Social and Labour History News

CfP: Bremen and colonialism

1 month ago

Edited by Norman Aselmeyer (University of Bremen) and Virginie Kamche (Afrika Netzwerk Bremen e.V.)
Deadline: 03 November 2023
Submission of manuscripts: 28 February 2024

Why is there an elephant in Bremen? Why did Bremen call itself the “City of Colonies”? What do Jacobs Kaffee, Eduscho and Kaffee HAG have to do with colonialism? Why are Maasai objects in the Übersee-Museum? The book “Bremen and Colonialism” (working title) deals with these and other questions about Bremen’s and Bremerhaven’s involvement in European colonialism. Despite numerous initiatives, Germany’s colonial history, and Bremen’s role in particular, is not sufficiently recognised and discussed in society. The book aims to remedy this with short and informative texts and to bring colonial history to the attention of a broad public in a low-threshold way. Numerous cities and regions in Europe are currently working on coming to terms with their colonial legacies. Since the example of Bremen and Bremerhaven is particularly well suited to illustrate the close intertwining of the German economy and urban life with European colonialism, the project goes beyond the immediate local historical reference. As a port city, Bremen benefited early on from the colonial involvement of other European countries and also became a forerunner of the official German colonial empire. This volume focuses on the places, people, events, companies and institutions as well as material objects of Bremen’s colonial past and its coloniality that continues to this day.

Audience
As a panorama of Bremen’s extensive (post-)colonial history, this book intends to convey German colonial history to a broader audience. For easier access, the texts are organised thematically and are accompanied by illustrations (the State Archives of Bremen has agreed to grant free reprint permission for photographs from its collection). The book targets all historically interested readers who are interested in (post-)colonial issues. At the same time, the book addresses those who are involved in educational work or educational institutions such as schools, museums, foundations, universities or political education. Because of the target audience, the texts will narrate the events and topics in a less academic and technical style, but in an engaging and understandable manner. A major publisher has already agreed to publish the volume.

Scope and structure
The book is scheduled for publication in August 2024. It is envisaged that it will consist of 50 texts, each of c. 1500–1700 words (5 printed pages). As the volume intends to consolidate knowledge on Bremen’s colonial legacy and make it accessible to a broad public, both well-known facts and new research results can be presented. The following structure (with suggested articles) covers the thematic breadth of the volume:

1. Places (the Elephant, Bremen University, “Lüderitzbucht”, Keta, Zanzibar, Bremen City Hall, the harbour, the Tabakquartier, Jamaica, St. Thomas, Cuba and the plantation economy, Kunsthalle Bremen, street names etc.)

2. People (Ben Amathila, Johannes Kohl, Mercy Baeta, William Stepny, Adolf Lüderitz, Heinrich Vogelsang, Ludwig Roselius, Hedwig Heyl, Otto Finsch, Gerhard Rohlfs, Vietor family, Herbert Ganslmayr etc.)

3. Events (the “Hun” speech, the Schaffermahlzeit, Bremen as the “City of Colonies”, emigration, distant-water fishing, conference of the German Colonial Society in Bremen in 1908, 1938 exhibition “Bremen – Key to the World”, German Africa Show in Bremen, abolitionism, the genocide in Namibia, restitutions etc.)

4. Companies & Institutions (Kaffee HAG, Jacobs Kaffee, Ludwig Bortfeldt, Baumwollbörse, Bremen Mission, Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Gesellschaft, Übersee-Museum, Norddeutsche Lloyd, Bremer Kolonialpfadfinder, Nordwolle AG etc.)

5. Objects (letters by Hendrik Witbooi, Mkwawa and Human Remains, the ships “Wilhelm Ludwig”, “Africa” and “Schiller”, whaling, coffee, tobacco, sugar and the institution of slavery, Bremen textbooks etc.).

Interest in contributing one of these or another article can be expressed by 03 November 2023 with a punchy title (preferably in the form of a question) and a concise synopsis by email to bch@uni-bremen.de or by form (https://forms.gle/efCWjcV1Vh36nhXx6). The deadline for submission of finished manuscripts is 29 February 2024.

The volume will be published in German. For contributors who are not familiar with the German language, the editors will assist in translating articles from languages such as English and French into German.

Key facts:
Deadline for article proposals: 03.11.2023
Notification of Acceptance/Rejection: 17.11.2023
Submission of final texts: 29.02.2024
Publication date: August 2024
Length: 1500–1700 words plus b/w illustrations (please obtain and attach printing permission independently; images need a minimum resolution of 300dpi) with very few footnotes and max. 3–5 bibliographical references

CfP: 7th Hermann Weber Conference on Historical Research of Communism

1 month 1 week ago

Under the title " War between Comrades: Unity, Division and Disintegration in the Communist World Movement since 1945," the 7th Hermann Weber Conference will be held from 27-29 March 2025 in Cologne, Germany. The organizers are Prof. Dr. Felix Wemheuer (Chair of Modern China Studies at the University of Cologne) and Prof. Dr. Lorenz Lüthi (McGill University, Montreal) in cooperation with the "Yearbook for Historical Research of Communism", funded by the Gerda-und-Hermann-Weber-Foundation affiliated with The Federal Foundation for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Eastern Germany.

With the beginning of the Cold War, the Soviet leadership proclaimed the theory of the division of the world into two opposing camps: one socialist and one capitalist. By the mid-1960s, the dream of the unity of the socialist camp and the creation of a closed socialist economic area with a solidary division of labor was over. The organizers welcome both micro-level case studies on the topic of "war between comrades" and articles that attempt to show larger contexts regarding the world communist movement, geopolitics, global economy and transnational transfer of ideas. Proposals (max. 300 words) in German or English and a short bio should be sent by 30 January 2024 to the following address: felix.wemheuer[at]uni-koeln.de

Find the whole CfP in English and German enclosed or here: https://www.bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de/de/stiftung/aktuelles/call-papers-7-hermann-weber-konferenz-2025

La storia come esperienza personale. Letteratura e Novecento in Italo Calvino

1 month 1 week ago

La Fondazione Gramsci Emilia-Romagna promuove un incontro in occasione del centesimo anniversario dalla nascita di Italo Calvino (Santiago de Las Vegas de La Habana, 15 ottobre 1923 – Siena, 19 settembre 1985) in programma per giovedì 16 novembre 2023 alle ore 16.30 presso la Sala Convegni di Via Mentana, 2 a Bologna (Fondazione Barberini).

