Social and Labour History News

Lyon, 24-25 April 2025

Ces journées d’études visent à interroger, dans une approche pluridisciplinaire, les grandes dynamiques du travail agricole au prisme du genre en entendant cette approche dans toute sa dimension critique. Vous trouverez l'appel complet en pièce-jointe. 

 Les propositions de communication comprendront un titre, un résumé de 2000 caractères (et un court CV). Nous vous remercions de bien vouloir adresser vos propositions à : jegenredanslepre@proton.me avant le 30 novembre 2024 (réponses à partir du 10 janvier). Dans une perspective de renouvellement des questionnements en études rurales, cette journée d’études est à destination des jeunes chercheurs, à commencer par des doctorants ou jeunes docteurs en sciences humaines et sociales. Les travaux de master, ou les jeunes recherches proposées par des chercheurs plus avancés sont également les bienvenues.  

La journée d’études se déroulera à Lyon les 24 et 25 avril.

Comité d’organisation : Caroline Albinet, doctorante en géographie ; Caroline Bouchier, doctorante en histoire ; Candice Grelaud, doctorante en histoire ; Marie Tellier, doctorante en géographie

Comité scientifique : Perrine Agnoux, sociologue ; Fabrice Boudjaaba, historien ; Hélène Brives, sociologue ; Clémentine Comer, sociologue ; Hélène Guétat-Bernard, sociologue ; Dominique Jacques-Jouvenot, sociologue ; Manuela Martini, historienne ; Valéry Rasplus, sociologue, AgriGenre

The XVI Nordic Labour History Conference, taking place at Tampere University, Finland from 7th to 10th May 2025, continues the trajectory set forth by previous conferences in Copenhagen 2022 and Reykjavík 2016 of broadening the scope of labour history with new approaches. This includes defining what constitutes labour, examining where labour occurs and under what conditions, reconsidering the notions of the working class and ‘the worker,’ and acknowledging diverse forms of labour organising, collective action as well as working-class culture.

Operating under the thematic umbrella of Labouring lives at the intersection of institutions, structures, and experiences, the conference seeks to spotlight different factors that have shaped the lives of workers in the Nordic region and beyond. We will explore the challenges faced by the Nordic welfare state and social democracy, as well as disruptions in the labor market. Additionally, we will address topics such as labour coercion, gender equality, and the evolving perspectives within the histories of colonialism and indigenous peoples that prompt a reexamination of labour history. We are also keen to explore methodologies and embrace new opportunities presented by digital tools in the historical study of labour.

The conference invites contributions from both established and emerging fields within the realm of labour history. It will feature the following recurring tracks (find details behind the links):

• Labour Market in Times of Crisis
• Controlled and Disciplined Workers
• Feminist Labour History
• Idols, Oddballs and Human Beings – Biography in Nordic Labour History
• Digital Labour History
• The Intertwined History of Labour, Colonialism and Indigenous People in the Nordic and Arctic Region
• Oral History and Labour Culture
• Borders and Border Crossings in Labour History
• Working-Class Literary Culture in Nordic Countries and Beyond.

Within or outside these tracks, proposals are invited for 90-minute sessions, including three papers and discussion with possible commentators. Session proposals should include the session title, a brief abstract (maximum 1000 words), and the names of all participants with their contact information. The person submitting the proposal can chair the session or provide the name of a chairperson. The conference also welcomes proposals for individual papers, from which the organizers will form sessions. Each paper proposal should include a title, a 300-word abstract, the name/s of presenter/s, and contact information. All abstracts should introduce the object of the study, aims, and scope, as well as source material.

Paper and session proposals within the thematic tracks will be reviewed by the conference organising team in collaboration with the coordinators responsible for each track. Paper and session proposals outside the tracks will be reviewed by the organizing team.

We encourage researchers proposing sessions within or outside the tracks to collaborate and exchange ideas well in advance to ensure session coherence. Each session should ideally include contributions from three different countries. Accepted individual papers will be grouped into sessions with attention to both topic and cross-Nordic exchange. Please note that each participant can deliver only one presentation at the conference.

The conference’s primary language is English, but we also consider proposals for sessions and papers in Nordic languages.

 

Please submit your proposal through this form by 31st October 2024.

 

Conference website: https://events.tuni.fi/nlhc2025/

For more information, please contact sami.suodenjoki@tuni.fi or the coordinators of thematic tracks.

by Jean-Numa Ducange

Sources inédites, approche internationale…. LA biographie définitive du fondateur du parti socialiste.

Résumer la vie et l’œuvre de Jean Jaurès (1859-1914) en quelques lignes est une gageure. Normalien, philosophe, professeur, député (à seulement 26 ans), brillant orateur, journaliste éclairé ou encore patriote internationaliste, il est incontestablement une figure emblématique de l’histoire française et européenne.

Nombre d’historiens se sont déjà emparés de ce parcours hors du commun, mais Jean-Numa Ducange nous offre dans cette belle biographie un regard renouvelé sur le célèbre leader de la gauche. Il insiste notamment sur l’influence locale, nationale mais surtout internationale de Jean Jaurès : il suit les visites du tribun des plus petites villes du pays jusqu’aux échos et traductions de ses discours dans toute l’Europe – de Milan à Saint-Pétersbourg. Par ailleurs, pour reconstituer sa trajectoire, de nouvelles archives sont mobilisées : fonds privés inédits de dirigeants de l’époque récemment exhumés, bibliothèque personnelle de Jaurès, archives de la Préfecture de Police, mais aussi des fonds allemands et russes jamais exploités.

