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Journal of African American History: Special Issue on "Black Women’s History in the Twenty-First Century: Engaging the Future"

2 months ago

The Journal of African American History is planning a special issue in 2027. Titled “Black Women’s History in the Twenty-First Century: Engaging the Future,” the issue will provide an opportunity to reflect seriously on the state of scholarship on Black women in the United States as well as reshape thinking about Black women’s impact on U.S. society. Guest editors, Karen Cook Bell and Hettie V. Williams, invite articles that analyze Black women’s experiences with focuses on the lives, labors, wartime experiences, and legal battles of Black women and their self-making practices, which allowed them to navigate slavery, freedom, Jane and Jim Crowism, and the turmoil of the Civil Rights and post-Civil Rights eras. This special issue will provide an examination of dominant narratives in the historiography of Black women’s history that have emerged in the twenty-first century and examine future explorations in the field.

Foundational texts including editors Sharon Harley and Rosalyn Terborg-Penn’s The Afro-American Woman: Struggles and Images (1978), which was the first volume of historical essays on Black women; Deborah Gray White’s Ar’n’t I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South (1985); the multivolume Black Women in America: A Historical Encyclopedia, edited by Darlene Clark Hine (1994); “We Specialize in the Wholly Impossible”: A Reader in Black Women’s History, edited by Hine, Wilma King, and Linda Reed (1995); Hine and Kathleen Thompson’s A Shining Thread of Hope: The History of Black Women in America (1998), and White’s Too Heavy A Load: Black Women in the Defense of Themselves, 1894–1994 (1999) have guided generations of scholars of Black women’s history as they reexamined the complex interweaving of politics, labor, identity, and gender in American history since the colonial era. Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross’ more recent study, A Black Women’s History of the United States (2020), re-envisioned the history of Black women in the U.S. and imagined future explorations.  

Leslie Alexander stated, “There is a compelling need to study Black women in their own right.” Guest editors Karen Cook Bell and Hettie V. Williams seek articles that examine Black women’s history in the context of the following topics:

  • Slavery and Abolition
  • Black Women’s Resistance
  • War and Gender Violence
  • Emancipation
  • Economic Development
  • Culture (e.g., education, religion)
  • Migration and Mobility
  • Intellectualism 
  • Black Internationalism
  • Social and Political Movements (e.g., Black Feminism, Black Lives Matter)
  • Politics
  • Black Women’s Queer History
  • Black Girlhood
  • Reproductive Justice
  • Black Women’s Health and Wellness

 

Authors should submit essays via the Editorial Manager® system. Manuscripts, including footnotes, should contain between 10,000 and 11,500 words (approximately 35 to 40 pages). “Instructions for Authors” are available on the JAAH website. For inquiries, please contact jaah@alasu.edu or the guest editors, Karen Cook Bell at kcookbell@bowiestate.edu and Hettie V. Williams at hwilliam@monmouth.edu. January 1, 2026, is the due date for manuscript submissions.

 

Contact Information

Dr. Karen Cook Bell

Bowie State University

Bowie, MD 20715

Contact Email kcookbell@bowiestate.edu

55th IALHI Conference: AI, Big Tech and Democracy: Threats and Opportunities to Labour History Institutions

2 months ago

International Institute of Social History (Amsterdam), 10-13 September 2025

Since ChatGPT has arrived, we can observe how labour is being affected by AI: for many, it brings along a huge time efficiency, but at the same time jobs are killed by this efficiency. AI is presented as heaven and hell at the same time. Big tech firms that have power over AI and social media, have been criticized for using this power to manipulate algorithms, putting democracy under pressure. From a progressive perspective, big tech and social media have become a threat to democratic societies and their protagonists. The left discusses how to deal with the rising “technofeudalism” and IALHI should take up that discussion.

Social media and big tech firms also affect archives and libraries: it is worth collecting social media for their strong impact on societal change and the public opinion. Additionally, libraries and archives make use of these platforms by themselves, attracting the public to their collections and activities. Tools such as AI may be a threat to employment, yet at the same time they also present opportunities for work practices at archival institutes and other workplaces. For our conference, we invite contributions on the whole range of these topics from GLAM institutions (galleries, libraries, archives, museums) as well as from individual researchers.

Contributions may include, but should not be limited to, the following thematic clusters:

  1. How do we make use of big tech?
  • How do we use AI, Google services, cloud servers, and so on?
  • How do we make use of social media?
  1. How do we relate to big tech: threats and opportunities?
  • What stand do we take as labour archives and libraries to the bias against and underrepresentation of specific positions on platforms?
  • How do we deal with the circumstance that big tech firms are an infrastructural part of a capitalist structure that we cannot do without?
  • How do we deal with the possible threat of losing control over our data? What role do the location of data storage and data backup play?
  • How do we train our contributors and donators not to give away information they want to keep (and give it to us later)?
  1. What are the consequences to our acquisition policy?
  • What is to be done about bit rot – how to preserve specific ephemeral data?
  • What do we win – from a heritage point of view – by capturing the volatile information of the platforms?
  • To which extent can we practice kind of division of labor e.g. with the Internet Archive when it comes to collecting digital objects?
  1. How do we preserve big tech inside archives and make it accessible?
  • What social media and websites do we collect, and how?
  • How can we assist our archival partners in their document management even before they turn over their archives?
  • How can we make our collections of social media, websites etc. more visible and accessible while big tech firm’s general terms and conditions of business are very restricted?
  1. What are our strategies in dealing with the challenges of big tech?
  • How should we deal with false information and biased viewpoints on the platforms? Should we take up an active role of fact checkers?
  • How can we make our own institutions more resilient and strengthen our donators?
  • How can we act in solidarity with archives and libraries under threat?
  • How can we deal with misleading information and save our own data as authentic information? 

Hands-on topics:

The conference welcomes proposals for hands-on sessions on tools and methods, in particular prototypes or first experiences. Proposals for hands-on sessions should be practically realizable on site.

Please send in your proposals with a short description of your presentation to info@ialhi.org. Use this mail also for any questions concerning the conference. Deadline is 6 June 2025.

For more information on IALHI, go to https://ialhi.org

An era of rights: Kansas Citiy's struggle for equality

2 months ago

Historical Background

Kansas City and its surrounding region served as a hotbed for social justice movements that posed often underrecognized challenges to the cultural, legal, and political status quo during the latter half of the 20th century. National and local leaders such as Thurgood Marshall and Esther Brown contributed to a sustained legal campaign against racial segregation, culminating with the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954. Sustained local activism expanded desegregation across many aspects of society, notably in parks and recreation, shopping districts, employment, and housing.

Beyond struggles for Black civil rights, the Kansas City area witnessed activism from diverse groups. In 1966, members of fifteen homophile organizations met in Kansas City to form the North American Conference of Homophile Organizations (NACHO). This historic meeting launched the rise of a national movement to combat discrimination faced by the LGBTQ+ community. During the Termination Era, local Indigenous families established the Indian Council of Many Nations, which later founded the Heart of America Indian Center (now Kansas City Indian Center) to provide social services for Native Americans in the area. The fervor of the Chicanx Movement of the 1960s and 1970s also reverberated in the area. In 1969, Kansas City’s Latinx neighborhoods became part of a national movement when Chicanx students organized a walkout from West High School to demand culturally relevant and bilingual education. Kansas City’s history as a contested ground galvanized communities to rise up, challenge the status quo, and build an equitable urban landscape reflective of its diversity.

Project Description

The University of Missouri - Kansas City (UMKC) Center for Digital and Public Humanities and the Kansas City Public Library (KCPL) request proposals for articles examining myriad social justice movements in Kansas City from the post-World War II era to the end of the 20th century.