Un seminario di discussione e riflessione volto a indagare la relazione tra la pratica narrativa dello scrittore ligure – le sue invenzioni e i suoi stili – e quella peculiare forma di disposizione nei confronti del Novecento che lui stesso definì una «speciale sensibilità della storia come esperienza personale». Il seminario prevede tre relazioni, dedicate ad altrettanti tornanti novecenteschi particolarmente significativi per la vita e la scrittura di Calvino.

 

Intervengono

Matteo Cavalleri | Università di Bologna
La Resistenza: un nodo di esperienza, memoria e narrazione

Guido Furci | Università Sorbonne Nouvelle
Paris. 1956: sul prima e dopo Budapest

Virginia Giustetto | Università di Genève
Trasformazione urbana e scrittura: un graduale processo di dissoluzione

 

Coordina

Magda Indiveri | già Liceo Galvani

 

Le riflessioni e gli interventi si articoleranno a partire dalla dimensione di storia come esperienza personale, che trova nella figura di Kim del Sentiero dei nidi di ragno – «Domani sarà una grande battaglia. Kim è sereno. “A, bi, ci”, dirà. Continua a pensare: ti amo, Adriana. Questo, nient’altro che questo, è la storia» – una delle sue più alte rappresentazioni, dalla quale traspare lo sforzo di Calvino – e, con lui, della generazione definita degli “anni difficili” – di ritrovare un piano dove ricomporre destini generali e biografie individuali, la fedeltà a se stessi e il pensiero del proprio tempo.

CfP: Standard employment enclaves, precarity and informality: Explaining employment configurations in the Global South

1 month 1 week ago

Although we recognise the many insights achieved by the rich discourse on labour market segmentation, we see shortcomings as the debate has been almost entirely dedicated to developments in the Global North. On the other hand, the discourse on the Global South often focused on the dualization of formal and informal work only or highlighted single forms of employment such as contract work. So far, the full spectrum of different employment forms and labour market sections and the transitions between them have hardly been explored. Different understandings of informal work around the globe and the variety of working conditions and work relations subsumed have hardly been systematically discussed. But we also know little on how to explain that in the same industry the share of standard forms of employment may vary significantly according to country. Although using the terms ‘Global North and South’, we understand the respective areas as theoretical construct reflecting rather heterogeneous empirical cases and developments.

This Research Topic on “standard employment enclaves, precarity and informality” shall help to fill existing gaps and prepare new approaches to explain employment configurations in the Global South. Accordingly, we invite contributions that theoretically and empirically deal with the patterns of labour market segmentation in countries of different regions of the Global South, investigating e.g. the embodiment of standard employment, different forms of precarious work, self-employment and exploring the variety of informal work and economies. Contributions may also distinguish patterns according to economic sectors, considering industry, agriculture, commerce, and services.

Moreover, we invite contributors to systematically develop explanations for the different patterns of segmentation considering the diversity of historical backgrounds and economic contexts in the Global South. We therefore encourage contributors to make use of both established and new approaches like:

• institutionalist perspectives: focusing on labour market regulation, social and labour market policies and industrial relation systems;

• actor and power resource centred approaches: highlighting agency and strategy of employers and trade unions;

• economic and industrial development-oriented approaches;

• postcolonial approaches, analyses of decolonial governments’ strategies with respect to economic development, the international division of labour in global production networks and the role of international actors;

• examinations of the unevenness of labour markets in place, focusing for instance on class formation, on histories of collective action, or on shifts in capital accumulation and state power;

• forms of discrimination and structural disadvantages with respect to gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity, but also age and educational level etc. may be in the focus.

Finally, we would like to give a stronger focus on labour law and its triggering, reinforcing or mediating role on labour market segmentation in the Global South. We therefore welcome both contributions – in comparative perspective – that explain major reforms towards de- or re- regulation, respectively the development of labour law in a historical perspective and contributions that may focus on particular types of legal regulation and its impact on patterns of labour market segmentation and process of precarization, formalization and (re) informalization.

 

Manuscript Summary Submission Deadline 03 December 2023

Manuscript Submission Deadline 30 April 2024

 

For further information and participation, please consult

https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/56864/standard-employment-enclaves-precarity-and-informality-explaining-employment-configurations-in-the-global-south#overview

 

CfA: Lessons of the Cold War? - Visegrad Scholarship at the Blinken OSA Archivum

1 month 2 weeks ago

In the context of the current invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing tragic war, many analysts have claimed that we face the real end of (or the confirmation) of the Cold War and its dichotomies. What we witness would be the outright confrontation between civic liberalism and autocracy, or the “West” and the “East”. According to Stephen Kotkin, even if post-communist societies have changed, a military-police dictatorship in some former satellite countries is still fighting a “West” seen as enemy, and this has the reverse consolidating effect on the West which re-emerged and stood up against Putin.

 

We invite historians, researchers, political scientists, sociologists and socially engaged artists to reflect on the lessons from/of the Cold War by taking cues from the Blinken OSA Archivum collections. The applicants are encouraged to reflect on the connections as well as on the differences between current times and the past by following some recommended sub-topics listed below. 

  • The importance of homegrown dissident cultures of truth telling and the related counterpropaganda in minimizing them as foreign agents.
  • Histories of Soviet invasions (1956, 1968, 1979), their stakes, misunderstandings, and miscalculations.
  • The political instrumentalization and hollowing of concepts, such as “fascism”, “Nazism,” and “imperialism”.
  • The demonizing methods of propaganda (as not just an alternative regime of facts, but as a stigmatizing tool).
  • The power of stories: revisionist and public usages of history for political ends.
  • The relationship between foreign policy, strategic security, and energy relations (at global scale, too).
  • Lessons from the international security crises (Berlin in 1961, Cuba in 1962, the Sino Soviet split).
  • Informational asymmetries (cultures of secrecy and obscure decision-making versus cultures of openness and liberalism).
  • Histories and efficacy of human rights advocacy with regards to abusive regimes.
  • Post-'89 transitions and their connections to the Cold War (reproduction of secret police networks and the new oligarchies, different understandings of the role of State, the subordination of the legal system, etc.).
  • Conditions for the maintenance/disruptions of autocratic regimes (the role of ideology, political patronage, corruption, etc.).
  • Retroactive assessment of international responses to political and security crises: the role of appeasement, of “stability”.
  • Uncovering the roots of local initiatives for autonomy and reform of politics and society in the Soviet Union, based on the extensive holdings in the Blinken OSA Archivum of Russian regional and provincial newspapers during the late perestroika period. (Work with Professor Rieber, author of Stalin as Warlord (Yale University Press, 2022)).
  • Un/silencing suppressed voices: detecting instances of epistemic violence/harm and recreating narratives of people pushed at the margins of society (ethnic, religious or sexual minorities, people with disabilities) in Cold War and transitional archives.