On entrevoit alors un homme exceptionnel, un député sensible à la langue occitane de ses origines comme au concert diplomatique entre les nations, un orateur hors pair capable de parler aux paysans du Tarn comme aux militants aguerris, et enfin un lettré qui se fait tour à tour philosophe, historien et spécialiste des questions militaires.

La biographie référente qui faisait défaut.

https://www.lisez.com/livre-grand-format/jean-jaures/9782262081980

17th Contact Day Jewish Studies on the Low Countries
Institute of Jewish Studies - University of Antwerp
Thursday 8 May 2025

On Thursday 8 May 2025 the Institute of Jewish Studies organises for the seventeenth time an interdisciplinary conference at the University of Antwerp concerning Jewish Studies on the Low Countries. The purpose of the conference is to facilitate contacts between researchers working within this area of study.

We especially encourage young researchers to participate in the workshop. We also hope for contributions from more established researchers, in order to create a positive exchange between different research generations. We particularly invite papers and/or sessions that are explicitly comparative in character, and welcome themes and disciplines within Jewish Studies concerning the Low Countries. Proposals need not be limited to a specific historical period and presentations may include work in progress. Both individual and panel proposals are possible. The conference language is English.

Please note that the conference organizers cannot provide financial support to cover travel and accommodation of presenters or participants. Please submit an abstract of maximally 400 words and a short CV by 15 December 2024.

For further information please contact:

• Karin Hofmeester: kho@iisg.nl
• Veerle Vanden Daelen: veerle.vandendaelen@kazernedossin.eu

C’est un manuel, écrit pour instruire donc, fruit à la fois de séminaires universitaires (niveau Master destinés à de futurs professionnels du social ou de la communication) et des débats des mondes du travail militants. Tenter une synthèse, combattre les préjugés et les mythes (ex : il n’y a pas un parti de la réforme sociale, les « acquis » ne sont pas les revendications acceptées...), clarifier les connaissances aux différentes échelles (de l’international -l’OIT- au local ; du XVe siècle à nos jours) et de divers angles de vue : les enjeux sont à la fois immédiats et de l’ordre de la légitimité des pouvoirs, inhérents à la condition humaine et bousculés par ses mutations.

Couverture la devise au fronton de la bourse du T. de St Etienne : « Liberté, égalité solidarité, justice ».

Chaque chapitre est ouvert par un portrait (photo) brièvement commenté (Pelloutier, Bourgeois, Thomas, Beveridge, Croizat, Bassot, Landry, Zetkin),

Prologue. À la croisée des chemins : Réforme sociale et revendications. Regards affrontés et reflets trompeurs (ex. du temps de travail et des retraites).

1. Construire et comprendre la solidarité. Fonder et refonder le vocabulaire social (solidarisme, refondation).

2. Origines et mutations de la « question sociale ».

3. Les modèles précurseurs de régulation sociale au fil de la grande transition démographique, industrielle et démocratique (GB, Allemagne, Fce)

4. Les organisations populaires de solidarité (mutualité, coopération, syndicalisme), de la contestation à l’institutionnalisation, de l’intégration à la marginalisation (ici notamment les 3 consensus successifs de la Sécurité Sociale – ouvrière en 1945, paritaire en 1967, étatique en 1995- et l’assurance chômage)

5. La ville, du combat pour l’indépendance de la commune à la « politique de la Ville » dans l’intercommunalité (accent sur l’espace vécu, associatif, collectif...)

6. Des politiques de la famille à la recherche de l’égalité

7. Les métamorphoses de l’essentiel (identités, effritement du patriarcat, enjeux environnementaux, migratoires...).

Épilogue. Rêvons un autre monde !

Essai de tableau chronologique

Indications bibliographiques pratiques 

Index

5 encadrés :

• Les changeants concepts de la protection sociale (bienfaisance, assistance, assurance, paritarisme, etc.).
• Les IRP en France.
• L’échec de l’encadrement social par les dictatures : un sanglant épisode.
• L’Éducation populaire, une démarche, des institutions avec des références diverses.
• Le service public, composante des politiques sociales.

by Michel Pigenet

Des États généraux en juillet 1945 ? Cette expérience démocratique audacieuse s’est effacée de la mémoire collective. L’ouvrage aide à la reconnaissance d’une initiative qui, à travers la tenue d’assemblées populaires aux quatre coins du pays, contribua à la popularisation du programme du CNR. Elle l’enrichit et le précisa, aussi, par la rédaction de milliers de cahiers de doléances, occasion d’une plongée à la rencontre des sentiments, préoccupations, certitudes et aspirations de Français à la croisée des chemins au sortir des années noires. Plus jamais renouvelée depuis 1945, la procédure suivie offre d’utiles éléments de réflexion pour un présent qui s’interroge sur les modalités d’une démocratie participative. 

200 pages

 

15,00 €  TTC / Version électronique : 12,00 €

contact@editions-croquant.org

 

Sommaire :

Introduction. Des États généraux en 1945 ?  

1ère partie  Du projet à sa mise en oeuvre

1.      Les sources parisiennes et vauclusiennes des États généraux (septembre-octobre 1944)

2.      Les États généraux au banc d’essai de l’Assemblée nationale des CDL » (15-18 décembre 1944)

3.      Variations autour des États généraux (décembre 1944-juillet 1945)

 

2e partie  Les États généraux, mode d’emploi

 

4.      Enjeux et références d’une « démocratie agissante »

5.      Les États généraux vus d’en bas : assemblées patriotiques et cahiers de doléances

6.      Une procédure biaisée ?

3e partie   La réunion des États généraux (Paris, 10-14 juillet 1945)

7.      Débats en résonance

8.      En conclave : tensions et unanimité

9.      Le 14 juillet 1945 : les États généraux dans la rue 

4e Partie   Les cahiers de doléances : certitudes et aspirations d’une époque

10.   La forme et le fond

11.   Entre progressisme social et conservatisme sociétal

12.   Du côté de la culture

13.   Les États généraux à l’avant-garde des réformes de la Libération

5e Partie   Postérité

14.   L’effacement du CNR, vers la IVe République

15.   Le programme du CNR ; du consensus résistant aux clivages partisans

16.   Les ruptures de la guerre froide

17.   Les États généraux ou comment donner la parole aux citoyens

 

Epilogue

 

D’hier…

 

… à aujourd’hui

Et maintenant ?

