms, and ideological disorientation, Colm Murphy uncovers competing intellectual agendas for modern socialism. Responding to deindustrialisation, neoliberalism, and constitutional agitation, these visions of 'modernisation' ranged across domestic and European policy and the politics of class, gender, race, and democracy. By reconstructing the sites and networks of political debate, the book explains their changing influence inside Labour. It also throws new light on New Labour, highlighting its roots in this social-democratic intellectual maelstrom. Futures of Socialism provides an essential analysis of social democracy in an era of market liberalism, and of the ideas behind a historic political reconstruction that remains deeply controversial today.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/futures-of-socialism/7EBE9FB7D4BFD…

The editors of Labour History invite contributions that reflect the expansion in the archives, both digitized and physical, and the methods we use to craft histories of labour. 

Over its 60 years Labour History has reflected the shifting agendas of historical research. More recently globalization and the mass digitization of historical sources has provided new opportunities for locating workers and labour in the archives. It has also brought challenges as historians navigate new technologies and methodologies. We are interested in articles that demonstrate and reflect upon the practices of labour history and future trends in the field. We invite submissions that promote discussion of what labour historians do and how we do it, the opportunities and the challenges associated with labour history archives, and transnational research. Articles may include reflections on ethics, funding, politics and government policies, and new methods of dissemination (such as online exhibitions, blogs, websites and the like). We encourage submissions on the history of workers, of labour, and/or activism in diverse locations and eras. Our goal is to capture the future directions (or dilemmas) for the field of labour history.

Articles 6,000-8,000 words in length (excluding references) should be submitted to admin@labourhistory.org.au by 1 March 2025. Please follow the Style Guide in preparing your submission.

Please send queries and expressions of interest to Claire Lowrie admin@labourhistory.org.au

Labour History is published by Liverpool University Press in association with the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History. For more information on the journal, visit our website: https://www.labourhistory.org.au/journal/about/

https://www.labourhistory.org.au/call-for-papers-labour-archives-and-me…

Published without interruption since 1969, The Greek Review of Social Research is the leading journal for the social and political sciences. The editorial board consisting of three EKKE researchers and two external social scientists is appointed by EKKE’s Board of Administration for a  period of three years and is responsible for the publication procedures and the standards of the Review’s scholarship. The editorial board is supported by a scientific committee whose role is advisory as regards the development and dissemination of the journal. The Greek Review of Social Research is fully open access and has no publication charges, fees, or paywalls.

The journal is proud to be indexed by the following: Scopus (Elsevier), Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Google Scholar, Crossref, SHERPA/RoMEO, International Sociological Association (ISA), OPENAIRE: Open Access Infrastructure for Research in Europe (EC-DG INFORMATION SOCIETY and MEDIA), CiteFactor, European Website of Integration, Econbiz database, The Socio Web.

The curent issue (164/2025) can be found here: https://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/ekke

Photographers, video-makers and film-makers have readily taken an interest in street demonstrations, parades, marches and other gatherings. Sociologists, anthropologists, semiologists, historians, political scientists and other social scientists have done the same, the latter sometimes using iconographic material provided by the former. This issue of Images du travail, travail des images sets out to stimulate a meeting of minds, or at the very least, to encourage a cross-fertilisation of views. What can we learn from these moments when work is suspended, for a moment or for a day dedicated by the demonstrators to publicly asserting their demands? How do the images produced open up opportunities for a better understanding of the actions of people engaged in protest action? The focus is on the banners, placards and other objects displayed by the demonstrators, but also on the moments of preparation for the action and on the new practices of those who report on these events through images.

https://journals.openedition.org/itti/5492

11-12 September 2025, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow

This Workshop is organized by Johanna Wolf (Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory), John Howe (University of Melbourne) and Rebecca Zahn (University of Strathclyde). It is being financially supported by the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory and the University of  Strathclyde.