Proposals for this multi-faceted partnership will be considered for inclusion as articles/chapters in one or both of the following outcomes:

  • An edited volume published by a university press;
  • A digital project that combines scholarship with archival sources, oral histories, biographies, and other relevant documents.

Selected contributors for the edited volume will be required to attend a conference to workshop their papers in April 2026 and will present at a three-day public symposium in November 2026. (We will provide travel expenses for both the workshop and symposium). Selected website contributors will also be invited (optionally) to present their work at the public symposium. These efforts seek to encourage new research on understudied topics, bring this scholarship to larger public audiences, and facilitate community discussions about activism and civil rights. The project is modeled after previous collaborative and award-winning efforts, including the books

Bleeding Kansas, Bleeding Missouri: The Long Civil War on the Border, Wide-Open Town: Kansas City in the Pendergast Era and websites, Civil War on the Western Border: The Missouri Conflict, 1854-1865 and The Pendergast Years: Kansas City in the Jazz Age and Great Depression.

Suggested Themes and Topics

We welcome proposals that contextualize the methods and strategies of Kansas City’s social justice movements within national narratives and themes. Research topics should encompass political activism and community uplift on behalf of historically marginalized communities, including but not limited to women, Black Americans, Latinxs, LGBTQIA+ persons, working-class communities, or people with disabilities. How did diverse Kansas Citians challenge the status quo throughout the late-20th century? How is the Kansas City experience unique (or representative) when compared to social justice movements in the Midwest and nationwide?

Suggested themes and topics may include, but are not limited to:

  • activist groups and individual activists
  • direct action, protests, and boycotts
  • student movements and educational activism
  • interracial and interethnic coalitions and solidarity movements
  • intersectional movements
  • voting rights and electoral politics
  • environmental justice
  • labor activism
  • institution and/or organizational building
  • community organizing and neighborhood-level activism
  • legal battles and challenges
  • economic justice
  • self-determination, Black Power, Chicanx Power, Red Power, etc.
  • immigrant rights
  • feminist movements and activism
  • LGBTQIA+ resistance and activism
  • Cultural and artistic expressions
  • degradation of schools
  • community development (investment and disinvestment)
  • white flight and development of the suburbs

 

Instructions for Submissions

The symposium welcomes submissions from:

  • Scholars, Researchers, Public Historians, Authors, Community Members, Kansas City Activists and/or their Descendants, Students, Artists and Creative Writers

Proposed Dates:

  • Paper Workshop: April 22-24, 2026
  • Public Symposium: November 10-12, 2026

Submission Details:

  • Deadline: June 15, 2025
  • Format: A one-page abstract (500 words single-spaced) with working title; brief C.V. or resume.
  • Honoraria will be provided for contributors to both the website and volume. We will offset travel expenses to the workshop and symposium for those involved in the volume project.
  • Contact/submission instructions: Please address proposals and inquiries to: kcmc@umkc.edu. Be sure to put An Era of Rights in the subject.

This project is supported by the Kansas City Monuments Coalition (KCMC), an effort funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s Monuments program. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is the nation’s largest supporter of the arts and humanities. Since 1969, the Foundation has been guided by its core belief that the humanities and arts are essential to human understanding. The Foundation believes that the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity, and that everyone deserves the beauty, transcendence, and freedom that can be found there. Through our grants, we seek to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive. Learn more at mellon.org.

The edited volume and digital project are two parts of the larger KCMC. The University of Missouri – Kansas City was awarded a $4 million grant from the Mellon Foundation to support the creation of the Kansas City Monuments Coalition. The grant, part of the Mellon Foundation’s Monuments Project, was secured through the efforts of UMKC’s History Department faculty and the Center for Digital and Public Humanities. The Coalition consists of sixteen organizations in the Greater Kansas City Area to preserve and commemorate a more inclusive history of the region. It will also support public programs in partnership with the Kansas City Public Library.

La Révolution industrielle et ses périls ; la promesse démocratique à l'épreuve du malheur ouvrier en France (1830 - 1870) (French)

2 months ago

by Dominique Vuillaume

Ce livre analyse la mutation des savoirs consécutive au choc de l’industrialisation et à l’apparition dans son sillage de la classe ouvrière française, sur la période clé allant de la Monarchie de juillet à la fin du Second Empire.

Le surgissement pour le moins incompréhensible pour l’époque du paupérisme ouvrier - c’est-à-dire d’une pauvreté qui touche celles et ceux qui sont au coeur de l’appareil productif plutôt qu’à ses marges – provoque une effervescence intellectuelle considérable dans laquelle le mouvement philanthropique joue un rôle moteur. C’est lui qui s’attache à construire de toute pièce un savoir empirique susceptible de rendre compte de cet « inexplicable » dans le refus implicite des savoirs descriptifs issus du XVIIIe siècle. C’est l’invention de l’enquête ouvrière « en première personne ». A suivre le cheminement de ces enquêtes, on s’aperçoit que la philanthropie finit par construire une explication du malheur ouvrier totalement étrange pour notre conscience contemporaine. Et derrière l’étrange se révèle un étayage des conclusions des enquêtes ouvrières sur une  anthropologie morale de la volonté. Une anthropologie qui s’efforce de préserver un espace de délibération entre la promesse démocratique portée par la révolution de 1789 et la détresse palpable du monde ouvrier avec son univers de non droit.

Économiste et sociologue de formation, l’auteur a entrepris une double carrière de chercheur et d’administrateur scientifique à l’Institut national de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale et dans des organismes publics en charge des relations entre sciences et société sous divers aspects. Ses thèmes de recherche récents portent sur l’étude comparative des paradigmes mobilisés sur la question des drogues en France et aux Etats-Unis depuis le milieu du XIXe siècle.

Workshop Belgian volunteers in the Spanish Civil War

2 months 1 week ago

Workshop Belgian volunteers in the Spanish Civil War

Wednesday 28 May 2025 - 13:30 - 17:30
Amsab-ISH - Ghent, Belgium

Website Brigadistas from Belgium: https://brigades.amsab.be

On Wednesday 28 May, the new online database Brigadistas from Belgium will be presented in Amsab-Institute of Social History in Ghent, Belgium. This website contains biographical data of more than two thousand volunteers who went to the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1939. The database was compiled on the basis of unique information from Spanish and Russian collections by researchers Rudi Van Doorslaer and François Van Pelt.

During the workshop, we will look back at the research into the history of the Spanish Civil War in Belgium, with contributions from, among others, the French historian Edouard Sill and documentary maker Sven Tuytens. The afternoon will conclude with a public debate led by moderator Vincent Scheltiens.

In 1975, the year in which dictator Francisco Franco died, Ghent historian Rudi Van Doorslaer was the first Belgian to gain access to the Spanish files of Belgian members of the International Brigades. These documents were kept in the archives of the former secret police in Salamanca. In the following decades, the data was systematically supplemented with information from other archive sources, collected at home and abroad.

In recent years, François Van Pelt, who studied political science at the Université Catholique de Louvain, supplemented this data collection with valuable information from the original files of the International Brigades. These archives were evacuated from the Brigades' base in Albacete to the Soviet Union in 1938 and kept in the State Archives of Moscow.

They have now been digitised and can be consulted online. Van Pelt developed a database that forms the basis of the website Brigadistas from Belgium. For the first time, we now have an almost complete list of the volunteers from Belgium and Luxembourg who participated in the Spanish conflict.