We recommend you refer to one of the topics in your application. Please also mention the specific collections you would like to consult. We also suggest possible collections to be investigated, such as the research corpora of Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty, Records of Index on Censorship, Records of the EU Monitoring and Advocacy Programs, Soviet Propaganda Film collection, Records related to the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, Records of the Constitutional and Legal Policy Institute, etc.

Blinken OSA Archivum collections and research tips

The archival collection and research papers of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty constitute the most comprehensive Cold War and post-Cold War archive about the problems of Communism and its aftermath in the early years of post-socialist and post-communist transition. The collection offers important tips both about facts as well as about their conceptualizations from 1949 to 1994. Scholars particularly interested in the former Soviet Union as well as in the aftermath of its dissolution can find relevant the rich collection of sub-fonds Soviet Red Archives, Samizdat Archives, and the Soviet Research Department of the RFE/RL Research Institute (to be compared with the RFE/ RL Russian broadcast recordings). These sub-fonds and series allowed the radios to extract reliable data from the massive body of media produced by the Soviet republics; the Western Press Archives contain the Western representations about the phenomena in the communist bloc and beyond it, about the transition in the 1990s. This archival collection also holds several series of biographical files about major historical figures, dissidents, leaders of national minorities, and those persecuted by the political regimes of that time.

We also suggest many other possible archival collections to be investigated, such as the records of Index on Censorship, the Soviet Propaganda Film collection, the records related to the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, the documents of the Constitutional and Legal Policy Institute, the records of the Forced Migration projects at the Open Society Institute, the records of the International Human Rights Law Institute relating to the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, the records of the American Refugee Committee Balkan’s Programs, the Gary Filerman Collection on Hungarian Refugees from 1956, etc.

Blinken OSA Archivum research program

The current call is part of a reflexive-research program at Blinken OSA Archivum interested in connecting past issues related to oppressive regimes, censorship, violence and information manipulation to current phenomena. We would like to assess the potential of a genealogical project linking the contemporary epistemic and political crisis of democracy to past modes of inquiry and activism.

Admission

We seek to promote exchanges among people with backgrounds in the arts, humanities and social sciences in the way they think through and about archives while being concerned with current problems. From this point of view, the invitation is not only addressed to scholars working specifically on Cold War topics, but to all those interested in theories of knowledge, who would use Blinken OSA Archivum documents as props for larger reflections and activist concerns.

Fellowship requirements and Blinken OSA Archivum support

While working on their own subject, fellows will have the opportunity to collaborate with Blinken OSA Archivum researchers and to transform their archival investigation into a full research experience. The fellows are invited to give a final presentation about their research findings at Blinken OSA Archivum and the ways in which the documents were relevant to their research. The presentations are organized within the Visegrad Scholarship at Blinken OSA Archivum lecture series and as such are open for the general public.

Blinken OSA Archivum academic and archival staff will assist the fellows in their investigations, facilitate contact with the CEU community, and grant access to the CEU library. Besides its archival analogue collections, Blinken OSA Archivum can also offer access to unique, audio-visual materials related to documentary practices, a special collection of RFE (anti)propaganda books and a growing collection on digital humanities, human rights, archival theory and philosophy.

About the Fellowship

The twenty grants of 3000 euros each are designed to provide access to the archives for scholars, artists, and journalists, and to cover travel to and from Budapest, a modest subsistence, and accommodation for a research period of eight weeks. Stipends for shorter periods are pro-rated.

Applicants, preferably but not exclusively, from a V4 country, may be researchers, students after their second degree carrying out research, or artists, journalists, academics, or both.

Scholars at risk from war zones as well as refugees of conscience (scholars fleeing authoritarian regimes) are especially invited to apply.
 

Submission deadlines for the 2023/24 academic year

  • November 15, 2023.

Assessment

The Selection Committee will evaluate proposals on the strength of the professional quality and novelty of the research proposal, its relevance to the chosen topic and the involvement of the Blinken OSA Archivum holdings in the research. In the case of equal scores those from V4 countries have an advantage. The artists submitting proposals are kindly required to frame their application as research-based projects as well, carefully indicating the collections they will rely on. The artistic proposals will be assessed according to their merit, originality, timeliness as well as their feasibility (with regards to their reliance on available Blinken OSA Archivum collections). Blinken OSA Archivum can only offer conditions for the realization of artistic research, not for production.

Application procedure

Please submit the following to Blinken OSA Archivum (in one merged pdf)

  1. Application letter in English (should specify expected period of stay and preferred dates and how you learnt about the scholarship (through which courses, instructors, social media groups or pages, websites, academic platforms, Blinken OSA Archivum public programs/ projects etc. you were informed about this scholarship).
    Please note that the Archive’s Research Room is closed during the Christmas period, and the research stay must end on the last day of the given academic year, July 31.
  2. Research description/plan in English (about 800 words and should include the following: introduction, presentation of the stage of research, literature on the subject, preliminary hypothesis, questions, identification of possible documents in the Blinken OSA Archivum holdings). Artists are expected to submit a portfolio, too. We recommend you refer to one of the topics in your application. Please also mention the specific collections you would like to consult.
  3. Curriculum Vitae (C.V.)
  4. Proof of officially recognized advanced level English language exam (native speakers and those with qualification from an English language institution/degree program are exempted)
  5. Names of two referees with contact address. Letters of reference are not needed.

The Application letter, C.V., the Research description/plan, the copy of a language exam certification and the Referees’ contact information should be sent by email to Katalin Gadoros at gadoros@ceu.edu.