Paris, 19-21 June 2025

Deindustrialization, which began affecting North America and Northwestern Europe in the 1950s, unevenly impacted various workforces. These groups, which have experienced mass layoffs and relocations due to globalization and trade liberalization, include both men and women, national and immigrant workers, and racialized individuals, some of whom have been replaced by lower-paid, less protected labor forces. This powerful movement gained momentum in the late 1970s and early 1980s, at a time when the labor movement was at its peak and social democratic parties held power, particularly in Western Europe.

In this context, deindustrialization profoundly destabilized the labor movement and left-wing parties, which faced an immense political, strategic, and intellectual challenge. This challenge arised from the disappearance of an industrial model that provided a framework, the crisis of countercyclical economic and social policies, and, last but not least, the erosion of their electoral base. Simultaneously, chauvinistic or xenophobic reactions, which traditionally accompany economic and political crises, have multiplied, aiding the consolidation of far-right movements that denounce the presence of immigrants, unfair foreign competition, and even local populations or entire regions perceived as burdens taking advantage of the social welfare system.

While some of these issues regularly capture media and public attention, it is clear that proper historical analyses linking these different elements are still lacking. The same applies to comparisons between regional and national situations.

The aim of this conference is to shed light on these different contexts from a historical perspective, and to rearticulate these contemporary phenomena to understand how different forms of deindustrialization challenge issues of race, immigration, and nation. It also seeks to explore how these processes transform the political responses that can be offered to these issues. Case studies focusing on a particular situation, territory, or group are welcome (in Europe and North America during the late 20th-early 21st century but also in the global South). We also encourage papers that cross categories, compare territories, or vary the scales of analysis.

Several non-exclusive avenues of inquiry may be explored:

Race, nation, and immigrant labor

Workforce categories evolve and differ from one territory to another, particularly on both sides of the Atlantic. In Western Europe, a "color line" analysis may not always apply, as nationality often distinguishes foreigners, some of whom may be "white." Therefore, particular care must be taken when using categories based on context and territory. It is also important to examine how these labor forces navigate deindustrialization, how companies or public policies may target them, and how these men and women at work respond, highlighting any specificities. Historical perspectives on the different processes of integration through industrial labor of immigrant populations and their descendants, and conversely, the phenomena of ghettoization partly resulting from economic and social difficulties related to deindustrialization, could be interesting and novel study themes.

Between powerlessness and action, between blindness and awareness: what responses from workers’ movements?

Labor movements, in their political, union, or even associative components, are very diverse and may follow multiple ideological traditions (progressive, socialist, communist, Christian, etc.). Their influence also varies according to periods, sectors, and territories, while some of their components may exercise power. These diverse situations raise numerous questions: What struggles are being fought (and with what repertoire of action and at what scale)? What issues are addressed and which are ignored? Which labor forces are prioritized and which are more or less neglected? What policies are adopted (job rescue? industrial policy?)

Populism, far-right, and deindustrialization

One of the most striking political phenomena linked to contemporary forms of deindustrialization is the growth of nationalist or far-right populist movements, especially in former industrial regions. Here too, numerous questions arise: Why is this phenomenon more visible in certain countries and regions and less so in others? How can the rise of far-right populism, rather than left-wing populism, be explained? The goal would be to attempt to provide explanatory keys for the establishment of nationalist and racist movements in certain deindustrialized regions: What discourses on deindustrialization are proposed? What relationship to the nation is expressed? What methods are used to establish these movements? How is the former working class viewed, and on what basis is the distinction between "Us" and "Them" made? Which segments of the working-class electorate do they manage to attract?

Practical Details

A selection of presentations will be published in a collective volume by the University of Toronto Press. Presenters wishing to contribute to this publication will be invited to submit their presentation text three weeks before the conference.

Please send your proposals (approximately 300 words) and a brief CV to deindustrialization@concordia.ca by November 5, 2024. Results will be communicated at the beginning of December 2024.

American Association for Italian Studies (AAIS) conference in Philadelphia (March 13-15, 2025)

This session explores the Italian 1970s, from cultural developments at the time to the decade’s impact on Italy and beyond. Much more than just the “terrorism” of the “Years of Lead,” the Italian 1970s featured vibrant countercultures, revolutionary ideas, innovative methods of self-organization, workers’ and student protests, the rise of feminism, the roots of the Italian LGBTQ+ movement, social reform, conservative backlash, changes in sexual norms, and much more. In addition to this direct heritage, the 1970s have been (re)elaborated in objects of memory, particularly in innumerable representations in literature, cinema, television, and theater. Given rising scholarly interest in the Italian 1970s in recent years, we solicit recent research related to questions such as—but not limited to—the following: What ideas, events, and processes from the 1970s remain understudied and/or little known? How have the 1970s been told and how might we add to or challenge these narratives? What might we learn from the 1970s for today? This panel welcomes papers that address any aspect of Italian 1970s culture, history, and memory.

Please submit a title, brief abstract (150-200 words), and a short biography to panel organizers Judith Tauber (jmt349@cornell.edu) and Sergio Ferrarese (sferrarese@wm.edu) by October 25, 2024. 