Programme

1:30 pm – Coffee and reception

2:00 pm – Welcome

  • Paule Verbruggen, director Amsab-ISG
  • Vincent Scheltiens, historian

2:20 pm – Presentation of the database

  • Rudi Van Doorslaer, visiting professor Ghent University: The history of the database
  • François Van Pelt, political science Catholic University of Louvain: How the data base is being developed
  • Donald Weber, Research coordinator Amsab-ISG: Presentation of the website

3:00 pm – Coffee break

3:15 pm – Speakers

  • Edouard Sill, researcher Centre d’Histoire Sociale des Mondes Contemporains: The historiography of the Brigades internationales: the current state of affairs
  • Sven Tuytens, VRT correspondent Madrid: Spain today: the shadow of the civil war

16:30 – Public debate

  • Vincent Scheltiens, moderator
  • Widukind De Ridder, researcher CegeSoma

17:30 – Reception

Practical

  • Date: Wednesday 28 May 2025 - 13:30 - 17:30
  • Location: Amsab-Institute of Social History - Bagattenstraat 174 - 9000 Ghent
  • The workshop is free, but registration in advance is required via the registration form. The event has room for 50 people, so be there on time.
  • The workshop will be held in Dutch, English and French.

This event is organised by Amsab-Institute of Social History, in consultation with CegeSoma, the Belgian expertise centre for the history of conflicts in the 20th century.

CfP: New Critical Approaches on Communists and Communism in Belgium

2 months 1 week ago

Call for Papers: New Critical Approaches on Communists and Communism in Belgium

Research Workshop
22 October 2025
CegeSoma (ARA OD4) in collaboration with Dacob/CArCoB

It's no coincidence that this Research Workshop takes its name from a collection of essays by José Gotovitch (1940-2024). Former director of CegeSoma, professor at ULB and linchpin of the Centre d'Histoire et de Sociologie des Gauches and CArCoB, José Gotovitch embodied like no other the intersecting history of the Second World War and the Cold War. Just over a year after his death, we would like to explore new avenues of research, focusing on innovative methodologies and sources that were recently made available.

Although the focus is on the history of communism in Belgium, the aim is also to consider it as an intrinsically transnational phenomenon. We particularly encourage proposals that address (trade) relations with Eastern Europe and the various solidarity movements with the so-called “Third World”.

More broadly, we will also address the question of the relationship of Belgian communists to the discursive practices and organizing principles of post-colonial movements in South America, Asia and Africa. We also wish to focus on the role of communists within the various (trans)national committees of survivors of Nazi concentration camps.

In terms of new methodologies, we refer, for example, to contemporary oral history practices (beyond social or institutional history) and to the work of French historians Claude Pennetier and Bernard Pudal on “Le sujet communiste. Militant identities and laboratories of the “self”. “Innovative research can also draw on recently revealed sources. These include, for example, Gotovitch's research archives recently transferred to Dacob/CArCoB and CegeSoma's rich collection of “Journals and Manuscripts”.

Interested parties can submit a brief abstract (300 words) to widukind.deridder@kuleuven.be and chantal.kesteloot@arch.be by June 1, 2025. Selected proposals will receive a reply by June 30. The workshop will be held in English, French and Dutch. The contributions will then be compiled in a thematic issue.

CfP The body and health in feminist labour history

2 months 1 week ago

CfP for the conference:

The body and health in feminist labour history

Warsaw, The Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences, 14-16 October 2026

Deadline for submissions 15 November 2025

This three-day conference, called by the European Labour History Network working group “Feminist Labour History” and hosted by the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences, aims to explore new perspectives in the study of the history of labour through the lens of gender and intersectionality. The conference builds on and moves forward the debates on and within feminist labour history which took place during the conferences of the European Labour History Network and the 2019 conference of the FLH Working Group in Bologna.

The conference, “The body and health in feminist labour history”, Warsaw, 14-16 October 2026, focuses on the history of gendered labour from the perspective of the body and health. Historically, conceptualizations of bodily differences built on the understanding of gender, race, ethnicity and age have played a significant role in establishing the division of labour in society and related cultural imaginaries, as well as inequalities, hierarchies and labour regulations. Ava Baron and Eileen Boris argued that, “as a category for historical analysis, ‘the body’ allows for incorporating difference more fully, for it is one of the most powerful and pervasive cultural symbols that define who and what we are.”1 Bringing the focus on the (gendered) body into the discussions on feminist labour history, and drawing on the ‘bodily turn’ in the humanities and approaches from fields such as the history of medicine and health and sensory history can make feminist labour history more inclusive and enhance our understanding of the historical engendering of various types and forms of labour and gendered experiences of work.

We invite proposals for individual papers focusing on one of the following topics:

  • Occupational health and safety, including toxic substances, stress, and other environmental harms in the workplace and their impact on working-class communities
  • Medical discourses on woman’s body at work
  • Histories of labour and reproductive health (menstruation, pregnancy, menopause)
  • Bodies, violence, and sexual harassment in the workplace
  • Embodiment: representation and corporeality
  • The history of racialized bodies and the colonial body at work
  • The relation between the construction of bodily difference (in terms of biological needs and nutrition) and the wage (such as equal pay), employment, classifications of jobs into light and heavy work, discourses of productivity, and the sexual division of labour
  • A sensory history of work: the ways in which beyond labour conditions the working environment, including smells, noise, temperatures, weather conditions, impacts the labouring body
  • Dressing the labouring body: uniforms and work clothes
  • The disabled body and labour

We would like to draw the attention of interested colleagues to the additional conference theme which the Feminist Labour History Working Group is organizing for the 6th European Labour History Conference, University of Barcelona, 16-19 June 2026: “The spaces of work and labour: gendered perspectives on the local and the global”. Please consider both calls for papers, when deciding which of the two conferences you will submit your proposal and/or when submitting different or complementary proposals for each conference.

Please send a 500-word abstract and a short academic CV (max 500 words) in one Word file to flh.conference.warsaw@gmail.com by 15 November 2025. The proposal should include name, surname, current affiliation and contact details of the proponent.

Limited travel funding will be available for selected early career scholars.

Scientific Committee: Eloisa Betti (University of Padova), Eileen Boris (University of
California in Santa Barbara), Natalia Jarska (Institute of History, Polish Academy of
Sciences), Leda Papastefanaki (University of Ioannina), Eszter Varsa (Central European
University) and Susan Zimmermann (Central European University)

Organizing Committee: Marta Chmielewska, Natalia Jarska

CFP Working Group Labour and Empire, ELHN Conference 2026: Precarity and Scale in the History of Colonial Labour

2 months 1 week ago

Labour & Empire Working Group

Precarity and Scale in the History of Colonial Labour

ELHN Conference, University of Barcelona
June 16-19, 2026

Following up on a long-term project on working-class anti-imperialism, explored in publications (Beliard, Kirk 2021) and at conferences (most recently in Bristol 2023 and Uppsala), the ELHN Labour & Empire Working Group moves towards a renewed focus on colonial labour systems for the 2026 ELHN conference in Barcelona.

Colonial labour has played a crucial role in the formation of global capitalism. As historian Robin Blackburn points out, the forced labour of enslaved Africans represented a vital lever to capitalist expansion (2024); other scholars, meanwhile, have drawn links between Marxist theories of primitive accumulation and settler colonial practices of enclosure and land privatisation (Guernsey 2024, Issar 2021). Drawing on a growing body of work, the Labour & Empire Working Group’s 2026 panels aim to provide a political economic analysis of colonial labour regimes, and scrutinise how the study of colonial labour conditions aids a deeper understanding of global political economic developments.

We seek papers that provide in-depth analyses of labour in colonial contexts, while also embedding these analyses in a wider context of transnational, intercolonial or colonial-metropole economic relations. The question of scale, a prevalent topic in global history, is central here: papers that embed labour in the interplay of global, local, national and transnational dynamics are welcomed. How, we want to ask, did local labour conditions fit into wider divisions of labour? To what extent did changing labour divisions in the metropole affect labour in the colony, and vice-versa? A multi-scalar lens is of particular interest to the working group.

