Social and Labour History News

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 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

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)

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

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

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/

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 Review? Recommend this journal to your librarian >

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

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.

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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

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).

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.
 

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)

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/

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.

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

International conference at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin

November 13-14, 2025

Conveners: Steven Serels & Magdalena Moorthy Kloss

The Red Sea is one of the world’s most enduring arteries of human trafficking. Over the past two decades, scholars have shown that the forced migration of enslaved people played a crucial role in linking the African and Arabian littorals into a complex, multifaceted region. This research has helped reshape the academic study of global slavery, which originally focused narrowly on the transatlantic slave trade and the American plantation system. Scholars working on the Red Sea region, as well as on the broader Indian Ocean world, have challenged the study of global slavery to consider the full range of forms of human bondage that developed under other social, political, and economic conditions. This scholarship has convincingly demonstrated that the binary of slavery-freedom elaborated within the trans-Atlantic context fails to describe dynamics in other parts of the world. Some scholars have even gone so far as to suggest that the terms ‘slavery’ and ‘freedom’ should be replaced with other analytical concepts. For example, Winnebeck et al. have recently proposed using the substitute term ‘asymmetrical dependency,’ which they say “allows for the study of a wide range of societal, group-related, and individual varieties of hierarchization and oppression.”

This international conference seeks to contribute to this ongoing debate by critically examining the concept of ‘freedom’ in the study of slavery and its aftermath in the Red Sea Region.

Building off earlier collaborative initiatives, this conference aims to further consolidate the subfield of Red Sea slavery studies by expanding the scope of inquiry beyond the processes that enslaved people and held them in bondage. Instead, the conference will focus on what happens “afterwards” – i.e. when human bondage ends. In the Red Sea Region, abolition and emancipation have been incompletely implemented. This has had complex ramifications that continue to reverberate at the individual, communal, and societal levels. For individuals, emancipation from slavery was shaped by manifold and often overlapping legal, cultural and religious norms. These at times contradictory norms shaped the position of former slaves and their descendants within the broader community. This was true both while slavery was a state-supported institution and after it was officially prohibited over the course of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Scholars working on other regions have also identified legacies of slavery at the macro-level that persist long after abolition and emancipation. They have proposed that these societies should be studied within a lens of ‘post-slavery’ even after the institution has been formally eradicated.

In the Red Sea Region, this is further complicated by the fact that people continue to be held in bondage, albeit illegally.

We invite contributions that address these processes. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• Political, philosophical and religious conceptualizations of ‘freedom’ in the Red Sea region
• European colonial understandings of ‘freedom’ and their impact
• Formal routes to emancipation and their consequences
• Marronage and self-manumission
• The descendants of formerly enslaved people
• The economics of abolition and emancipation
• Social/racialized hierarchies and their links to historical forms of bondage
• The connection between slavery, indentured labour and modern forms of coerced labour in the Red Sea.

This two-day conference will be held at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin. Selected papers will be published in an edited volume. Please submit a title and a 300-400 word abstract for your proposed paper, as well as a brief biographical note (100 word maximum), to steven.serels@zmo.de and magdalena.moorthy-kloss@zmo.de by 1 May 2025.

Contact Email magdalena.moorthy-kloss@zmo.de

Palestine and global resistance to genocide

The Workers of the World journal invites submissions for the upcoming themed issue, Palestine, and global resistance to genocide. The deadline for submissions is May 15, 2025.

Description

Using its incomparably superior military might and US support, the Israeli Army in the service of Netanyahu’s far-right government used retaliation for the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack as a pretext to kill, starve, and forcibly displace Palestinian civilians in Gaza. They destroyed their homes, schools, hospitals, and infrastructure at a scale unprecedented in recent history. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) about 100,000 Palestinians have left the enclave, 11,000 are missing while more than 55,000 are presumed to have lost their lives. Over the past year, Palestinian life in Gaza, the West Bank, and the Occupied Territories has been upended, and the conflict has bled into Lebanon, Yemen, and Syria with the threat of escalation to Iran ever present. The reaction has been global with Palestine at the forefront of the geopolitical stage. South Africa’s case, which brought Israel before the International Court of Justice, is now being supported by 14 countries, mostly from the global South, accusing Israel of committing the crime of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

Despite the horror being inflicted on Gaza, we have seen the continuing inspirational fighting resistance of the Palestinian people, as well as an unprecedented movement of global solidarity with Gaza.