A system of modern labour law comprises three broad mechanisms: a process by which labour rights and standards are determined and set as legal norms; mechanisms whereby information about the observance of labour standards is obtained and fed back into the system; and processes and mechanisms by which standards can be enforced where necessary.

While there has been extensive historical research concerning the development of labour standard setting, there has been less investigation of the second and third mechanisms of labour law – what we might call labour law enforcement. Different bodies are charged with ensuring labour law’s enforcement. For example, trade unions and labour inspectorates may monitor conditions in the workplace. Enforcement also takes place through dispute resolution bodies (such as arbitration and conciliation bodies as well as labour or industrial courts and tribunals); through trade unions calling industrial action; through other informal trade union and worker action; deployment of administrative sanctions by state agencies; or availability of court sanctions such as penalties.

From the outset, the development of national labour law was influenced by international networks and exchanges, in which both problems and solutions were discussed. Ideas circulated here, inspiring each other, being further developed, and being adapted to the respective national contexts. This circulation of ideas extended to how to ensure compliance with and enforcement of labour law. However, little is known about the history of these international networks or the paths and ideas of their protagonists. Following a successful conference at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory in September 2024, in which we particularly drew attention to the biographies of labour lawyers and their national and transnational paths, we now propose a focus on how ideas for labour law’s enforcement circulated and developed through individuals or international networks and organisations.

We, therefore, seek papers from researchers in law, history or other related disciplines, which explore the history of international and transnational ‘entanglements’, networks, links and other modes for the circulation and exchange of ideas across borders and jurisdictions which shaped labour law enforcement practices, focusing particularly on the 19th and early 20th centuries. This might include topics such as:
• the shape and form of occupational health and safety regimes and their
enforcement;
• ideas on the regulation of the working day and how to ensure compliance;
• methods and models of direct action, for example strikes, to enforce labour
standards;
• the shape and form of dispute resolution models such as conciliation and
arbitration;
• the development of labour inspectorates as state-based institutions designed to
monitor and enforce compliance with the law.
This list is not exhaustive and we are open to other topics which fit within the general theme of the workshop.

We are particularly interested in how ideas about labour law enforcement circulated internationally within networks and organisations hitherto under-explored in the literature (such as the International Association for the Legal Protection of Labour/Labour Legislation, and the International Association of Factory Inspectors) before or during the process of the crystallisation of national labour law systems. The focus of the call for papers is on the foundation phase of modern labour law’s development rather than on a set temporal period, recognising that foundation may have happened at different times in different countries.

Interested contributors should submit an abstract of 300-500 words to Johanna Wolf (wolf@lhlt.mpg.de) by 14 March 2025.

The selection of workshop contributions will be done by the scientific organizers primarily on the basis of the submitted abstracts. The abstract must indicate the specific contribution of the paper to the overall workshop topic. Applicants will be informed of the results of the selection process within four weeks of the submission. They should prepare a written draft paper for circulation in advance of the workshop.

Practical information:
The workshop will be held at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow on 11-12 September 2025. The aim is to meet in person. There will be no conference fee and catering will be provided for all participants. Financial support for travel and accommodation is available.

Questions about the conference can be directed to the organizers:
Johanna Wolf (wolf@lhlt.mpg.de)
John Howe (j.howe@unimelb.edu.au)
Rebecca Zahn (Rebecca.zahn@strath.ac.uk)

Liverpool University Press is pleased to inform you of the latest content in HISTORICAL STUDIES IN INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS (HSIR), a highly regarded publication that is essential reading for those working in and researching historical work in the field of industrial relations and the history of industrial relations thought.

Volume 45 includes articles on state containment and coercion of the National Unemployed Workers’ Movement, 1921–39, as well as a piece on Nancy Seear and the investigation of women’s employment, alongside research on the British Labour Movement’s involvement in West Indian labour struggles, 1934–39. Other essays include work on union leadership, mobilization and decision-making in a prolonged strike, as well as a piece on the founding and early development of the Modern Records Centre.