International Conference at the European Trade Union Institute Brussels, Belgium
February 13 and 14, 2025

With a keynote lecture by Ursula Huws (University of Hertfordshire)

 

Contact Information

Richard A. Bachmann (North America and Global South Contact): ribachm@umich.ed
Michele Santoro (Europe Contact): santoromichele7047@gmail.com

In recent years, the Big Tech industry has garnered increasing attention as a panacea for societal challenges. Various technological fixes and automation solutions promise to solve the ecological crisis, democratize education and access to information, enhance global connectivity and provide resources and platforms for job creation, economic growth and the development of new industries. Nevertheless, while emphasis has often been placed on the creation of value through innovation in the tech industry, it is equally crucial to address the phenomenon of value extraction–i.e., the exploitation of various labour activities and scarce material resources–to grasp the social, political, economic and environmental implications of automation and technological advances.

We invite scholars from diverse disciplines—including history, philosophy, environmental studies, ecology, sociology, anthropology, economics and related fields—to contribute their insights and expertise. We encourage interdisciplinary perspectives to foster a comprehensive understanding of the complex relationships between technology, capitalism, society, labour and the environment. More specifically, we seek contributions that address the following questions: 

• What are the social consequences of job displacement and how does the potential mass automation of labour due to Big Tech innovation contribute to it?
• To what extent does automation impact and exploit the environment and its resources? And what are the hidden labours of environmental exploitation?
• What is the relationship between the social and environmental impacts of automation and technological developments?
• How has automation been implemented, discussed, and resisted in the past, and how do past experiences differ from contemporary ones?
• What is the effect of automation on creating precarious working conditions and labour? How have automation and IT developments shaped capital accumulation?
• What are the impacts of technological innovation on gender relations and norms and labours of care?

Please submit your proposal of no more than 400 words as well as a short bio of no more than 150 words, via the URL above. 

For co-authored papers, please identify a first author.  If accepted, the first author will be presenting the co-authored paper at the conference.  

The submission deadline for proposals is Friday, November 1, 2024.

We will send out acceptance notifications by mid-November. We will prioritize notifying participants who will need a visa to travel to Brussels. Please let us know below if you will need a visa so we can prepare supporting documentation in a timely manner.

We also strive to make limited funds available to accepted participants (first authors) to cover travel and accommodation expenses. Preference will be given to scholars from the Global South. We will be in touch about the details with accepted participants.

Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact Richard A. Bachmann (North America and Global South Contact) at ribachm@umich.edu or Michele Santoro (Europe Contact) at santoromichele7047@gmail.com.

Grad Student Workshop, June 11-12, 2025

LAWCHA Conference, June 12-14, 2025

University of Chicago

As recent events have shown, workers around the globe are facing many diverse challenges. Whether it’s contingent faculty, non-union employees, migrant workers in the U.S. or across the globe who are trafficked or severely exploited, workers being displaced by technology and AI, or those participating in the new “gig economy” of part-time and insecure labor without benefits, the world of work is changing at a rapid pace.  The 2025 LAWCHA Program Committee welcomes proposals on the broad theme of “Making Work Matter: Solidarity and Action across Space and Time” that connects the challenges of work today with struggles and stories of the past.  We are especially interested in the intersection of histories and present-day examples of how people are working toward practical and on-the-ground organizing, as well as solidarity and activism across categories of difference.

While proposals on any labor related topic may be submitted, the program committee encourages the submission of comparative, global, and transnational panels;  sessions on “front line” or “essential “workers; workers and technology; immigration and migration; gender, sexuality and work; forced labor in different eras; public health, medical care, and care work; marginalized workers including Black, Brown, Indigenous, Latinx, and people with disabilities; working-class and labor movements for justice and democracy. We encourage presentations on the United States, across the Americas and beyond, in all time periods; on teaching and public history; race, ethnicity, gender, disability, colonialism, citizenship status, and sexuality; working class communities and social movements. Proposals on other labor and working-class topics are also welcome.

We will consider traditional panels with 3 papers; lightning sessions of 5-6 very short presentations; roundtables of 5-6 people discussing a larger theme; workshops; performance-oriented sessions featuring artistic work, including films; proposals for a poster session; and moderated conversations between activists, artists, archivists, and historians. All sessions (except for posters) must designate a comment/chair or moderator/chair separate from presenters. 

We welcome proposals from scholars and activists in all fields and at all stages, and especially urge contingent faculty, community college faculty, and independent scholars to submit panel proposals and papers.

We encourage the submission of complete panels rather than individual papers. Single paper authors are encouraged to seek out others prior to submission. We ask that organizers aim for diversity in gender, race, ethnicity, and/or employment status of presenters when pulling together submissions.

LAWCHA 2025 Program Co-Chairs:

Lilia Fernandez, University of Illinois at Chicago

Emily E. LB. Twarog, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Conference email: LAWCHA2025@gmail.com

by Dominique Pinsolle

L’histoire du monde du travail, dont les médias et le monde politique
négligent, méprisent et effacent la réalité historique et sociologique,
n’a pas fini de nous donner des leçons sur la culture de la résistance.