This themed issue invites contributions that explore:

• The path of liberation of the Palestinian people – strategies of the liberation movements
• The implications of the geopolitical realignment and Palestinian liberation.
• An assessment of the global solidarity movement and its significance.
• Global labor and the question of Palestine
• The limits and possibilities of international law in relation to Palestine
• The growth of the BDS movement, challenges, and prospects
• Academic and cultural boycotts of Israel
• The significance of the anti-Zionist Jewish movement, in and out of Israel, and its future
• The complicity of western countries in supporting the genocide and repression of dissent
• How has Palestine shifted domestic, regional, and global politics?

The deadline for submissions is May 15 2025, and should be sent to the Executive Board at workersoftheworld1848@gmail.com

 

Work and the Balkans, special issue of the Études Balkaniques

(scheduled for publication in the second half of 2026)

Editors: Antonis Nasis, PhD candidate in history at EHESS/CETOBaC – University of Crete, and Christos Andrianopoulos, PhD in History and member of the CRH at EHESS

Call for contributions

Work and the Balkans

The concept of work—its meaning and how it is culturally, socially, and historically constructed—varies significantly from one region and society to another. In the context of the Balkans, an area rich in cultural diversity, political complexity, and historical transformations, the notion of work has experienced considerable changes. These shifts have been shaped by various socio-economic systems, from Ottoman rule to socialist regimes and the post-socialist transition to market economies.

This collective volume aims to critically explore and analyse the evolution of conceptions of work within the Balkan context. Authors are invited to reflect on how work has been understood, practised, and experienced in the Balkans across different historical periods and through the lens of social class, gender dynamics, and rural or urban settings. Second, we encourage a critical examination of the Balkan context through the analysis of work in its semantic and historical dimensions and from a broader spatio-temporal perspective. Lastly, we propose to examine work as a representation or an imaginary construct by exploring its connotations across different Balkan languages.

Additionally, we aim to highlight lesser-explored aspects, such as geography and the environment, emphasising the significant variations in the landscape: island territories, mountainous and semi-mountainous regions, plains, coastal cities, and the hinterland. We will also consider the contrast between major urban centres (such as Istanbul) and small villages, examining women’s labour, alongside domestic work, artisanal traditions, and working-class identities in major industrial hubs. Other points of interest include foreign workers (seasonal or otherwise), intellectual labour, work narratives, labour activism (anarchism, syndicalism, and marginal forms of communism), labour reforms, and resistance to these reforms. Finally, we will address the complex issue of forced labour and slavery, which persisted in the Ottoman sphere until the 20th century despite its official abolition.

Historiographical approaches to the Balkans often remain confined to traditional frameworks, failing to clarify whether there is a distinct “Balkan” specificity. Some portray the Ottoman period as a "dark" era, while others view it as a “laboratory” of Westernization or modernisation (especially in the 19th century). National historiographies tend to focus on post-Ottoman emancipation. These approaches frequently position Balkan histories in relation to the so-called “West” within a narrative of progress or its absence.

However, recent historiographical perspectives emphasize the permeability of Balkan societies to modern ideas originating from the West thus challenging interpretations attribute

certain phenomena solely to the region's national or cultural particularities. The Balkans, integrated into global dynamics, have not only absorbed external influences but have also become a hub for producing and disseminating new ideas and challenges, situating the region within broader global transformations.

Our study on labour in the Balkans, which we propose to conduct within the framework of Études Balkaniques, does not seek to oppose these various approaches but rather to re-examine them in light of an issue that has yet to receive systematic analysis. Indeed, labour is rarely regarded as a central focus when studying the Balkan region despite its enduring significance in its societies. Over the years, labour has been explored through multiple lenses: politically (the distinction between socialist and capitalist modes of production), as a tool of oppression (e.g., for political prisoners in Greece), economically (such as the self-management labour model in Yugoslavia), or as a marker of craftsmanship and product quality in popular cultures.