A second topic we aim to explore is precarity. Following a broader discussion about structures of precarity for workers around the world (Lesutis 2021, Ba’ 2023), the working group seeks papers that apply the - still often Eurocentric - analysis of precarious labour to the colonial world. From chattel slavery to transportation schemes of undocumented labour migrants, colonial labour has long been marked by particularly precarious working conditions. What forms of precarity have been attached to colonial labour practices over time? To what economic ends has colonial labour been ‘made’ precarious? What methods did colonial, imperial and capitalist regimes introduce to entrap labourers into forms of unfree and capitalised precarious work - and how did social stratification on the basis of race, gender, nationality and geography relate to the disciplining and ‘precarising’ of colonial labour?

We welcome 250-word proposals for papers which address one or more of the following themes:

  • Analyses of colonial labour at different scales: local, national, imperial, global;
  • Different modes of precarious labour in colonial contexts;
  • (Changing) labour divisions and labour regimes in colonial contexts;
  • Ideas of free and unfree labour;
  • Colonial labour regimes as embedded within wider global systems and divisions of labour;
  • Intersecting social stratifications (i.e. race, gender, class) and their relation to conditions of labour;
  • Continuities and breaks between chattel slavery and subsequent regimes of colonial labour;
  • Production, circulation and the colonial context;
  • The interplay between land and labour in colonial contexts;
  • Opposition to unfree and indentured labour both within and across empires;
  • Developments in the historiography of colonial labour with regards to issues of scale: how to intersect local and global analyses, how to incorporate the role of the imperial and the national in micro-history analyses, and so on;
  • Colonial labour and the debate on the origins of capitalism.   

Proposals should be submitted to labourempire.elhn@gmail.com by June 30 2025.

For more information about the ELHN Labour&Empire group and its activities, please visit: https://socialhistoryportal.org/elhn/wg-empire.

Bibliography

  • Stefano Ba’, ‘Precarity and Processes of Classification: Conflictual Concepts of Class, Labour-Power and Caring’, Alternative Routes 33.1 (2023): 56-68
  • Yann Béliard, Neville Kirk (eds.), Workers of the Empire, Unite: Radical and Popular Challenges to British Imperialism, 1910s to 1960s (Liverpool University Press, 2023)
  • Robin Blackburn, The Reckoning: From the Second Slavery to Abolition, 1776–1888 (Verso Books, 2024)
  • Paul J. Guernsey, "Reframing So-Called Primitive Accumulation for Settler Colonial Contexts: Ancestral Enclosures and Spatial Conceptions of History." Capitalism Nature Socialism 35.2 (2024): 138-156.
  • Siddhant Issar, "Theorising ‘racial/colonial primitive accumulation’: Settler colonialism, slavery and racial capitalism." Race & Class 63.1 (2021): 23-50.
  • Gediminas Lesutis, The Politics of Precarity: Spaces of Extractivism, Violence, and Suffering (Routledge, 2021)

CFP Working Group Feminist Labour History, ELHN Conference 2026: The spaces of work and labour: Gendered perspectives on the local and the global

2 months 1 week ago

The spaces of work and labour: Gendered perspectives on the local and the global

6th European Labour History Conference, University of Barcelona, 16-19 June 2026

Deadline for submissions 1 July 2025

The Feminist Labour History Working Group of the European Labour History Network (ELHN) invites submissions for its sessions on the theme of “The spaces of feminist labour history: gendered perspectives on the local and the global” to be held at the 6th European Labour History Conference in Barcelona, 16-19 June 2026.

The feminist labour history network in Barcelona aims to capture the history of the world of gendered work through exploring the places where work happens. It focuses on the interconnection of the different sites and spaces of work, considering the locations and the physical surroundings in which work has occurred in different times across the world from a gender perspective. The sessions aim to address the interconnection between work happening in private and public spaces across the globe, and in spaces situated at the core and even beyond the margins of the world of work. They could interrogate the political geography of work, that is, the ways in which the performance of work and the movement of workers between different sites of work could strengthen, reproduce, challenge, or alter power relations.

We invite papers addressing the spaces of feminist labour history including (but not limited to) the following topics of interest:

  • Workplaces from the kitchen to the plantation; varieties of spaces and sites, e.g., the factory, the household etc.
  • Moving between different spaces of work /multi-space workers, e.g., workers, who perform work during part of the year in agriculture and in industry.
  • Unequal development and the spatiality of work
  • Workplaces interconnected across space, and trans-local connections between work in different places (“chains of labour”).
  • The materiality of work: the role of objects in the performance of work.
  • Work in particularly demanding, and hostile spaces.
  • The changing ’natural’ environments and rythmns of workplaces, e.g., during the day and the seasons.
  • The role of solidarity networks.
  • Unpaid/reproductive/care work and their spaces.
  • Migrant labour in both domestic and international migration

We plan to collaborate with ELHN Working Groups: Workers’ Education, Labour Migration History, Workplaces: Pasts and Presents, and Labour and Empire.

We further draw attention to our specialized international conference on “The body and health in feminist labour history,” organized by the Feminist Labour History Working Group and hosted by the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, to be held 14-16 October 2026. Please consider participating in both conferences by submitting a different or complementary paper proposal to each.

Please send a 500-word abstract and a short academic CV (max 500 word) in one Word file to WG coordinators Eszter Varsa varsae@ceu.edu and Eloisa Betti eloisa.betti@unipd.it by July 1, 2025. The proposal should include name, surname, current affiliation and contact details of the proponent. The subject of the email needs to be: “Feminist labour history ELHN 2026”.

If you have any further questions, do not hesitate to contact the coordination committee:
Eloisa Betti: eloisa.betti@unipd.it
Natalia Jarska: njarska@ihpan.edu.pl
Françoise F. Laot: francoise.laot@univ-paris8.fr
Eszter Varsa: varsae@ceu.ed

Entre dos océanos: Historias conectadas de Trabajo, Raza y Género en Las Américas (XVI-XIX) (Spanish/Portuguese)

2 months 1 week ago

Fidel Rodríguez Velásquez

Pontificia Universidad Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio)

Gabriela Mitidieri

Pontificia Universidad Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio)

Instituto de Investigaciones de Estudios de Género (UBA)

En los últimos años, el trabajo y sus mundos han vuelto a estar presentes en las preocupaciones historiográficas para indagar en el pasado de las Américas. Este interés no solo ha aportado una mirada crítica para repensar las jerarquías, la coacción y la violencia que lo caracterizaron (y caracterizan), sino sobre todo para examinar la agencia, la negociación, las conexiones y las estrategias de quienes desde abajo debieron actuar en medio de diversas formas de desigualdad. Partimos de una tradición de Historia social y cultural del Trabajo para pensar las heterogéneas realidades laborales en las Américas. Este campo de estudios ha situado en el centro a las y los trabajadores, sus familias, redes de apoyo, espacios de socialización y vidas en movimiento enriqueciendo la noción de “mundos del trabajo” al evidenciar que las experiencias laborales se entrelazan con valores culturales, identidades políticas y relaciones raciales y de género. Se trata de una historiografía fértil que amplió la mirada más allá de las fábricas, el sindicato y del obrero varón blanco como sujeto privilegiado. Así como de las periodizaciones clásicas que situaron el trabajo como un subproducto del capitalismo y de la revolución industrial.