« Quelle que soit la manière dont on qualifie la littérature, les discours, les représentations et les pratiques liés au sabotage en France et aux États-Unis jusqu’à la guerre, il n’en demeure pas moins que le phénomène n’a aucun équivalent ailleurs dans le monde, ni dans sa nature, ni dans son ampleur. Toutes les forces syndicalistes révolutionnaires ont été réceptives au concept, mais seuls les militants français et les Wobblies états­uniens ont produit une doctrine originale du sabotage qui a rencontré un écho international – comme en témoigne la diffusion internationale du terme français et du symbole du chat noir. En outre, malgré leurs particularités respectives, les deux formes de cette tactique qui se développent de part et d’autre de l’Atlantique sont liées et peuvent donc être appréhendées comme les deux étapes d’une même histoire. »

L’urgence climatique et sociale a remis au goût du jour l’activisme radical, dont le recours au sabotage. Loin de se réduire à une dégradation matérielle, cette pratique a soulevé d’immenses espoirs dans les rangs syndicalistes révolutionnaires de la « Belle Époque », au point d’être théorisée et mise en œuvre de manière collective. De la Confédération générale du travail (CGT) en France aux Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) aux États-­Unis, le sabotage apparaissait alors comme une tactique légitime, imparable, et contre laquelle patrons et gouvernants ne pouvaient rien. Cette expérience syndicale éclaire la portée et les limites d’un moyen d’action marginalisé, objet de nombreux fantasmes.

Télécharger la bibliographie et la liste complète des sources en version pdf.

https://agone.org/livre/quand-les-travailleurs-sabotaient/

To mark the 2026 Semiquincentennial of the American Revolution, the journal Diplomatic History seeks article proposals that engage with any aspect related to the international, transnational, transimperial, continental, or global dimensions of the American Revolution, including its origins or aftermath. The articles will be published in a special forum in 2026. 

Please send proposals to diplomat@shafr.org. Review of proposals will begin on October 10, 2024.  Selected authors will be notified by November 1. The submission date for completed articles will be June 1, 2025. For questions please contact either pgoedde@temple.edu or anne.foster@indstate.edu. 

Moving the Social. Journal of Social History and the History of Social Movements 71 (2024)   Special Issue   Technological Change, Mechanisation, and the Reactions of Craftsmen and Workers in Mediterranean Europe, 19th–20th Centuries   edited by Leda Papastefanaki.   https://www.vr-elibrary.de/toc/mots/current   Contents

Technological Change, Mechanisation, and the Reactions of Craftsmen and Workers in Mediterranean Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries
Papastefanaki Leda

Something More than ‘Capital and Labour’
Ibarz Jordi

Modernising Machinery, Technological Advances and Organisational Change
Betas Thanasis

Continuity and Change in Craft Labour
Hadjittofi Petroula

Additional Featured Article: The Immigration of European Coal Miners to Southern Brazil in the Mid-20th Century
Mandelli Bruno

Review Article: What’s New in the History of Social Movements?
Berger Stefan

 

Universität Bonn & Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies

Call for Papers:
Strong Asymmetrical Dependencies: Perspectives from Asia, Past & Present

Conference, Bonn, 6-8 May 2025

See the online call for papers

Since the global turn, research about strong asymmetrical dependencies across time and space (among which, but not limited to slavery, bondage, labor and coercion) has greatly expanded both conceptually and geographically. Asia, however defined, is certainly not the blind spot it once was in labor and slavery studies anymore. Yet, despite the pluralization recently generated by global labor and global slavery studies, Asia still remains marginal in many respects. Slavery in early-modern Asia, to mention only one example, is increasingly studied through the lens of European archives, and through European terms of what this slavery entailed, leaving aside the study of forms of exploitation and forced displacement that took place before, beside and beyond the European presence in Asia. What seems to be particularly missing in current discussions is an emic perspective from Asia; that is to say, a more granular and accurate view of the practices, norms and their evolutions, from existing vernacular sources (written, oral and material) and from the actor’s experiences, categories and worldviews. What also seems to be missing is a genuine accounting of Asian historiographies, as well as a proper assessment of the legacies and memories of these diverse phenomena in the contemporary societies of Asia.

Organized by the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies, this conference aims to address gaps in the study of slavery, bondage, coerced labor, and forced displacement across Asia. We invite scholars from various disciplines to contribute to a better understanding of the history, historiography, legacies, and current forms of these dependencies from an Asian perspective. We seek innovative historical case studies and contributions on topics like emic terminologies, memory, archival practices, and digital approaches. The conference will also explore the value and implications of adopting an "Asian perspective" in advancing scholarly dialogue and interdisciplinarity.

Conference Details

The conference will be structured around three different formats: paper presentations and discussions; thematic injections; and roundtables (including a strategic discussion about the future and the structuration of the field, and a discussion about digital approach in collaboration with representatives of the Exploring Slave Trade in Asia Network).   

Funding: The conference is funded by the BCDSS. Funding includes hotel nights in Bonn. As to transportation, we will have to prioritize researchers who do not have access to travel money.
Expected outcome: The organizers plan to publish a selection of contributions either in a journal special issue or in one (or more) edited volume(s).

Submission Details  

The selection process will be based on the relevance of individual papers in addressing the topics and questions raised by the conference, and on the ways in which they might dialogue with one another. We will be attentive to balancing topics, approaches, disciplines, time periods, and areas. We welcome contributions from established scholars as much as from early career researchers, and we particularly encourage scholars working in institutions across Asia to join in the discussion

Abstract Length: Maximum 500 words
Submission Deadline: 31 October, 2024
Announcement of selected contributions: 15 December, 2024

Organization

Anas Ansar, Jeannine Bischoff, Claude Chevaleyre, Emma Kalb, Christine Mae Sarito, Subin Nam, Lisa Phongsavath, Nabhojeet Sen & Elena Smolarz

New edition
Workers of the World
Volume 1 – Number 13, August 2024

Download full articles - Free access

Once again war threatens the world, the future of the planet and condemns the working classes to poverty. Once again, working classes must push hard to stop Ukraine/Russia war, NATO’s warmongering and the genocide of the Palestinian people. In this edition, we take on the urgency of the answers still to be built, of the workers’ movement that needs strength and of finding convergences with the youth for the climate emergency, with anti-fascists who fight against growing authoritarianism, with anti-racism on all continents, with the defence of public services and radical gender equality.