Our goal is to broaden these perspectives and examine whether a specific typology of labour exists in the Balkans beyond rigid categories such as socialism, empires, nations, and war—whether by applying terms used in other contexts, frequently shaped by European or Western societies.

When examining the history of labour in the Balkans, can we truly speak of "industry," "proletariat," "factory," or "modernity," or should we instead consider a distinct form of "archaism" in Balkan labour organisation? What are the various forms of labour organisation—whether scientific or not—across different historical periods and regions in the Balkans? How did the Ottoman state's attempts at centralising production models interact with centrifugal local dynamics in the Balkan provinces? How is labour represented in literature, art, folklore, and popular culture, and what does this reveal about the symbolic value of labour in Balkan societies? To what extent do ethnic, national, linguistic, and religious identities shape labour markets, and how does the latter, in turn, condition the working class? Moreover, do Balkan diasporic movements contribute to the perpetuation of "Balkan" labour practices in regions such as Russia, Ukraine, or Poland? Finally, can contemporary labour and production crises in the Balkans be interpreted as the manifestation of a crisis of a precisely "Balkan" form of labour, or do they reflect the challenges of a global system?

To address these questions, we propose an analysis spanning multiple historical periods, from the 17th century to the present day, and covering an extended geographical space that transcends the traditional geographic and cultural boundaries of the Balkans. This special issue encourages interdisciplinary contributions, welcoming perspectives from all disciplines within the social sciences and humanities, including sociology, anthropology, history, and economics.

The Travail et Balkans volume, scheduled for publication in the second half of 2026, is a peer-reviewed journal available on demand and indexed on the CAIRN platform, ensuring the highest academic standards. https://shs.cairn.info/revue-etudes-balkaniques-cahiers-pierre-belon?la… The editors of this volume are Antonis Nasis, PhD candidate in history at EHESS/CETOBaC – University of Crete (antonios.nasis@ehess.fr), and Christos Andrianopoulos, PhD in History and member of the CRH at EHESS (andriano.paris10@gmail.com).

Articles will be published in French, although a limited number of contributions in English will also be accepted. The average length of articles is 40,000 characters. Abstracts, along with completed participation forms, are expected by April 18, and full articles must be submitted by September 26, 2025. For abstract submissions or further inquiries, please contact workandthebalkans@gmail.com

Education, how, what and for whom?

The Workers of the World journal invites submissions for the upcoming themed issue, Education, what, for whom, how? The deadline for submissions is July 15, 2025.

Education has been at the centre of some of the most important debates in recent years. Words and expressions such as burnout;  students’ mental health pathologies; workers’ “blackout” and inadequate training; teacher shortages; digital “teaching”; have spread to the “common sense” lexicon. In parallel, a new wave of strikes, from Chicago to South Africa, from Amsterdam to Lisbon, has since 2008 put teachers’ struggles i.a. for public education in the forefront of social movements, in what seems to be a trend toward a global response to the degradation of public services in the era of declining capitalism.

As far as the ruling classes are concerned, education is central not only because of its sheer reach in society — more than 1.5 billion students and teachers attend the world’s schools and universities every day, which makes them decisive crucibles for the internalisation of ruling ideologies — but also because of the demands of the labour market in a context of radical transformations in the world of work and, more broadly, in the capitalist mode of production itself. In a number of countries around the world the order of capital drives the relentless modification of curricula to the detriment of scientific and historical-social education, as well as the accelerated marketisation of the sector in line with the velocity of capital accumulation and investment; it promotes digitisation, automation and AI in line with algorithms designed by corporations, as well as increasingly precarious labour relations to make up for teacher shortages (caused, strictly speaking, by low salaries and terrible working conditions). Despite growing xenophobia, capital can’t help but deal with the integration of migrant populations through the educational apparatus, albeit as an industrial reserve army. Faced with such onslaughts, everyday educational practices end up assimilating crucial aspects of bourgeois cultural policies. In this, the liberal view re-signifying multiculturalism as a paradigm of diversity and inclusion without any connection to the material basis of societies prevails. The same applies to the active methodologies that remove the ontological dimension of labour from human agency, as if the profound educational inequalities could be overcome by operative procedures in educational processes.