Selection Committee

All members of the committee are academic staff of Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives / Central European University or the Visegrad Fund.

More Information

To find out more about the program, please visit : https://www.osaarchivum.org/work-with-us/fellowship/visegrad-scholarship

Contact Information

The Application letter, C.V., the Research description/plan, the copy of a language exam certification and the Referees’ contact information should be sent by email to Katalin Gadoros at gadoros@ceu.edu.

CfP: Gendering the law of digital platforms. An interdisciplinary and comparative study of platform work and its law through gender

1 month 2 weeks ago

COST P-WILL Conference and a Special Issue on “Gendering the law of digital platforms. An interdisciplinary and comparative study of platform work and its law through gender.”

Call for papers. COST P-WILL Conference and Special Issue (Journal: Labour & Law Issues).

Deadline (extended abstract). November 10, 2023

Conference. Paris (in person and online), April 2024

Publication. December 2024

COST P-WILL - Platform Work Inclusion Living Lab invites you to submit proposals for papers for a Special Issue and a Conference on “Gendering the law of digital platforms. An interdisciplinary and comparative study of platform work and its law through gender”.

Pre-selected articles will be subject to double-blind peer review. They will be presented at a conference in Paris/online, organised by the University Paris-East (UPEC, MIL), in April 2024.

Accepted papers will be published in “Labour & Law Issues”, a peer-reviewed digital journal that deals with labour law, employment and industrial relations in the context of legal and social sciences.

Important dates:
Extended abstract (800 words) submission: November 10, 2023.
Notification of reviews: December 20, 2023.
Submission of final revised paper: April 15, 2024.
Notification of acceptance: October 1, 2024.
Publications: December 2024.

Prospective articles should be submitted as extended abstracts (around 800 words) or draft articles by November 10, 2023, to guido.smorto@unipa.it and claire.marzo@u-pec.fr. They should include an extended abstract (800 words), name, current affiliation and email address. Submission should be accompanied by a short bio / CV as well as a list of publications in a separate document (max. two pages). The outcome of the selection process will be communicated by December 20, 2023.
Final articles shall be delivered by April 15, 2024, and should conform to the journal style guide. We expect contributions within the range of 6,000 to 9,000 words, including footnotes and bibliography, but shorter and longer articles will be considered. Each accepted Author must guarantee English proofreading of their paper.
Topics. We are looking for papers showcasing new legal and empirical work related to an interdisciplinary and comparative study of platform work and its law through gender. These include, but are not limited to:

 Feminist economic policies to platform law
 Policies for a gender equal and intersectional platform economy
 Feminist political analysis on work, working conditions, social movements and collective representation in the platform economy
 Feminist policy-making to the platform work
 Gendering platform law or digitalising gender
 Gender as a theoretical tool to understand platform work
 Digitalisation as a tool to understand gender in platforms
 Changes brought by digitalisation and platforms to a gendered welfare state
 Gender and organisational and platform work models
 Gender and Digital technologies and data models.
 Where to gender platform law
 Gendering platform law in a national and comparative context
 Gendering platform law in the European Union
 Gendering platform law at the international level
 Fields of law reread in light of gender and platformisation
 Social protection: how social protection law impacts gender differentiation in platform work and how it could play a role in minimising the existing differences.
 Discrimination law: the ways platforms may discriminate (on the grounds of gender but also others - from offline and online spaces and their interactions must be explored) and how law fights discrimination.
 Collective bargaining: particularly on feminist groups and their approaches to unionisation.
 Labour law: how labour law – and other laws governing NSFE- is/are transformed –or not- to adapt to platform workers' needs.
 Business law: how different business models of platform work impact gender and how national laws allow or impact this model; cooperatives as a business model.
 Public law: how public services could be thought of in a different way to take into account digitalisation, platformisation and gender.
 Tax law
 Migration law

We welcome contributions by members of the COST Action P-WILL and by colleagues of any career level who are not members of COST P-WILL.

PLEASE NOTE that P-WILL will not be able to fund all travel and participation in the Conference.

For further questions, please get in touch with the coordination committee:
 Claire Marzo (claire.marzo@u-pec.fr)
 Guido Smorto (guido.smorto@unipa.it)

YMHC #12: Unravelling the Enigmatic Tale of the Witwatersrand - by T. Ndaba

1 month 3 weeks ago

The Young Mining Historians Corner is a blog post series edited by the Labour In Mining WG dedicated
to early career researchers in mining history broadly constructed.
The Issue 12 has been just published:
YMHC #12: Unravelling the Enigmatic Tale of the Witwatersrand - by T. Ndaba
(https://lim.hypotheses.org/2818)

Find all the previous issues here: https://lim.hypotheses.org/category/ymhc
Contact LiM WG for more information at labourinmining@gmail.com

YMHC editors: Francesca Sanna, Gabriele Marcon, Nikolaos Olma

CfP: 59th ITH Conference - Worlds of Digital Labour

1 month 3 weeks ago

59th ITH Conference Worlds of Digital Labour

Linz/Upper Austria, 26–28 September 2024
Conference Languages: English / German

CALL FOR PAPERS

The pitfalls of platform economies, struggles for unionisation in digital entertainment companies, outsourcing and exploitation in social media enterprises, fragile global commodity chains in hardware production: Topics of labour and digital industries are prominent in today’s news headlines. These themes, however, have a history that goes back several decades. Studying industrial relations at the dawn of computing, the struggles over automation and digitization, and the emergence of new forms of work can provide us with a better understanding of digital labour relations and struggles. The 2024 ITH conference addresses the role of industrial relations, labour struggles and knowledge regimes in the history of computing and IT - both in computer-related industries (hardware and software) and the IT services sector shaping the “old”, established industries. Covering the time frame between the establishment of the commercial computer industry in the post-war era through the breakthrough of home and personal computing in the late 1970s until the commodification of digital communication in the 1990s, and aiming at a global perspective, we would like to address questions that are crucial for the history and present of labour and digitization.