Browse all articles >

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Table of contents

Research Articles

Smashing the Subversive Unemployed: State Containment and Coercion of the National Unemployed Workers’ Movement, 1921–39

Emanuel Bourges Espinosa

 

Nancy Seear and the Investigation of Women’s Employment

Susan Milner

 

The British Labour Movement’s Involvement in West Indian Labour Struggles, 1934–39: Revolutionaries and Reformers

Roger Seifert

 

Union Leadership, Mobilization and Decision-Making in a Prolonged Strike

Kathryn Steel

 

For Research Purposes and for Posterity: The Founding and Early Development of the Modern Records Centre

Pierre Botcherby

 

Document

Picketing in the Hire and Reward Haulage Strike in the Winter of Discontent. Introduction to Fred Beach, ‘Reflections on the Hire and Reward Strike in Hull, January–February 1979’

Paul Smith

 

Reflections on the Hire and Reward Strike in Hull, January–February 1979

Fred Beach

 

Review Essay

Motive and Method in the Re-Making of the Mineworkers’ Strike, 1984–85

Huw Beynon

 

Book Review

Ruth Dukes and Wolfgang Streeck, Democracy at Work: Contract, Status and Post-Industrial Justice

Miguel Martínez Lucio

 

Abstracts

Abstracts

 

by Jean-Numa Ducange

https://www.puf.com/les-marxismes

Parmi les grands courants de pensée de l’histoire contemporaine, le marxisme occupe une place à part. Né après la mort de Karl Marx dans le contexte de développement des partis ouvriers, il est devenu l’une des idéologies les plus influentes du XXe siècle, revendiquée par des régimes politiques et de nombreux intellectuels de sensibilités diverses.

Tour à tour, Jean-Numa Ducange expose les principes fondamentaux du marxisme, puis il présente ses multiples déclinaisons au XXe siècle, depuis sa version stalinienne la plus rigide jusqu’aux nombreux courants critiques qu’il nourrit intellectuellement pendant des décennies. Enfin, il rend compte de l’éclatement en « mille marxismes » après la chute du mur de Berlin, soit la période de son incontestable déclin, contrebalancé toutefois par quelques renouveaux récents dans le contexte de la crise du capitalisme.

 

Introduction

Chapitre premier – L’invention du marxisme I. Le marxisme après Marx : le laboratoire allemand II. Comprendre les mécanismes du capitalisme et le critiquer III. Le marxisme, une philosophie IV. Le marxisme, une politique révolutionnaire ?

V. Un objectif : structurer le parti

VI. Géographies du marxisme

VII. Le « révisionnisme » marxiste

Chapitre II – Les courants marxistes au XXe siècle I. De la révolution de 1917 au « marxisme-léninisme » (1920 1930) II. Les critiques du dogme : des marxistes contre le stalinisme (années 1920 1940) III. Les années 1950 1970 : l’apogée paradoxal IV. Des marxistes critiques, mais sans rupture avec les partis communistes « officiels » V. De nouveaux modèles marxistes : de Belgrade à Pékin en passant par Tirana VI. Les sociaux-démocrates et le marxisme (1920 1970) VII. De la droite aux religions monothéistes : des appropriations multiples

Chapitre III – De la « crise du marxisme » aux « mille marxismes » I. La « crise du marxisme » II. Le regain international : la place décisive du monde anglophone III. Persistances et éclatements en Europe IV. Marx dans le « Sud global », du Brésil à la Chine

Conclusion

Bibliographie

Autour de l'auteur

Jean-Numa Ducange est professeur en histoire contemporaine à l’université de Rouen et membre de l’Institut universitaire de France. Codirecteur de la revue Actuel Marx (Puf), il est l’auteur de nombreux ouvrages sur le socialisme, traduits en plusieurs langues.