From the past, we get examples in which the left and the workers’ movement have achieved significant victories against the war waged by the empires. This is the case of Marina Kabat’s text about the frustrated participation of the Argentine military in the Korean War in the 1950s. It is the example of the workers of the North of France and Belgium occupied by the troops of the Reich, of their struggle for better living conditions, and of the extraordinary resistance to the Nazi occupation, in a review of Steve Cushion and Merilyn Moss’ book, On Strike Against the Nazis. From the present-day, we publish a text by members of the workers’ committee of the Portuguese public television (RTP) where the field of labour struggles fully assumes the positioning on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

We also publish an interview with Michael Roberts where the path and thought of the British economist are a fundamental reference or thinking the world in which we live and the crucial alternatives to ensure the future.

A text on two recently published books, and presented at the 6th Conference of IASSC, is Buntu Siwisa’s contribution to this edition of the Workers of the World journal: Labour Revolt in Britain, 1910 – 1914, by Ralph Darlington, and Recasting Workers’ Power: Work and Inequality in the Shadow of the Digital Age, by Edward Webster are the two books that Siwisa talks to us about, showing us the evolution of capital accumulation and the continuity of exploitation, and how labour resists in strategies of organization and mobilization. In fair tribute to Edward Webster, who passed away in March 2024, we republish a text by Karl von Holdt, originally published in The Conversation. Eddie Webster was present at the 6th IASSC Conference, last February, presenting his book.

Resisting, organizing, mobilizing is the enormous urgency of the present to which this issue of Workers of the World intends to contribute on the reflection and response capacity of class internationalism.

Articles

The Argentine workers' anti-war movement during the Korean War (1950-1951)
Marina Kabat

From Ukraine to Gaza, stop the war!
António Louçã, Paulo Mendes, Nelson Silva

Cushion, Steve and Moos, Merilyn. On Strike Against the Nazis Socialist History Society, 2021
João Carlos Louçã

"...A display of temper..."
Buntu Siwisa

Report of the 6th International Association Strikes and Social Conflicts Conference

Edward Webster: South African intellectual, teacher, activist, a man of great energy and integrity, and the life and soul of any party Creators
Karl von Holdt

Michael Roberts interview: Time is running out
Raquel Varela

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Eighth Junior Scholars Conference in Jewish History

“The place of the Holocaust in German-Jewish history and memory”

Berlin, May 18 – 20, 2025

Eighth Junior Scholars Conference in Jewish History “The place of the Holocaust in German-Jewish history and memory”

Conveners: Co-organized by Anna-Carolin Augustin (German Historical Institute Washington DC), Mark Roseman (Indiana University Bloomington), and Miriam Rürup (Moses Mendelssohn Centre for European-Jewish Studies, Potsdam), and the Wissenschaftliche Arbeitsgemeinschaft des Leo Baeck Instituts with additional support from the Berlin Gateway, Indiana University

We invite proposals for papers to be presented at the Eighth Junior Scholars Conference in Jewish History to take place at the Berlin Gateway of Indiana University, May 2025. We seek proposals specifically from postdoctoral scholars, recent PhDs as well as those in the final stages of their dissertations.

The aim of the two-day workshop is to bring together a small transatlantic group of junior scholars to explore new research and questions in Jewish history. Via pre-circulated papers and brief presentations at the workshop itself, participants will offer insights in their respective individual research projects and at the same time engage in a broader discussion on sources, methodology, and theory in order to assess current and possible future trends in the modern history of Jews in Europe, the Americas, and beyond.

For some time, historians have sought to bring the history of German Jews out of the shadow of the Holocaust. Especially for the period before 1933, and particularly before 1914, scholars have been at pains to show that the history of German Jewry was not simply characterized by antisemitism, exclusion, and delusions of acceptance. And while the theme of studies on Jews in postwar Germany was for a long time a community “living with packed suitcases”, German reunification and the Jewish immigration waves of the 1990s have evoked new questions and themes to complement or supersede the concern with the aftershocks of the Holocaust.

So, what is the place now of National Socialism and the Holocaust in our current understanding of German Jewry? Does it remain the critical vanishing point for the history of German Jews before 1933? Questions that might be raised include:
- To what extent was pre-1933 German Jewish history destined for disaster? What kind of alternative histories and trends can be/ have been offered about the place and experience of Jewry in pre-Nazi German society?
- How far did Jewish responses to National Socialism and the Holocaust draw on Jewish practices and traditions that predated the catastrophe?
- How far is Jewish life in Germany, and are German Jewish diasporas elsewhere in the world, still shaped – in identity, aspirations, and memory by the experience of the Holocaust? How did the Nazi-Past influence the perception of Judaism/Jewish presence – e.g. the role of the Zentralrat der Juden in Postwar West-Germany, the preservation and or neglect of Jewish heritage sites in East and West Germany?
- How did this specific lens of looking at Jewish history through Holocaust history also shape and affect the historiography on Germany Jewry in the postwar period? How far did it determine what was visible in Jewish heritage and what remained invisible? And how did it influence public representations of Jewish history in Germany – in museums, memorials, or schools and teaching curricula?
- What role did Jewish perspectives and actors play in memorialization processes in the Post-Holocaust era? How distinctive is the relationship of Jewry in Germany, or of German-Jewish diasporas to the Holocaust compared with other elements of the postwar Jewish world?