Desde este ángulo buscamos contribuir al campo de la historia global / historia conectada del trabajo, centrados en el periodo que abarca del siglo XVI al XIX, reuniendo reflexiones enfocadas en cómo las relaciones raciales y de género moldearon dichos mundos laborales. Buscamos explicitar cómo los imaginarios colectivos sobre la diferencia se inscriben en las dinámicas laborales, reforzando, cuestionando y subvirtiendo las jerarquías establecidas. Queremos hacernos eco de estas conversaciones entrelazadas, apostando a sumar voces de jóvenes historiadores e historiadoras del sur global, muchas veces soslayadas en el debate en esta clave historiográfica. Al indagar en estas ausencias, podemos señalar, por un lado, la disparidad en términos de acceso a fuentes de financiamiento y el hábito de ponderar el inglés como lengua predilecta para narrar la historia de las Américas. Pero, por otro, el peso de las tradiciones historiográficas que muy frecuentemente han hecho del nacionalismo metodológico su punto de comienzo y de fin.

Nos interesa reunir perspectivas que trastoquen, amplíen o reformulen ese nacionalismo metodológico en las Américas y que pongan en primer plano las circulaciones laborales transnacionales de personas, ideas y prácticas. Alentamos especialmente a que, dentro de esta convocatoria, haya lugar para historias conectadas entre el océano Atlántico y el océano Pacífico, así como los circuitos laborales a lo largo del Pacífico que permitan tensionar la centralidad atlántica. Para ello, invitamos a investigaciones que empleen explícitamente metodologías de historias conectadas (por ejemplo: estudios de casos múltiples, análisis de redes, prosopografía, o microhistoria transnacional) y que incluyan propuestas interdisciplinares (historia, antropología, sociología, estudios de género) para abordar los cruces entre raza, género y trabajo. Entendemos que situar las Américas en el centro de este análisis abre la posibilidad de examinar de forma comparada y relacional procesos como la colonización, el movimiento de poblaciones, la implantación de diversas formas de coerción laboral, y la formación de mercados y redes de intercambio global. En este sentido, alentamos la presentación de contribuciones en diferentes idiomas (español, portugués, inglés y francés) y buscamos con la modalidad híbrida impulsar la participación de investigadores con acceso limitado a financiamiento o a espacios de difusión académica.

Fecha límite de recepción de resúmenes: 31/05/2025

Fecha de recepción de resúmenes extendidos (hasta 12 páginas): 15/09/2025

Envío a: gmitidieri@gmail.com / fidelrodv@gmail.com

 

 

 

Entre dois oceanos: Histórias conectadas de Trabalho, Raça e Gênero nas Américas (séculos XVI-XIX)

Fidel Rodríguez Velásquez

Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio)

Gabriela Mitidieri

Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio).

Instituto de Investigaciones de Estudios de Género (UBA)

Nos últimos anos, o trabalho e seus mundos voltaram a ocupar um lugar central nas preocupações historiográficas ao investigar o passado das Américas. Esse interesse não apenas trouxe um olhar crítico para repensar as hierarquias, a coerção e a violência que o caracterizaram (e ainda caracterizam), mas, sobretudo, para examinar a agência, a negociação, as conexões e as estratégias daqueles que, desde baixo, tiveram que agir em meio a diversas formas de desigualdade. Partimos de uma tradição de História social e cultural do Trabalho para pensar as realidades laborais heterogêneas nas Américas. Esse campo de estudos colocou no centro os trabalhadores e trabalhadoras, suas famílias, redes de apoio, espaços de socialização e vidas em movimento, enriquecendo a noção de “mundos do trabalho” ao evidenciar que as experiências laborais estão entrelaçadas com valores culturais, identidades políticas e relações raciais e de gênero. Trata-se de uma historiografia fértil que ampliou o olhar para além das fábricas, dos sindicatos e do operário branco do sexo masculino como sujeito privilegiado. Assim como das periodizações clássicas que situaram o trabalho como subproduto do capitalismo e da revolução industrial.

A partir dessa perspectiva, buscamos contribuir para o campo da história global / história conectada do trabalho, com foco no período que vai do século XVI ao XIX, reunindo reflexões sobre como as relações raciais e de gênero moldaram esses mundos laborais. Procuramos explicitar como os imaginários coletivos sobre a diferença se inscrevem nas dinâmicas de trabalho, reforçando, questionando e subvertendo hierarquias estabelecidas. Queremos ressoar essas conversas entrelaçadas, apostando na inclusão de vozes de jovens historiadores e historiadoras do sul global, muitas vezes negligenciadas no debate historiográfico. Ao investigar essas ausências, podemos apontar, por um lado, a disparidade no acesso a fontes de financiamento e o hábito de privilegiar o inglês como língua principal para narrar a história das Américas. Por outro lado, destacamos o peso das tradições historiográficas que frequentemente fizeram do nacionalismo metodológico seu ponto de partida e de chegada.

Nos interessa reunir perspectivas que questionem, ampliem ou reformulem esse nacionalismo metodológico nas Américas e que priorizem as circulações laborais transnacionais de pessoas, ideias e práticas. Encorajamos especialmente que, dentro desta chamada, haja espaço para histórias conectadas entre o oceano Atlântico e o oceano Pacífico, bem como os circuitos de trabalho ao longo do Pacífico, capazes de tensionar a centralidade atlântica. Para isso, convidamos pesquisas que empreguem explicitamente metodologias de histórias conectadas (por exemplo: estudos de casos múltiplos, análise de redes, prosopografia ou micro-história transnacional) e que incluam propostas interdisciplinares (história, antropologia, sociologia, estudos de gênero) para abordar os cruzamentos entre raça, gênero e trabalho. Entendemos que situar as Américas no centro dessa análise abre a possibilidade de examinar de forma comparada e relacional processos como a colonização, o movimento de populações, a implantação de diversas formas de coerção laboral, e a formação de mercados e redes de intercâmbio global. Nesse sentido, incentivamos a submissão de contribuições em diferentes idiomas (espanhol, português, inglês e francês) e buscamos, com a modalidade híbrida, ampliar a participação de pesquisadores com acesso limitado a financiamento ou a espaços de divulgação acadêmica.

Referencias clave / Referências-chave

Aram, Bethany. "¿Entre dos mares? Reflexiones a partir de la Historia Atlántica y hacía tres conceptos de la Historia Global." Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos. Nouveaux mondes mondes nouveaux-Novo Mundo Mundos Novos-New world New worlds (2019).

Barragán, R. (2019). Trabajo y trabajadores en América Latina (siglos XVI–XXI). Centro de Investigaciones Sociales (CIS).

Barragán, R., & Zagalsky, P. C. (2023). Potosí in the global silver age (16th–19th centuries). Brill.

Chalhoub, S. (1990). Visões da liberdade: Uma história das últimas décadas da escravidão na corte. Editora Companhia das Letras.

Chalhoub, S., & Teixeira da Silva, F. (2009). Sujeitos no imaginário acadêmico: Escravos e trabalhadores na historiografia brasileira desde os anos 1980. Cadernos AEL, 14(26), 11–49.

Cowling, C. (2018). Concebendo a liberdade: Mulheres de cor, gênero e abolição da escravidão nas cidades de Havana e Rio de Janeiro. Editora da Unicamp.

De Vito, C. G., Schiel, J., & Van Rossum, M. (2020). From bondage to precariousness? New perspectives on labor and social history. Journal of Social History, 54(2), 644–662.

Echeverri, M., & Ferreira, R. (2023). Shades of unfreedom: Labor regimes in Latin America in the nineteenth century. In M. Echeverri & C. Soriano (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to Latin American independence (pp. 276–311). Cambridge University Press.

Ferreira, R. (2013). Biografia como história social: O clã Ferreira Gomes e os mundos da escravização no Atlântico Sul. Varia Historia, 29, 679–719.

Fontes, P. (2008). Um nordeste em São Paulo: Trabalhadores migrantes em São Miguel Paulista (1945–66). FGV Editora.