Possible questions could be:

  • What visions of future work were propelled by the introduction of computers, and how were these visions perceived by the workforce?
  • Which aspects of pre-digital labour shaped the conception of digital work?
  • What was the effect of informal DIY cultures and countercultural ethics on structures and practices of digital labour?
  • How were IT workers (programmers, systems analysts or operators) perceived and how did they perceive themselves within traditional structures of labour organising?
  • To what extent did structural inequalities, especially questions of race, class and gender, come to the fore?
  • How did unions deal with the threats (and chances) of automation and digitization?
  • What new forms of work relations, vocational education and labour organising sprung up in newly formed digital industries such as microchip manufacturing, software fabrication or computer games production?
  • How did the global division of labour manifest itself in the computing and IT 2 industries over decades?
  • How did the various pathways into the digital age differ around the globe, especially when comparing developments in the United States and Western Europe with those in state socialist countries and the countries of the Global South?
  • What effects did the introduction of personal computing have on work relations, the atomisation of the labour force, as well as the images and narratives of small- scale entrepreneurship?
  • How did the introduction of mobile technologies change both the digital industries and broader work relations yet again?

We welcome papers that strive to address these and related questions, and highly welcome contributions focussing on regions that traditionally lay outside the geographical scope of digital history, such as Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Africa.

SUBMISSION

Proposed papers should include:

  • Abstract (max. 300 words)
  • Biographical note (continuous text, max. 200 words)
  • Full address and Email address

The abstract of the suggested paper should contain a separate paragraph explaining how and (if applicable) to which element(s) or question(s) of the Call for Papers the submitted paper refers. The short CV should give information on the applicant’s contributions to the field of labour history, broadly defined, and specify (if applicable) relevant publications. For the purpose of information, applicants are invited to attach a copy of one of these publications to their application.

Proposals to be sent to Laurin Blecha: conference@ith.or.at

CONFERENCE PUBLICATION

As a rule (i.e. with very few exceptions) the ITH publishes edited volumes arising from its conferences. Since 2013 the ITH conference volumes have been published in Brill’s Studies in Global Social History Series, edited by Marcel van der Linden. The ITH encourages the conference participants to submit their papers to this publication project. High-quality papers will be selected by the volume’s editors.

TIME SCHEDULE

  • Submission of proposals: 26 January 2024
  • Notification of acceptance: 1 March 2024
  • Full papers or presentation version: 12 August 2024

PREPARATORY GROUP

  • Gleb J. Albert, University of Lucerne
  • Julia Gül Erdogan, University of Stuttgart
  • Michael Homberg, Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam
  • Stefan Müller, Friedrich Ebert Foundation

THE ITH AND ITS MEMBERS

The ITH is one of the worldwide known forums of the history of labour and social movements. The ITH favours research pursuing inclusive and global perspectives and open-ended comparative thinking. Following its tradition of cooperating with organisations of the labour movement, the ITH likewise puts emphasis on the conveyance of research outside the academic research community itself. Currently ca. 100 member institutions and a growing number of individual members from five continents are associated with the ITH.

Information on ITH publications in the past 50 years:
https://www.ith.or.at/en/publications

Online ITH membership application form:
https://www.ith.or.at/de/mitgliedschaft

CfP: Strike Activity in the 21st Century: Implications of the Recent Global Upsurge

1 month 3 weeks ago

Strike Activity in the 21st Century:

Implications of the Recent Global Upsurge

Call for Papers for the 6th International Association on Strikes and Social Conflicts Conference to be held in Cape Town, South Africa 5th-7th February 2024

https://iassc-net.org

https://workersoftheworld.net/

While global capitalism has remained in the grip of a series of multi-dimensional and intertwined crises (including ongoing economic malaise, legacy of Covid, escalating impact of climate change, intensification of wars in different parts of the world such as Ukraine and Africa and geopolitical crisis between Russia, China and the West, and the mounting debt crisis in the Global South), the past 18 months or so has also seen a welcome resurgence of strike action and social conflicts in many different countries around the world, representing a new, different and exciting period.

With the onset of the global financial crisis at the beginning of the 21st century there had already been a comeback of strikes and labour struggles in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, as well as a series of strikes against austerity in Western Europe. While the level of workers’ resistance was generally not sustained for long, there were elements of the global crisis that continued to create widespread anger and radicalisation, with an increasing political generalisation about the system of capitalism and the problems it creates, particularly among young people shaped by social movements such as Black Lives Matter, #MeToo and climate protests.

And more recently there has been a new upsurge of angry and defiant strike movements at varying levels of intensity and momentum in numerous countries, including France, Britain, Greece, Portugal, Belgium, United States, Canada, Sri Lanka, South Africa, and China, with workers rediscovering their power when they take collective action.

In France, Macron’s decision to increase the pension age sparked a huge movement and created a political crisis; amid two mass strikes around 3.5 million joined demonstrations – the largest numbers seen since the 1968 revolt. In Europe more generally rising inflation and the cost-of-living crisis has been the stimulus - underpinned by growing anger over the impact of neoliberal austerity measures, work intensification and burn-out and other grievances - for a significant uptick in strike activity, in Britain also on a scale not seen for a generation. And in the United States, not only has the level of strike action rocketed, but wildcat action, the emergence of a new independent Amazon Labour Union and its spectacular victory in securing union recognition has sparked off strikes inside the company in other countries, including Germany, Turkey and elsewhere globally.

The revival of such strike activity has contributed to an undermining of the long predominant view that such action was no longer feasible due to widespread structural changes in the composition of the working class towards ‘precarious’, insecure and fragmented work contexts that make trade unionism and collective action near impossible.

Notwithstanding such developments considerable weaknesses have also become evident. These include the continuing way in which the existing bureaucratic structures of trade union and labour/socialist party organisations have often acted as constraints on the strike momentum, with few disputes resulting in outright victories for workers in many countries. And despite a surge of union membership in some disputes, this has generally not arrested the overall continuing reduction of union membership levels and density inside the working-class movement. Only a small fraction of young workers are members of unions, and union presence tends to remain primarily located in the public sector, with membership levels in new areas of the economy extremely low. At the same time, workplace union organisation has remained weak and generally lacking in confidence to act independently of official union channels.

In the light of such developments, we invite contributions to the 6th International Association of Strikes and Social Conflicts Conference in February 2014 that explore the nature, dynamics, trajectory, limits and potential, and implications of such strikes. As well as both empirical studies and/or analytical interpretations, we would also invite papers not merely on contemporary developments, but also comparative and historical studies that reflect on recent developments in the light of different struggles in the same or other countries and/or time periods.