We invite:
- historical research that raises questions about the place and significance of the Holocaust in the history of pre-1945 German Jewry broadly understood, and of Jewry in the postwar Germanies;
- historiographical research that explores the way in which history writing has juxtaposed (or not) the history of German Jewry, and the Holocaust;
- Memory studies tackling questions of trauma, commemoration, restitution, identity and more.

The workshop language will be English. The organizers will cover basic expenses for travel and accommodation.

Please submit short proposals (750 words max.) and a one-page CV by September 30, 2024 here: https://app.smartsheet.eu/b/form/7b393eb999b147ae9342ec1ca9a18391 . Successful applicants will be notified by October 15.

October 2025, Santiago de Chile

El Grupo Organizador del IV Congreso Internacional de Investigación sobre Anarquismo(s) extiende la convocatoria para participar de esta iniciativa a estudiantes, académicos/as e investigadores/as independientes, con o sin formación universitaria. El Congreso se llevará a cabo en Santiago de Chile, durante tres jornadas de la primera quincena de octubre de 2025. Las fechas específicas y el lugar del evento serán informados en la próxima circular. Para su desarrollo, contamos con el apoyo institucional del Departamento de Historia de la Universidad de Santiago de Chile (USACH).

Las anteriores reuniones –impulsadas por el Centro de Documentación e Investigación de la Cultura de Izquierdas de Argentina, en conjunto con el Instituto de Altos Estudios Sociales de la Universidad Nacional de San Martín (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2016), la Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación de la Universidad de la República (Montevideo, Uruguay, 2019) y la Biblioteca Terra Livre (São Paulo, Brasil, 2022)– han reunido decenas de expositores/as, junto a diversas actividades, tales como lanzamientos de libros, presentaciones de documentales, debates, exposiciones artísticas, talleres, conferencias, etc., lo que ha propiciado un crecimiento en cantidad y calidad de los estudios sobre anarquismos.

Como sus ediciones previas, esta nueva versión del Congreso propone un espacio de diálogo e intercambio de experiencias de investigación sobre el anarquismo y sus diversas manifestaciones y dimensiones (políticas, sociales, económicas, culturales), entre participantes de diversas latitudes, dentro y fuera del mundo académico y desde diversas áreas del conocimiento, como la historia, la geografía, la sociología, la filosofía, la educación, entre otras.

Esta iniciativa cuenta con el apoyo de numerosas personas del mundo académico internacional, quienes han comprometido su participación en diferentes tareas, tales como la difusión, la evaluación de resúmenes y el envío de textos y ponencias: Kevan Aguilar, Martín Albornoz, Dora Barrancos, Jorge Canales Urriola, Raymond Craib, Laura Fernández Cordero, José Julián Llaguno, Jordi Maíz, Manuel Lagos Mieres, Nadia Ledesma Prietto, Clara E. Lida, Gaya Makaran, Ivanna Margarucci, María Migueláñez Martínez, Eduardo Pillaca, Rodolfo Porrini, Ginés Puente Pérez, Angela Roberti, Susana Sueiro, Amparo Sánchez Cobos, Joshua Savala, Horacio Tarcus, Alejandro de la Torre, Felipe Corrêa.

El Grupo Organizador está compuesto por un colectivo diverso de personas que nos hemos autoconvocado desde distintos espacios de la investigación y docencia académica, la militancia y el esfuerzo editorial y propagandístico. Las personas, instituciones y organizaciones que conforman el Grupo Organizador son:

Centro de Documentación e Investigación de la Cultura de Izquierdas (CeDInCI)

• Archivo Histórico La Revuelta
• Grupo Anarquista Novena Ola
• Mar y Tierra Ediciones
• Editorial Talleres Sartaña
• Grupo de Estudios José Domingo Gómez Rojas
• ONG Observatorio CITé
• Núcleo de Estudios de Geografía Anarquista
• Proyecto Anarquista de Difusión Histórica La Brecha
• Ignacio Ayala Cordero
• Eduardo Godoy Sepúlveda
• Luciano Omar Oneto
• Francisco Peña Castillo
• Felipe Guerra Guajardo
• Felipe Mardones Fabio
• Francisco González Rocha
• Beatriz Medina Nebott
• René Cerda Inostroza
• Graciela Ortiz Montenegro

 

LÍNEAS TEMÁTICAS PARA ENVÍO DE RESÚMENES Y PONENCIAS

1. Anarquismo, anarcosindicalismo y movimiento obrero;
2. Biografías de anarquistas y trayectorias militantes;
3. Anarquismo transnacional: redes, circulaciones e intercambios;
4. Represión del anarquismo;
5. El anarquismo en los movimientos sociales;
6. Anarquismo, género y sexualidad;
7. Educación y pedagogía anarquista;
8. Prensa anarquista y cultura impresa;
9. Anarquismo, archivos y bibliotecas;
10. Anarquismo y perspectivas teóricas;
11. Pensamiento anarquista, decolonialidad y pueblos indígenas;
12. Artes y estéticas anarquistas;
13. Anarquismo y cuestión urbana;
14. Reflexiones historiográficas desde el anarquismo;
15. Actualidad del anarquismo.

 

CRONOGRAMA

Plazo para envío de resúmenes: 31 de agosto de 2024.

Aceptación de resúmenes: 30 de noviembre de 2024.

Envío de ponencias: 31 de marzo de 2025.

Fecha del IV Congreso: Primera quincena de octubre de 2025.

 

FORMATO DE RESÚMENES Y PONENCIAS

Los resúmenes serán enviados en dos páginas, formato Word o PDF. Fuente Arial, tamaño 12, interlineado 1,5 líneas. La primera página debe incluir nombre de autor/a/es/as, pertenencia institucional (si corresponde), correo electrónico y línea temática. El resumen debe ir en la segunda página y tendrá una extensión máxima de 500 palabras. En párrafo aparte, debe indicar cinco palabras o conceptos clave. Los resúmenes pueden ser enviados en idiomas español, portugués e inglés.