Fontes, P., Fortes, A., & Mayer, D. (2017). Brazilian labour history in global context: Some introductory notes. International Review of Social History, 62(S25), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020859017000645

Galeano, D. (2019). Delincuentes viajeros: Estafadores, punguistas y policías en el Atlántico sudamericano. Siglo XXI Editores.

Hoffnung-Garskof, J. E. (2020). Migraciones raciales: La ciudad de Nueva York y la política revolucionaria en el Caribe español, 1850–1902. Maize Books.

Lara, S. H. (2021). Palmares & Cucaú: O aprendizado da dominação. Edusp.

O’Donnell, J., & Pereira, L. A. de M. (2016). Cultura em movimento: Natalie Davis entre a antropologia e a história social. História Unisinos, 20(2), 131–142.

Pereira, L. (2020). A cidade que dança: Clubes e bailes negros no Rio de Janeiro (1881–1933). Editora Unicamp.

Popinigis, F., & Cruz Terra, P. (2019). Historiografia da escravidão e do trabalho no Brasil: Avanços e desafios. In R. Barragán (Coord. y comp.), Trabajos y trabajadores en América Latina (siglos XVI–XXI) (pp. [xx–xx]). Vicepresidencia del Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia.

Schettini, C. (2019). El dinero de las prostitutas. Trabajo sexual y circuitos inmigratorios entre Río de Janeiro y Buenos Aires (1907–1920). In C. Schettini & J. Suriano (Comps.), Historias cruzadas: Diálogos historiográficos sobre el mundo del trabajo en Argentina y Brasil (pp. [xx–xx]). Teseo.

Scott, R., & Hébrard, J. (2015). Papeles de libertad: Una odisea transatlántica en la era de la emancipación. Uniandes.

Van der Linden, M. (Ed.). (2008). Workers of the world: Essays toward a global labor history (Vol. 1). Brill.

Vergara Figueroa, A., & Cosme Puntiel, C. L. (Eds.). (2018). Demando mi libertad: Mujeres negras y sus estrategias de resistencia en la Nueva Granada, Venezuela y Cuba, 1700–1800. Editorial Universidad Icesi. https://doi.org/10.18046/EUI/escr.16.2018

Prazo final para submissão de resumos: 31/05/2025

Data de recebimento dos resumos estendidos (até 12 páginas): 15/09/2025

Enviar para: gmitidieri@gmail.com / fidelrodv@gmail.com

LAWCHA 2025 Conference, June 2025, Chicago

2 months 1 week ago

12-14 June, University of Chicago

ONLINE REGISTRATION CLOSES MAY 19TH

It's time to register for LAWCHA2025! 

REGISTER HERE

Please go online and sign up today for the conference and make your dorm or hotel reservations. 

Remember:

  • If you are on the program (whether presenting in person or virtually) you must be a member of LAWCHA
  • Registration is open - Please register today. REGISTRATION CLOSED MAY 19TH
  • Dorm rooms are going fast! You can reserve your dorm room when you register for the conference. There are only a few rooms left so be sure to reserve one today. DORM ROOM RESERVATIONS CLOSE SUNDAY APRIL 27TH
  • Union hotels have been added if you would like an alternative to the dorms.

Join our LAWCHA2025 WhatsApp community to get the latest updates on conference news and network with other attendees.

 

Contact Email lawcha2025@gmail.com URL https://lawcha.org/biannual-conference/2025-conference/

Labour History Review Celebrates 90th Edition - Free to read articles

2 months 1 week ago

We are pleased to announce that Labour History Review is celebrating the publication of its 90th edition. Labour History Review is published in partnership with the Society for the Study of Labour History, alongside the book series Studies in Labour History, edited by Professor Neville Kirk. Since 1960 the journal has explored the working lives and politics of ‘ordinary’ people and has played a key role in redefining social and political history.

To mark the occasion we are sharing a selection of articles from the journal which are free to read for a month.

Browse the 90th Edition of Labour History Review including a free to read roundtable on The Starmer Labour Government in Historical Perspective >

The Editors of the journal, Paul Corthorn (Queen’s University Belfast) and Peter Gurney (University of Essex) are delighted to offer the following introduction to the selected articles:

We have great pleasure in celebrating the publication of the 90th edition of Labour History Review by making freely available the following articles. We have chosen them from the last decade or so – the period of our editorship – and it was a hard choice to make from a wealth of high-quality articles.

Read the following articles for free throughout May

Donald MacRaild, ‘”No Irish Need Apply”: The Origins and Persistence of a Prejudice’ 78/3 (2013), 269-99

Jonathan Hyslop, ‘The Strange Death of Liberal England and the Strange Birth of Illiberal South Africa: British Trade Unionists, Indian Labourers and Afrikaner Rebels, 1910-1914’, 79/1 (2014), 97-120

Jamie Bronstein, ‘Thomas Slingsby Duncombe, the ‘Member for All England’: Representing the Non-voter in the Chartist Decade’, 80/2 (2015), 109-34

Tom Buchanan, ‘Ideology, Idealism, and Adventure: Narratives of the British Volunteers in the International Brigades’, 81/2 (2016), 123-40

David Selway, ‘Death Underground: Mining Accidents and Memory in South Wales, 1913–74’, 81/3 (2016), 187-209

Emmanuelle Morne, ‘Glorious Auxiliaries’? Gender, Participation, and Subordination in the Chartist Movement (1838–1851)’, 85/1 (2020), 7/32

Matt Beebee, ‘2019 Labour History Review Essay Prize Winner: Navigating Deindustrialization in 1970s Britain: The Closure of Bilston Steel Works and the Politics of Work, Place, and Belonging’, 85/3 (2020), 253-83.

Want access to Labour History ReviewRecommend this journal to your librarian >

Latest Issue of French History (volume 39/Issue 1): "French socialism and French socialists beyond France"

2 months 2 weeks ago

https://academic.oup.com/fh/issue/39/1

French History, volume 39, Issue 1, March 2025

"French socialism and French socialists beyond France"

 

Introduction: international/transnational perspectives on the history of French socialism Jean-Numa Ducange and Talbot Imlay

 

The international Section française de l’Internationale ouvrière? French socialism in the International and its relationship with the Partito Socialista Italiano during diplomatic crises (1911–1915)

Elisa Marcobelli

 

French socialism and Austromarxism: archaeology of a failed transfer (1904–1934)

Pierre-Henri Lagedamon

 

French socialism in the Argentine Partido Socialista: political dimensions of an uncomfortable presence (1890–1915)  

Carlos M Herrera and Francisco J Reyes

 

Was the Section française de l’Internationale ouvrière also African? 1945–1960 

Françoise Blum

Volume 90.1 of Labour History Review

2 months 2 weeks ago

The latest issue of Labour History Review is now available online.

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

Volume 90.1 features articles that explore trade union responses to European workers in Britain between 1945 and 1948, the 1949 London dock strike and workforce disabilities, alongside work which reflects on the Starmer labour government viewed in a historical perspective. The issue also contains book reviews and an obituary for Professor John Samuel Shepherd.

Browse all articles >
Read a free issue >

To read content from Labour History Review, please recommend a subscription to your librarian to gain access via your institution.