 

Sommaire:  

·     Michel Pigenet, Éditorial. Les villes portuaires en question

·     Table ronde : Tours d’horizon, avec John Barzman, Marie-Laure Griffaton et Françoise Péron, animée par Michel Pigenet

·     Eduard Page Campos et Jordi Ibarz : Le dos tourné à la mer : la relation entre Barcelone et son port au XIXe siècle

·     Joe Redmayne : Idéologies, mobilisations ouvrières et usages de l’espace dans la ville portuaire de South Shields (Angleterre, 1914-1922)

·     Prerna Agarwal : Vers une histoire de Calcutta comme ville portuaire

·     Fabien Bartolotti et Céline Regnard : Marseille, quelle identité portuaire à l’époque contemporaine ?

·     Claire Flécher : Les ports vus du bord

 

https://sfhu.hypotheses.org/11924

by Nihat Öztürk, Nuria Cafaro, Bernd Hüttner, Florian Weis

Die migrantischen Kämpfe für menschenwürdige Arbeitsbedingungen und gerechte Entlohnung sind zugleich ein mutiger Kampf gegen die Zumutungen des Kapitalismus und des Rassismus seit Beginn der 1960er-Jahre. Ein Höhepunkt dieser Kämpfe war eine Serie von Migrantenstreiks im Sommer 1973.
Im Bewusstsein der politischen Linken und der migrantischen Gewerkschafter*innen sind diese Streiks als Wendepunkte des Widerstands gegen Ausbeutung und rassistische Strukturen tief verankert. Insofern sind die spontanen Streiks der Migrant*innen im Sommer 1973 mehr als nur historische Ereignisse – sie sind Symbole des Kampfes um Gerechtigkeit, Solidarität und Würde. Diese Kämpfe haben die Arbeitswelt verändert und unser Verständnis von Zusammenhalt und Widerstand in einer Gesellschaft geprägt, die leider allzu oft eher spaltet als solidarisch vereint. Deshalb sind diese Kämpfe ein Mahnmal, aber auch eine Quelle der Inspiration für die kommenden Generationen.
Zweifellos haben diese spontanen Streiks gegen die kapitalistische Ausbeutung die Gewerkschaften enorm gestärkt. Es waren die spontanen Streikwellen seit Anfang der 1960er-Jahre und verstärkt im Sommer 1973, die die Gewerkschaften dazu veranlassten, die Humanisierung der Arbeitswelt, die Abschaffung der frauendiskriminierenden Niedriglohngruppen, die Verlängerung des tariflichen Urlaubs und die Verkürzung der Wochenarbeitszeit flächendeckend durchzusetzen.
Der Sammelband diskutiert und würdigt migrantische Kämpfe aus einer kapitalismuskritischen, antirassistischen oder radikaldemokratischen Perspektive. Die Erinnerung an migrantische Kämpfe dient sowohl der historischen Würdigung der am Streik beteiligten Arbeiter*innen als auch der Ermutigung für eine solidarische Praxis, die gerade in Zeiten der Prekarisierung und Segmentierung von Arbeits- und Lebenswelten geboten ist.

https://diebuchmacherei.de/produkt/der-streik-hat-mir-geholfen-als-jung…

Chères et chers collègues,

J'ai le plaisir de vous informer de la parution du dernier n° de la revue d'histoire Le Mouvement social comportant le dossier "Identités portuaires" susceptible de retenir votre attention et dont j'ai assuré la direction.
Bien cordialement.

Dear colleagues,

I am pleased to inform you of the publication of the latest issue of the history review Le Mouvement social including the file "Port Identities" likely to attract your attention and of which I was responsible for the direction.

Kind regards.