As far as the working classes are concerned, however, there is an evident deepening of strategic dilemmas, as expressed in critical theories. Teaching workers’ struggles around the world corroborate the generalised dissatisfaction with capital’s proposals. In academia questions are also being asked. However, education progressives are far from a consensus. Amid the liberal educational thinking, some progressive conceptions have adopted a constructivist vision that distances students from work as an educational principle on the basis of its ontological, ethical and political dimensions, as advocated by Vygotsky and his interlocutors. Instead of knowledge mediating with nature and society, capital celebrates so-called “skills” — a subject that is hardly broached by many pedagogical currents. Within dialectical materialist conceptions some have come to support the idea that the meaning of education is disinterested knowledge (not aimed at the unilateral training of the workforce), an education that aims for real universalism, overcoming false liberal universalism and committed to the knowledge and explanation of the totality, always in the process of searching for truth through science, which are central dimensions of public education in the face of dogma and obscurantism. Historical-critical pedagogy rejects educational dualism and stands for integral education: in Marx’s terms, omnilateral. The point is discussing the state of the struggle against commercialisation of education and for the protection of the freedom of teaching at all levels of education.

This dossier aims to address these issues and invites all teachers, struggle collectives, researchers and scientists to reflect critically on education and propose solutions that are both a critical reflection on education and a proposal for transformative action.

The deadline for submissions is July 15, 2025, and should be sent to the Executive Board at workersoftheworld1848@gmail.com

 

Accès libre : https://journals.openedition.org/histoirepolitique/

Contenu:

• Adeline Blaszkiewicz-Maison et Romain Castellesi

Les politiques sociales du travail dans l’Europe contemporaine (France métropolitaine, Angleterre, Italie, XIXe-XXIe siècles) : introduction [Texte intégral] 

Social labour policies in contemporary Europe (mainland France, England, Italy, 19th to 21st centuries): Introduction

• Laure Piguet

Chiffres et politiques sociales. La Société fabienne et les savoirs comme stratégie du socialisme réformiste (1884-1889) [Texte intégral] 

Statistics and Social Policy: The Fabian Society and Knowledge as a Strategy for Reformism (1884-1889)

• Adeline Blaszkiewicz-Maison

L’Organisation internationale du travail et les politiques sociales françaises de l’entre-deux-guerres : histoire d’une ambivalence [Texte intégral] 

The ILO and French social policies during the interwar period: history of an ambivalence

• Léo Rosell

Le rôle des organisations ouvrières dans la fabrique du régime général de la sécurité sociale à la Libération [Texte intégral] 

The role of workers' organisations in the creation of the Social Security system in post-liberation France 

• Alessandro Brizzi

Une entreprise-providence ? Les acteurs de la politique sociale de la Fiat entre collaboration et conflit (années 1920-1960) [Texte intégral] 

The company as a welfare state? The actors of Fiat’s social policy between collaboration and conflict (1920s-1960s)

• Aurélie Andry

La Confédération européenne des syndicats et la fabrique d’une politique sociale européenne (1957-années 1980) [Texte intégral] 

The European Trade Union Confederation and the making of a European social policy, 1957-1980s

• Romain Castellesi

Accompagner le désastre ouvrier : les politiques sociales de la désindustrialisation en France dans le second XXe siècle [Texte intégral] 

Accompanying the workers’ disaster: The social policies of deindustrialization in France since 1945

·  Varia

• Louise Francezon

L’agente Nancy Wake ou la fabrique d’une virago ? Pratiques et sociabilités masculines dans les mondes militaires de la Seconde Guerre mondiale [Texte intégral] 

The Making of a Virago? Nancy Wake and the Gendered Dynamics of Military Sociabilities during the Second World war

• Evelyne Hery-Vielpeau

Le genre de l’orientation : un discours sur « les carrières féminines » en France à l’heure de la scolarisation de masse [Texte intégral] 

The gender of school guidance: a discourse on « women’s careers » in France at the time of mass schooling