 Sign up to our mailing list | Follow us on Bluesky  

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Table of contents

RESEARCH ARTICLES

THE LIMITS TO SOLIDARITY: TRADE UNION RESPONSES TO EUROPEAN WORKERS IN BRITAIN, 1945–1948

AVRAM TAYLOR

 WORKFORCE DISABILITY AND THE 1949 ‘INEFFECTIVES’ STRIKE IN LONDON DOCKS

JIM PHILLIPS

 ROUNDTABLE

ROUND TABLE: THE STARMER LABOUR GOVERNMENT IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

PETER GURNEY, LAURA BEERS, LAWRENCE BLACK, MALCOLM PETRIE, AND MARTIN WRIGHT

 OBITUARY

PROFESSOR JOHN SAMUEL SHEPHERD (5 MAY 1942–20 NOVEMBER 2024): A REFLECTION

KEITH LAYBOURN

 BOOK REVIEWS

BOOK REVIEWS

JOSEPH STANLEY, JOHN CUNNINGHAM, JOE DAVEY, KEITH GILDART, PATRICK SMYLIE, QUENTIN OUTRAM, AND ELIZABETH FAUE

Julien Chuzeville: Brève histoire des socialismes en France (French)

2 months 2 weeks ago

by Julien Chuzeville

« Ce livre parle d’une époque où le mot “socialisme” était subversif. Les socialistes étaient alors en opposition ouverte contre la société capitaliste, qu’ils voulaient renverser pour mettre en place un monde complètement différent – qu’ils appelaient souvent “communisme”. Pour eux, socialisme et communisme tendaient essentiellement au même but. Ces mots aujourd’hui usés ont pourtant désigné l’espoir d’un monde meilleur, l’espoir de la fin des oppressions. »

En 1905, tous les socialistes en France s’unissent dans le Parti socialiste – Section française de l’Internationale ouvrière (SFIO). Ce parti unifié se divise plus tard, avec la création du Parti communiste. Tous les courants socialistes et communistes postérieurs viennent de la SFIO, ou de ses scissions, ce qui lui donne un rôle fondamental dans l’histoire.
Il y a plus d’un siècle, des militantes et militants socialistes luttaient pour abolir l’exploitation ; contre l’impérialisme et contre le colonialisme ; pour l’égalité femmes-hommes. Ce livre explore leurs buts et les moyens employés, à commencer par leur conception de la démocratie et de l’action politique.

Un ouvrage accessible et érudit, s’arrêtant sur les grands moments qui ont jalonné l’histoire de la gauche française.

Julien Chuzeville, historien du mouvement ouvrier, a notamment écrit Zimmerwald 1915, l’internationalisme contre la Première Guerre mondiale (Smolny, 2024), et Dix questions sur le communisme (Libertalia, 2023).

Political Economies of Mining in the Early Modern World

2 months 2 weeks ago

University of Vienna, September 25-26, 2025

Co-organized by the ERC SCARCE project and the FWF ESPRIT project “Mining the Earth, Roaming the Globe”

Mining played a vital role in premodern economies. The extraction, transformation, and exchange of precious metals – such as silver, gold, and copper – not only established global economic networks but also reinforcedpolitical power. Whether viewed from the perspective of territorial rulers, merchant elites, or miners, mining had the capacity to strengthen fiscal control, drive commercial exchange, and upend local economies. While the significance of mining is indisputable, the processes and mechanisms that made it so central to the political economy of diverse regions remain less explored. This workshop aims to move beyond assessments of the impact of silver and gold on monetary policies to examine the institutions, ideas, and practices associated with the extraction of mineral resources across the pre- modern world. We aim to connect scholars whose expertise spans mining regions that have rarely been considered together in the context of early modern political and economic transformations through comparative and thematic approaches. To achieve this, the workshop will bring together specialists of major mining regions in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe, focusing on the late medieval and early modern periods.

The workshop will take place on Thursday 25th-Friday 26th September 2025 at the University of Vienna. We aim to discuss approximately 10 pre-circulated article-length papers over two days, exploring themes such as taxation, mining laws, labor regimes, and knowledge production from the 1300s to the 1700s, with the aim of fostering comparative analysis. Decisions regarding the publication of the papers in a special issue or an edited volume will be made after the workshop.

Further details are included in the attached CfP.
 

CfP Working Group Labour and Coercion, ELHN Conference 2026

3 months ago

Call for Papers: Working Group “Labour and Coercion” at the European Labour History Network (ELHN) Conference 2026

The ELHN Working Group “Labour and Coercion” invites proposals for papers and sessions at the upcoming 6th ELHN Conference. The event will take place from 16 to 19 June 2026 in Barcelona.

The present call for papers seeks contributions that address the interplay between labour and coercion, focusing on any geographical location or period. Contributions should embrace a conceptualisation of coercion as a relational concept and an analytical framework that can be applied to any type of work relation. This approach challenges the establishment of an analytical dichotomy between ‘free’ and ‘unfree’ labour.

The objective is to advance the study of labour and coercion by bringing together scholars specialising in diverse forms of labour relations. Examples include chattel slavery, wage labour, debt bondage, convict labour, indentured work, sharecropping, household labour, and military service. Thereby, the sessions should aim at going
beyond the analysis of differences and commonalities between different types of labour and instead aim to historicise coercion and coercive social practices in different contexts.

We are currently reflecting on the co-construction of different coercive dynamics through the relationship between the materiality of work, its social representation and workers’ self-perception, thereby reflecting on the ambivalent relationship between norms and practice when it comes to the role of coercion in work relations.

Consequently, we warmly welcome submissions that address the following aspects:

  • Material practices that bring forward, reproduce or challenge coercion;
  • Social representations of coercion at work, i.e. how coercion is represented, perceived and discussed;
  • Processes of subjectification, i.e. how workers perceive themselves in relation to their work;
  • Coercive relational dynamics within work and social relations which involve all the aforementioned aspects of coercion.

We accept both proposals for sessions and individual papers. Session proposals should include 3 or 4 papers and include abstracts for the session as a whole (i.e. what is the concept/common thread of the session), as well as for each individual paper.

Each abstract should be max. 500 words excluding bibliography.

Proposals should be sent to elhnlabourandcoercion@gmail.com until 1 June 2025.

Contact persons: Teresa Petrik (teresa.petrik@univie.ac.at), Olimpia Capitano (capitanoolimpia@gmail.com) Vilhelm Vilhemsson (vilhelmv@hi.is), Johan Heinsen (heinsen@dps.aau.dk)

General Strike 100 Anniversary

3 months ago

Support the 100 anniversary of the General Strike national partnership 

11 museums, libraries, archives and history groups have today written to the trade union and labour movement to seek support for a national partnership to celebrate the General Strike 100 anniversary in 2026. 

This partnership has been coordinated by the General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU). Commenting on the importance of this project, Gawain Little, General Secretary of the GFTU said, “The 100 anniversary of the 1926 strike is a critical celebration of the power of workers to defy Government and grow union consciousness across the country. This partnership is about amplifying and promoting the excellent plans of many organisations across the country. We are looking forward to 2026.”

This partnership will produce an interactive map of organisations and sites for the public to visit throughout 2026. This will include details of specific exhibitions, educational events, and unique collections to explore - all part of our rich history of the General Strike.

Accompanying the interactive website, the partnership will produce a printed passport, encouraging those participating to visit as many of these sites as they can and collect stamps from all they visit.  

Belinda Scarlett, the Library Manager at Working Class Movement Library (WCML), “We are delighted to be a part of this national partnership, helping promote the work of our library and archive, as well as our local history in celebrating the General Strike.”  

Alongside a digital map, the partnership will be producing commemorative merchandise to mark the anniversary and help support fundraising efforts.

Luke Pearce, from the project’s merchandise partner, Radical Tea Towel Company, commented, “We know the importance of celebrating our trade union and labour history is fundamental. This partnership is a great fit for Radical Tea Towel.”

 

If you want to support this project, please consider donating via https://bit.ly/GeneralStrike100. 

 

This project is supported by: Beamish, the Living Museum of the North, Campaign for Trade Union Freedom, General Federation of Trade Unions, National Coal Mining Museum for England, People’s History Museum, Radical Tea Towel Company, Society for the Study of Labour History, Strike Map, TUC Library Collections - London Metropolitan University, Working Class History, Working Class Movement Library. 

