Social and Labour History News

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.

__________

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

 

Haledon, New Jersey – The American Labor Museum/Botto House National Landmark proudly opens the exhibit We Are One – Honoring Immigrant Garment Workers by Rachel Bernstein and May Ying Chen on Wednesday, May 1st, 2024.

We Are One – Honoring immigrant Garment Workers features historic photographs and more to celebrate the workers in garment manufacturing, many of whom were recent immigrants, who formed the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU). Composed of Jewish and Italian workers in the early 1900s, a wave of Puerto Rican and southern Black American workers joined the union by the 1950’s. After changes to immigration laws in 1965, they were soon joined by new waves of Asian and Latin American immigrants. Though often underestimated, immigrant women were always essential to the factories, the union, and the fight for safety laws.

Rachel Bernstein directs LaborArts, a website which presents exhibits collections, and events to further public understanding of the past and present lives of working people. Ms. Berstein researches, writes about and teaches American working-class history.  Until her retirement in 2009, May Ying Chen was the Manager of ILGWU Local 23-25, and Vice President of the International Union.  She continues organizing and educating workers through LaborArts, the Museum of Chinese Americans, and other organizations.

We Are One – Honoring Immigrant Garment Workers is on view at the Museum from May 1st through August 24th, 2024.  

This program is made possible in part by a grant administered by the Passaic County Cultural and Heritage Council from funds granted by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.

      The Botto House National Landmark, headquarters of the American Labor Museum, is located at 83 Norwood Street in Haledon, NJ.  The Museum's hours of operation are Monday through Friday, 9AM-5PM.  Visitors are welcome Wednesday through Saturday from 1PM-4PM and at other times by appointment.  For further information about the Museum, call 973-595-7953 and visit www.american-labor-museum.org.

Dear colleagues,

We cordially invite you to contribute your cutting-edge research to the international conference Decolonizing Museums and Resignifying Monuments. The event is scheduled to take place in Madrid, Spain, on November 20-22, 2024 at the National University of Distance Education (UNED).

This conference aims to bring together experts from different fields and countries to discuss decolonization processes from various perspectives and experiences. We encourage discussions to be grounded on case studies while also incorporating concepts, frameworks, questions, and arguments from various sectoral and disciplinary perspectives.

The Congress’s main goals are:

• -To promote an informed and interdisciplinary discussion on the  decolonization of museums and the resignification of monuments.

-To promote an cross-sectoral dialogue between academics, museologists, museum and memorial workers, cultural managers and mediators, artists and activists.

-To meet, exchange, learn and systematize initiatives of decolonization and resignification in different socio-cultural contexts.

-To facilitate the creation of a critical community on decolonization, made up of academics, cultural managers, museologists and artists, among others.

-To promote academic-social initiatives in this regard.

The deadline for submission is July 15th, 2024.

Also, you can find more information and the guidelines for submission proposal here:

https://losterritoriosdelamemoria.es/actividad/international-congress-decolonizing-museums-and-resignifying-monuments-november-20-22-2024/

We hope to spark your interest and look forward to receiving your proposal soon. If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact us: info.decolonizing@gmail.com

 

 

 

Mariana Stoler

Investigadora Posdoctoral del Programa Margarita Salas

Departamento de Historia Social y del Pensamiento Político

Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Sociología

Calle del Obispo Trejo, 2 28040 Madrid

 

Miembro de:

Proyecto de Investigación “Territorios de la Memoria. Otras Culturas, otros espacios en Iberoamérica, Siglos XX y XXI” (Referencia: PID2020-113492RB-I00)

Proyecto de Investigación 101086106---- “MAKINGHISTORIES (HORIZON TMA MSCA Staff Exchanges)”, EUROPEAN RESEARCH EXECUTIVE AGENCY (REA)