Potential (but not exclusive) related topics are:

  • The different sectors and varied occupational composition of strikers, involving traditional industrial workers and public services, as well as new areas of employment such as platform work, retail, logistics (including Amazon)
  • Participation and prominence of women strikers, and of migrant and ethnic minority workers
  • Strike tactics, organisation and conduct (such as intermittent days of action versus indefinite strikes, mass picketing, strike committees, rank-and-file networks)
  • Role of national trade unions in initiating and constraining action
  • The role of the labour, socialist and social-democratic parties (often at best irrelevant to the strikes and sometimes openly antagonistic)
  • Extent of development of grassroots independent forms of workers’ organisation inside existing unions
  • Involvement of newer independent radical union-led strikes
  • Links between trade unions and broader social movements
  • Nature of counter-mobilisation by employers, government and local and state authorities, and degree of authoritarian repression of working-class protests

Please note we would also encourage proposed conference papers on any other general aspect of strike activity in specific countries in/across the 20th and 21st centuries.

Conference abstracts of between 200-500 words should be sent by the deadline of Friday 10 November 2023 to: iassc.conference2024@gmail.com

Papers presented at the conference will be considered for publication in the Association’s journal Workers of the World.

PTO

No Conference Fees

The conference fee (including all light refreshments and buffet lunches for the duration of the conference will be met by the organisers.

Travel and Accommodation

But conference participants will be expected to cover their own travel and accommodation costs.

Travel from Cape Town International airport

The best way to travel from the airport to the hotel is via Uber. This should cost around R200/10 USD/9 Euro (one-way).

Conference venue

The conference will be held at the Fountains Hotel  in the CBD in Cape Town. We would prefer participants to book accommodation at this hotel. A special rate has been negotiated @ R1540/80$/76 Euro per night. There are plenty of alternative options for accommodation for those who want to stay elsewhere.

Cultural Programme

*A conference dinner is planned at the Bo-Kaap Kombuis for the 5th February. Fee @R0.

* A group tour to the Slave Lodge is on the 6th February. Entrance fee @R60/3USD/3 Euro

* An evening trip to Table Mountain on the 6th February. Fee @R360/18USD/17 Euro return trip.

* There will be a photo exhibition of the struggle against apartheid organised by South African History Online.

* There will be a book stall organised by the South African, left-wing publisher, Jacana Media.

We are looking forward to meeting and engaging with you!

Salió el n° 23 de Archivos de historia del movimiento obrero y la izquierda

1 month 4 weeks ago

 

 

 

 

https://www.archivosrevista.com.ar   ISSN: 2313-9749 | ISSN en línea: 2683-9601

 

Índice

  • Presentación, Hernán Camarero

Dossier: “Notas sobre salud, cuerpo y sexualidad en el movimiento anarquista transnacional”

  • Presentación del dossier, Natalia Ledesma Prietto 
  • Defendería la pureza de mi sangre con un Colt”. Discrepancias sobre la vacuna en el anarquismo rioplatense, Sebastián Stavisky
  • La medicina natural contra el Estado sanitario: redes e intersecciones entre los movimientos anarquistas y naturistas en Chile (1920-1940), Eduardo Godoy Sepúlveda y Diego Mellado Gómez
  • Contra los celos. Una mirada anarquista en clave transnacional, Nadia Ledesma Prietto

Artículos libres

  • Los maestros socialistas: en defensa de la escuela laica, Laura Graciela Rodríguez
  • Mujeres en la resistencia vasca contra el franquismo (1965-1975). Un acercamiento desde la subjetivación política, Xavier Mínguez Alcaide
  • La biblioteca del PRT-ERP: militancia revolucionaria y circulación transnacional de libros durante los largos años 1960, Lucas Duarte
  • Antonio Caparrós y Ernesto Guevara: las relaciones entre la psicología crítica y el conflicto interno del comunismo, Miguel Huertas-Maestro

Crítica de libros

  • Nancy Fraser. Capitalismo Caníbal. Qué hacer con este sistema que devora la democracia y el planeta y hasta pone en peligro su propia existencia, por Paula Varela
  • Juan Sebastián Califa y Mariano Millán. Resistencia, rebelión y contrarrevolución, por Martín Mangiantini
  • Milcíades Peña. Debates sobre la burguesía argentina, la liberación nacional y el peronismo, por Brenda Hamilton
  • Andrea Andújar, Laura Caruso y Silvana Palermo (comps.). Género, trabajo y política. Experiencia, sociabilidad y protesta en la Argentina del siglo XX, por Juan Manuel Soria

 

 

 

Archivos de historia del movimiento obrero y la izquierda, revista de acceso abierto, es una publicación científica de historia social, política, cultural e intelectual, que tiene como objetivo impulsar la investigación, la revisión y la actualización del conocimiento sobre la clase trabajadora, el movimiento obrero y las izquierdas, tanto a nivel nacional como internacional, propiciando el análisis comparativo. Es una publicación semestral (marzo-agosto y septiembre-febrero) y todos sus artículos son sometidos a referato externo con el sistema doble ciego. Las colaboraciones deben ser originales y no estar sometidas simultáneamente a evaluación en ninguna otra publicación.

 

Archivos de historia del movimiento obrero y la izquierda se encuentra indizada en el Núcleo Básico de Revistas Científicas Argentinas, en SCOPUSERIH PLUS (European Reference Index for the Humanities and Social Sciences), en Dialnet (Universidad de La Rioja), en el catálogo 2.0 de Latindex, en CLASE (Citas Latinoamericanas en Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, dependiente de la UNAM), en el DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) y en la REDIB (Red Iberoamericana de Innovación y Conocimiento Científico). También es parte de las siguientes bases de datos, indexaciones y directorios: EuroPub, Journal TOCsMALENA (CAICYT); BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine); CIRC (Clasificación Integrada de Revistas Científicas, de España); MIAR (Matriz de Información para el Análisis de Revistas, Universitat de Barcelona); BIBLAT (Bibliografía Latinoamericana en revistas de investigación científica y social, UNAM); BINPAR (Bibliografía Nacional de Publicaciones Periódicas Registradas); REDLATT (Red Latinoamericana del Trabajo y Trabajadores); Latinoamericana (Asociación de revistas académicas de humanidades y ciencias sociales) y LatinREV (Red Latinoamericana de Revistas Académicas en Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades de FLACSO Argentina). El CEHTI es miembro de la International Association of Labour History Institutions (IALHI).