Una vez que su resumen sea aceptado, deberá enviar su ponencia en formato Word o PDF. Fuente Arial, tamaño 12, interlineado 1,5 líneas. La primera página debe incluir nombre de autor/a/es/as, pertenencia institucional (si corresponde), correo electrónico y línea temática. La extensión de la ponencia tendrá un mínimo de 6 páginas y un máximo de 10 páginas, incluyendo una lista con la bibliografía citada.

 

PARA CONSULTAS Y ENVÍO DE RESÚMENES Y PONENCIAS:

4congresoanarquismos@gmail.com

MÁS INFORMACIÓN

Página web: https://4congresoanarquismos.noblogs.org/

Facebook: @4congresoanarquismos

Instagram: @4congresoanarquismos

by Michele Di Donato (University of Pisa, Italy) and Mathieu Fulla (The Paris Institute of Political Studies, France)

This volume offers a new perspective on the political history of the socialist, communist and alternative political Lefts, focusing on the role of networks and transnational connections. Embedding the history of left-wing internationalism into a new political history approach, it accounts for global and transnational turns in the study of left-wing politics.

The essays in this collection study a range of examples of international engagement and transnational cooperation in which left-wing actors were involved, and explore how these interactions shaped the globalization of politics throughout the 20th century. In taking a multi-archival and methodological approach, this book challenges two conventional views - that the left gradually abandoned its original international to focus exclusively on the national framework, and that internationalism survived merely as a rhetorical device.

Instead, this collection highlights how different currents of the Left developed their own versions of internationalism in order to adapt to the transformation of politics in the interdependent 20th-century world. Demonstrating the importance of political convergence, alliance-formation, network construction and knowledge circulation within and between the socialist and communist movements, it shows that the influence of internationalism is central to understanding the foreign policy of various left-wing parties and movements.

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/leftist-internationalisms-9781350247918/

Coimbra/Portugal, 9-12 September 2025.

Recent years have seen a flourishing of studies which have added considerably to our knowledge of inequality dynamics in preindustrial times. Scholars focused also on the determinants of these dynamics and some of these suggests a direct connection between the growth of economic inequality and the functioning of the public finances (i.e. Alfani and Di Tulio in their book on the Republic of Venice). Basically, the argument is that regressive taxation would have fostered this phenomenon, but we still have little knowledge about the mechanisms beyond this process. Why did this happen? How did the public economy’s choices influence these dynamics? How did the management of the common pool resources and the level of municipal and state direct taxation affect the paths of wealth distribution? Which were the correlations and causations mechanisms between the different elements? 

We look for contributions for a session to be submitted for the European Rural History Organisation Conference that will be held in Coimbra (9-12 September 2025).

Argument

Recent years have seen a flourishing of studies which have added considerably to our knowledge of inequality dynamics in preindustrial times. Scholars focused also on the determinants of these dynamics and some of these suggests a direct connection between the growth of economic inequality and the functioning of the public finances (i.e. Alfani and Di Tulio in their book on the Republic of Venice). Basically, the argument is that regressive taxation would have fostered this phenomenon, but we still have little knowledge about the mechanisms beyond this process. Why did this happen? How did the public economy’s choices influence these dynamics? How did the management of the common pool resources and the level of municipal and state direct taxation affect the paths of wealth distribution? Which were the correlations and causations mechanisms between the different elements?

Clearly, a depletion or a private use of the common pool resources, thanks to its narrowed management, could have produced important effects in terms of increase of direct taxation and, therefore, of increase of economic inequality. However, the availability of the commons could have affected economic inequality not only impacting on the level of taxation, but also on the capacity of the taxpayers to face the State and municipal fiscal needs. Starting from these assumptions, the panel will focus on the complexity of the relationship between the management of the commons and the trend of economic inequality, dealing (but not exclusively) with the following topics in the long run (1500-1800):

• How did the depletion of the incomes from the commons could have caused the increase of direct taxation at the local level?
• Did a certain management of the common could have affected economic inequality in other ways – such as lowering the incomes (i.e., the fiscal capacity) for a part of the population and/or increasing them for another? In other words, how did the presence, or the absence, or a different way to manage these resources affected the capability of the rural population (or of a part of it) to meet the fiscal needs of the State?
• Did the direct use of the common pool resources or the renting out of them have different effects in terms of the redistribution of the wealth they produced among the rural population?
• More, did the presence of specific resources (public woods, buildings for the lodging of soldiers, and so on) produce, at the roots, the absence of the need to purchase/rent them and, therefore, to impose a tax to pay the purchase/rent?
• Was there an awareness of local/State institution of the connection between the presence (or a certain management) of the commons and the functioning of the fiscal system?

Organizers

• Giulio Ongaro – University of Milano-Bicocca
• Matteo Di Tullio – University of Pavia
• Benedetta Crivelli – University of Parma

Submission guidelines

If you wish to propose a contribution to the session, please send an email with a provisional title and a short abstract to the session organizers :

• giulio.ongaro@unimib.it 
• matteo.ditullio@unipv.it 
• benedettamaria.crivelli@unipr.it

before 20 September 2024.

As #ModernRadicals month comes to an end, Senate House Library archivist Clare George explains the system of ideas known as systematic ideology, developed by Harold Walsby and George Walford: https://www.london.ac.uk/news-events/blogs/radical-rethinkers-new-archi…

The records of systematic ideology make a fascinating addition to the Library’s archive collections of far left political groups. The archive is open to all interested researchers to access in the Library’s Special Collections Reading Room and the online catalogue is available here.