Michel Pigenet

Sommaire

• Michel Pigenet, Éditorial. Les villes portuaires en question
• Table ronde : Tours d’horizon, avec John Barzman, Marie-Laure Griffaton et Françoise Péron, animée par Michel Pigenet
• Eduard Page Campos et Jordi Ibarz : Le dos tourné à la mer : la relation entre Barcelone et son port au XIXe siècle
• Joe Redmayne : Idéologies, mobilisations ouvrières et usages de l’espace dans la ville portuaire de South Shields (Angleterre, 1914-1922)
• Prerna Agarwal : Vers une histoire de Calcutta comme ville portuaire
• Fabien Bartolotti et Céline Regnard : Marseille, quelle identité portuaire à l’époque contemporaine ?
• Claire Flécher : Les ports vus du bord

Acheter le numéro du Mouvement social chez CAIRN-Info

First Edition: Conceptual Change

22–26 September 2025, Warsaw

The Asynchronous Histories Summer School aims to explore regions and moments in history marked by the coexistence of asynchronous sociopolitical tendencies and processes. These conditions often reveal paradoxical outcomes when seemingly well-established actors and mechanisms are put into practice. The absence—or inefficiency—of “The Great Synchronizer,” whether imperial order, centralized state apparatus, or the power of capital, has, in various periods and regions, created fertile grounds for blending the old and the new in unequal and unexpected ways.

Rather than viewing this coexistence of asynchronicities as a static phenomenon, we understand it as a dynamic and intricate process. In such situations, old forms may act as tools paving the way for new developments, while new forms may consolidate old arrangements, laws, and privileges. This interplay also triggers epistemological challenges, as research tools developed in global centres often fail to yield productive results when applied to these complex settings. This is why it is both challenging and indispensable to abandon normative definitions of phenomena and states of affairs in favour of listening to local actors, whose diversity ultimately calls into question apparently universal models and descriptions of reality—models that, in practice, are deeply rooted in Western centres.

In the first edition of the Asynchronous Histories Summer School, we seek to stimulate reflection on the theme of conceptual change, broadly understood. Our goal is to examine how concepts, ideas, and ideologies evolve amidst the coexistence of asynchronicities. We aim to move beyond binary perspectives, such as portraying given actors as never-fully-Western imitators or as guardians of domestic traditions. Instead, we propose thinking outside such frameworks, exploring the diverse intellectual stakes pursued by actors in the world’s “grey zones.”

Exemplary areas of inquiry include:

1. Western ideologies in non-Western settings.
2. Domestic political terminologies and procedures.
3. Christian ideas in non-Christian worlds.
4. Non-institutionalized areas of intellectual debate.
5. Transfers as resistance; transfers as domination.
6. Unrealized potentials, repressed imaginaries, and projects halted midway.
7. Local academic traditions in the history of ideas or philosophy.

Confirmed Lecturers

Among the distinguished lecturers for the first edition are:

• László Kontler (Central European University)
• Franz Fillafer (Austrian Academy of Sciences)
• Augusta Dimou (University of Leipzig)
• Waldemar Bulira (University of Maria Curie-Skłodowska in Lublin)
• Jan Surman (Academy of the Sciences of the Czech Republic)
• Elías José Palti (University of Buenos Aires; National University of Quilmes)
• Olena Palko (University of Basel)
• Banu Turnaoglu (Sabancı University)
• Maciej Janowski (Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences)
• Jani Marjanen (University of Helsinki)

Organizing Institutions

Institute of Applied Social Sciences, University of Warsaw

in partnership with

Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences

The History of Concepts Group

Organizing Comittee

Anna Gulińska, Bartłomiej Błesznowski, Jan Krakowian, Piotr Kuligowski

Eligibility and Application

We welcome submissions from PhD students. Advanced MA students and early career postdocs (up to two years post-defence) are also encouraged to apply.

How to Apply

Please submit the following materials by May 31, 2025:

• A short CV (maximum two pages).
• A concise description of your research interests (up to 1,000 words).

Send your application to ahss.warsaw[at]gmail.com

Participation Fee

The participation fee is 150 EUR. In justified cases, this fee may be reduced.