Archivos es una publicación del Centro de Estudios Históricos de los Trabajadores y las Izquierdas (CEHTI)

Director y Editor Responsable: Hernán Camarero

Secretarios de Redacción: Diego Ceruso y Martín Mangiantini

CfP: The Archival is Political 

1 month 4 weeks ago

 

 

This issue of Rejoinder addresses the power and politics of the archive as an object of fascination for feminist/queer scholars and activists. Carolyn Steedman states that “you find nothing in the Archive but stories caught half way through: the middle of things; discontinuities” (2002, 45), while Gracen Brilmyer argues that archives are assemblages of “people, places, policies, attitudes, environments, and materials across time” (2018, 98). At the same time that archives can be sites of radical hope for the preservation of the histories of women, queer folks, people of color, and otherwise marginalized groups, they are also institutions that have historically enacted immense violence. As Saidiya Hartman asks: “is it possible to exceed or negotiate the constitutive limits of the archive?” (2008, 11). In other words, what is the past, present, and future of feminist and queer archival practice? 

 

We invite interdisciplinary submissions that address the “archival turn” in feminist and queer studies. Submissions may include essays, commentary, criticism, fiction, poetry, and artwork from any discipline. We particularly welcome work that connects archival practice to activism, whether this be archival collections focused on activist history or archival collection as a political project for historical redress. Other topics may include digital archives, fictional archives, archival silences and violence, archival management, and information sciences. Together these contributions will reflect the contradictions of, and aspirations for, feminist and queer archives. 

For manuscript preparation details, please see our website at: https://irw.rutgers.edu/about-rejoinder. Rejoinder is published by the Institute for Research on Women at Rutgers University in partnership with The Feminist Art Project. 

 

This special issue of Rejoinder will be edited by Alexandra Southgate (Temple University). Please send completed written work (2,000-2,500 words max), jpegs of artwork, and short bios to irw@sas.rutgers.edu with “Rejoinder Submission” in the subject line by December 15, 2023. 

CfP: Afro-Américas: raça, trabalho e direitos

2 months ago

Além de artigos (em português, espanhol ou inglês) em fluxo contínuo, resenhas e entrevistas, Mundos do Trabalho está com chamada aberta de artigos para o dossiê temático indicado abaixo.

Título do dossiê: Afro-Américas: raça, trabalho e direitos.

Organização: Iacy Maia Mata (UFBA), Ynaê Lopes dos Santos (UFF) e Waldomiro Lourenço da Silva Júnior (UFSC).

Submissões inéditas em português, inglês ou espanhol até o dia 1 de agosto de 2024.

Descrição

A construção da ideia de raça e o racismo antinegro, que atravessam o continente americano, têm sido investigados em trabalhos que analisam escravidão, liberdade, processos de racialização, mobilização política e lutas por direitos. Embora haja um interesse crescente nessas áreas de pesquisa, ainda há amplo espaço para expandir e aprofundar nosso entendimento sobre esses complexos temas. Em parceria com o GT Mundos do Trabalho, o GT Afro-Américas convida para publicação no Dossiê Afro-Américas: raça, trabalho e direitos. Serão bem-vindos artigos que abordem o entrelaçamento entre raça, racismo e relações de trabalho, na escravidão e na liberdade, nas Américas.

Tópicos de interesse

Encorajamos a submissão de artigos que abordem uma variedade de tópicos relacionados a essa temática, incluindo, mas não se limitando a: 

  • Racialização e escravidão: como a construção da ideia de raça influenciou a instituição da escravidão nas Américas e como as categorias raciais foram utilizadas para justificar a exploração. 
  • Lutas por liberdade e direitos: as lutas históricas afro-americanas por liberdade e reconhecimento de direitos, destacando os desafios enfrentados e as estratégias adotadas. 
  • Racismo e relações de trabalho no pós-emancipação: como o racismo persistiu nas relações de trabalho após a abolição da escravidão, impactando o acesso ao emprego, a mobilidade social e as oportunidades econômicas.  
  • Mobilização política e ativismo: o papel das organizações e associações afro-americanas e suas lutas políticas ao longo da história, incluindo o ativismo pelos direitos civis e econômicos.
  • Intelectualidade negra: as contribuições intelectuais, culturais e acadêmicas das comunidades afro-americanas e racializadas, destacando movimentos intelectuais e suas influências na sociedade.

CfP: Children, Dependency, and Emotions in the Early Modern World, 1500-1800: Archival and Visual Narratives

2 months ago

Conference:                                                                                                     

 

12th-14th September 2024, Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies.

Call for Papers                                                                         

Children in the early modern world were dependent upon caretakers in many ways: physically, socially, and emotionally. Children could also be subjected to and negotiated social and economic dependencies, including conditions of serfdom, indentured labour, servitude, slavery, and family ties. Highly mobile, children were traded and trafficked between households, across cultural boundaries, and over land and oceans. These experiences could be exacerbated through considerations of gender and (premediated) sexuality. Wedged between these intersections of power, space, and (in)visibility, children have frequently been neglected in history writing, with their limited traces in archives contributing to this marginalisation. Following recent calls for praxeological approaches, global history, and the history of material culture, their silences are beginning to break.

 

We wish to foreground children’s representations, articulations, and their experiences in archival and visual narratives as modes of overcoming their assumed absences in the historical record. Children shaped dependent relationships, not least in their capacity as future adults. A child’s entry into strong asymmetrical dependencies may have been involuntary but they needed to adapt. Processes of adaptation, negotiation, and rejection, in turn, stabilised and destabilised dependencies. Under strong and enduring forms of asymmetrical dependency (i.e. chattel plantation slavery), enslaved children were paradoxically first treated as incomplete units of labour, but upon reaching physical maturity encountered a state of permanent infantilisation through calculated deprivation by enslavers. Accounting for both the violence of strong asymmetrical dependency and its archives, while recovering children’s agency, is a challenge for historians.