 

Ralph 

 

Ralph Darlington 

Emeritus Professor of Employment Relations 

Salford Business School

University of Salford

Salford M5 4WT

 

email: r.r.darlington@salford.ac.uk

X/Twitter: @irrelations 

Bluesky: @ralphdarlington.bsky.social

 

Profile: https://www.salford.ac.uk/business-school/our-staff/business-academics/ralph-darlington

 

Editorial Board member: International Association of Strikes and Social Conflicts Workers of the World journal:

https://workersoftheworld.net

 

Editorial Advisory Board member: Employee Relations

http://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/products/journals/editorial_team.htm?id=er

 

Fellow and Honorary Member: British Universities Industrial Relations Association:

https://www.buira.net

 

Council member: Manchester Industrial Relations Society:

https://www.mirs.org.uk X/Twitter: @ManchesterIRS

 

Latest Publication:

Labour Revolt in Britain 1910-14, Pluto Press, 2023.

https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745339030/labour-revolt-in-britain-1910-14/

Special Issue of the European Journal for Nursing History and Ethics: To become a nurse

3 months ago

Models of nursing education and training in ethics can vary widely across Europe, depending on how nursing was organized in each country. The path to academization varied greatly and the different manifestations of denominational nursing traditions also had far-reaching consequences. This special issue will focus on these historically-specific developments in nursing education. The aim is to identify and discuss differences in developments, societal and structural conditions. A central topic is the formation of professional and ethical standards for the profession. The question of how to become a “good” nurse has a long history in nursing debates and continues to have relevance today. Even in the early days of nursing training, it was a matter of course that the development of the nurse’s character was as important as the practical and theoretical training. In modern nursing training, the development of an ethical attitude plays an important role alongside the teaching of ethical foundations. The eighth themed issue of the European Journal for Nursing History and Ethics is dedicated to nursing education from a historical and ethical perspective.

Contact

Prof. Dr. Susanne Kreutzer: kreutzer@fh-muenster.de
and Prof. Dr. Karen Nolte: karen.nolte@histmed.uni-heidelberg.de.

Love, sexuality and intimacy in exile - historical and current perspectives

3 months ago

Vienna, 24 and 25 November, 2025

The annual conference 2025 of the Austrian Society for Exile Studies (öge) is dedicated to the experiences of refugees under the title Love, Sexuality and Intimacy in Exile. It looks at these topics from a historical, current and interdisciplinary perspective and explores emotional, romantic and physical experiences. According to historian Ute Frevert, feelings ultimately motivate action and should therefore be considered as a central category of analysis when we investigate agency in exile.

Love, sexuality and intimacy in exile - historical and current perspectives

“There is, my love, only one place in the world where I feel like I am in my country, and that is in your arms. There I can rest. There I can breathe freely. There I am not afraid to be myself. With you, my love, no matter in which country, I would be in my country.”

With these words, the Viennese actress Hedwig Schlichter, who arrived in Argentina in 1940 after surviving her flight from Austria and later from France, reflected on her “fate as an emigrant”. For many years, Schlichter wrote letters to the man she had met and fallen in love with on the crossing from Bordeaux to Buenos Aires - without ever sending them. The reason for this is not known, nor is the identity of the addressee, and yet this brief outline provides a variety of starting points for research into love, sexuality and intimacy in exile. It raises the question of how intimate relationships could be practiced in the transnational contexts of exile when, according to cultural theorist Lauren Berlant, closeness was a defining element; how sexual desire developed in times of political extremes; how loved ones could offer security alongside all the uncertainties of emigration, build a bridge to the country of origin or contribute to despair and a sense of loss.

The annual conference 2025 of the Austrian Society for Exile Studies (öge) is dedicated to the experiences of refugees under the title Love, Sexuality and Intimacy in Exile. It looks at these topics from a historical, current and interdisciplinary perspective and explores emotional, romantic and physical experiences. According to historian Ute Frevert, feelings ultimately motivate action and should therefore be considered as a central category of analysis when we investigate agency in exile. This was also made clear by Marion Kaplan in her study on Portugal as a transit country, published in 2022. In the flight situation associated with feelings of fear, grief and anger, emotional communities (Barbara Rosenwein) could provide stability and a sense of belonging and form the basis for intimate relationships. Family, (sham) marriages or queer networks were also able to make everyday life in exile easier and open up alternative and empowering options for action. In addition, traditional gender roles often began to falter, as women now often took on the role of the family breadwinner - at least temporarily. At the same time, however, some violent forms of relationships were radicalized in the social isolation of exile, gender hierarchical structures were exacerbated and images of masculinity and femininity as well as emancipative achievements suffered a backlash.

Both historically and in current regimes, sexuality is/was often politically instrumentalized. Lesbian, gay, queer and intersex or transgender people experience/experienced marginalization and are/were persecuted - under National Socialism, in Putin's Russia or in Syria in recent years. But even in supposedly democratic systems, in Poland or the USA, the demand for abortion rights or for legal and social equality for LGBTQIA+ people has repeatedly led to outraged reactions and even violent riots.

Young women were often diagnosed with libidinous sexuality, which allowed Nazi authorities to stigmatize those affected as “asocial” and force them to undergo abortions or forced sterilizations; women in sex work also suffered this fate. In some cases, the sexual violence often experienced in this context ultimately prompted them to go into exile. Sexual, queer-hostile, misogynistic experiences of violence were often linked to anti-Semitic or racist ones, which is why historian Anna Hájková advocates focusing on overlapping and multiple affiliations under the heading “Queering the Holocaust”.

Speaking about love, sexuality and intimacy was not easy, especially in structures of coercion and oppression. The conference therefore examines forms of medialization and representations of these TOPICS as well as methodological approaches to understanding their historical and current significance. What function did letters or diaries have in articulating desire, what codes were used to express “forbidden” sexuality, what gender-specific forms of communication can be identified? How did artistic forms of expression (painting, literature, film, music) serve to talk about love, sexuality and intimacy in exile; which formal, linguistic, motivic and aesthetic references were made?

At its annual conference in 2025, the Austrian Society for Exile Studies (öge) will take an in-depth look at the history and present of love, sexuality and intimacy in exile. It particularly welcomes interdisciplinary contributions that combine approaches from exile studies, women's and gender history, contemporary and cultural history, queer studies, sociology and political science. Political and artistic organizations are also invited to present projects. In addition to contributions on the history of exile under National Socialism and other historical contexts, current perspectives are explicitly encouraged. The call for papers is open geographically and should also provide the opportunity for comparative contributions.

Possible topics
- Experiences of LGBTQIA+ people on the run and their networks in exile
- Queering the Holocaust as a task for exile studies
- The stigma of prostitution: sexual work as economic security in exile or as a survival strategy in the internment camps of refugee countries
- Sexuality and the body in totalitarian systems and in the political discourses of the host countries
- emotional communities - emotional history of exile
- Transnational, familial, romantic or sexual relationships - practices, challenges and opportunities
- Love and intimacy in exile
- Intersectional experiences: Overlaps of discrimination based on gender, sexuality, religion, physical disability, etc.
- Marriages of convenience - coercion or emancipative alternatives to the heterosexual marriage norm?
- New/old gender images and relationship models in the confrontation with the host society
- Forms of medialization and representation: letters, diaries, paintings, films, literature, music

Cooperation partners: Österreichische Exilbibliothek im Literaturhaus Wien, QWien

General information
When: November 24 and 25, 2025
Where: University of Vienna, Sky Lounge
Languages: German and English

Deadlines
Until April 27: Please send abstracts of 200 to 300 words and bio blurbs to office@exilforschung.ac.at
By May 15: Selection of contributions

There is no conference fee. We will try to cover the costs of travel and accommodation.

A publication of selected contributions is planned.

Kontakt

office@exilforschung.ac.at