 

It is the aim of this conference to conceive of children not as isolated, ‘minor’ subjects in history but as seminal agents. We welcome papers that:

  • Explore the experiences of dependent children in the early modern world through novel approaches, particularly that of the history of emotions and/or microhistory;
  • Consider the gendered dimensions and gendered disparities of childhood experiences;
  • Interrogate institutional frameworks of slavery, dependency, serfdom, capitalism, and the family from the ground up;
  • Investigate archival and visual sources that recover child-authored narratives and early modern discourses about children, childhood and infantilisation; and
  • Interpret how these narratives may have reinforced or challenged dependent relationships, communities, and spaces.

 

 

The conference probes the possibility of an integrative global approach to the history of children in the early modern world. We welcome examples of research on all world regions, including indigenous studies and the history of borderlands. We also encourage interdisciplinary contributions and creative theoretical engagements.

 

We welcome submissions from advanced doctoral students, early career researchers, and senior scholars. Please submit your abstracts of ca. 300 words along with a short biographical note to earlymodern@dependency.uni-bonn.de by 1st December 2023. The conference will take place in person in Bonn and limited travel funding may be available for speakers. Please indicate in your submission if you require funding. Successful applicants will be notified by 30th December 2023.

 

This conference is organised by the German-Australian DAAD-Universities Australia collaborative project Child Slaveries in the Early Modern World: Gender, Trauma, and Trafficking in Transcultural Perspective (1500-1800) of early career researchers from the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences of the Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, and the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies at the University of Bonn.

 

We look forward to reading your submissions!

 

Joseph Biggerstaff, Susan Broomhall, Kristie Flannery, Claudia Jarzebowski, Jessica O’Leary, and Lisa Phongsavath.

CfA: Open call for residencies - AGIT Berlin

2 months ago
About AGIT

AGIT is a public residency space which engages with the historical materials from left and social movements to address contemporary questions and present day struggles.

Our work operates across three different areas;

  • exploring movement histories and contemporary politics in Berlin and beyond;
  • developing international collaborations focused on building left history and culture;
  • experimenting with different technologies to develop ways of building and distributing open access archival collections.

Central to AGIT is a series of funded residencies, which will explore different historical materials to make critical interventions in our present. AGIT is a nascent organisation so each residency will leave something behind to help us shape the space going forward, be that a collection of material, or something else. The residences are open to individuals, groups or collectives involved in political organising, theory, cultural, artistic or technological production.

To support this work AGIT will also be engaged in creating physical collections, digital resources and open data sets around political and social histories. AGIT will build on the rich history of radical publishing, libraries, and self-archiving in the left, by developing new forms of archival dissemination, ways of making things public and building technological and social infrastructures of open-access and exchange.

AGIT runs an ad-hoc public programme that builds on the work of these residencies through activities, such as exhibitions, reading groups, work-sessions, screenings, talks, workshops, and publications.

The people involved in AGIT work on a number of ongoing open archiving and software projects; Leftove.rs digital archive and Pan.do/ra as well as supporting other archival initiatives that build collections and resources around labour and social movement histories. We will draw on this experience to collaborate and share skills and knowledge with our residents. The founders of the space are also involved in MayDay Rooms (London) and Ox2620 (Berlin). AGIT is currently a volunteer-run informal organisation supported by an advisory board of friends and supporters.

The space is also used on an ongoing basis by a number of social and labour movement groups, and self-organised education initiatives for meetings and other activities.

 

Residency Details

AGIT residencies are open in form, which means that what is produced during the residency can take any shape so long as it engages with the remit of the organisation. See past and current residency projects here

The residences are open to individuals, groups or collectives involved in political organising, theory, cultural, artistic or technological production.

AGIT residencies should work within one or across three strands of AGIT activities, listed above.

Each residency should draw on historical materials from social, left or labour movements to make critical interventions in our present. These can be digital sources or other open access collection, material from other archives, infoshops, libraries, personal collections, and some can be sourced / purchased through AGIT.

The residency can draw on your ongoing work and interests but should be a distinct project for the time you are at AGIT. 

AGIT is a public facing organisation so each residency should have an element that addresses the public (such as an exhibition, event, publication etc). AGIT is a nascent organisation so each residency will leave something behind to help us shape the space going forward, be that a collection of material, or something else. 

The timeframe of the residency can be up to a year however we would expect this to be shorter than this. Minimum timeframe would be a month, but this would include much more intensive working. At the start of each residency we would expect each person or group to provide a rough time frame and outline of intent. We understand that this can change over the course of the residency. 

AGIT works in English and German. 

The open call is for one residency. We would like to keep applications on file for future residencies and opportunities. Please let us know if you don't want yours to be kept.
 

How we will support the residency: 
  1. The fees for the residency is 4000 €. It is open how you spend the fee, it could be as a solo fee, on production costs, to bring in other people etc. 
  2. Space at Nansenstrasse 2 (office, front room, events room and kitchen). Residents are able to use the space throughout their residency. There are other social movement groups that use the other spaces for meetings in the evening and sometimes as a work space, so use of the other rooms is not exclusive. Exhibitions and displays in the front rooms should be able to coexist with others in the space. 
  3. Accommodation for the residency at a one bed flat nearby. This accommodation would have to fit in with other residencies.
  4. Support in sourcing material and developing a collection around the residency. The people involved in AGIT work on a number of ongoing open archiving and software projects; Leftove.rs digital archive and Pan.do/ra as well as supporting other archival initiatives that build collections and resources around radical, labour and social movement histories. We will draw on this experience to collaborate and share skills and knowledge with residents.
  5. Support with production, printing, design, websites, exhibitions, recording etc. 
  6. Ongoing check-ins and discussion throughout the residency.
  7. Use of AGIT infrastructure: email, server space, website, software, publicity and networks.
  8. Support with building partnerships with other organisations. 

 

How To Apply:
  1. Please send in a 500 word proposal outline what you would like to use the residency for and how you would spend the fee. Remember that the residency should have a public element and your proposal should include this. Please also include when you are available for the residency and how long you would like to spend at AGIT. If you do not require accommodation please also state this. 
  2. Alongside this please send examples for your previous work that is relevant to the residency, this can take the form of a CV but doesn’t have to. 

Please send you application to contact@aaagit.org

Deadline: 16th October 2023

 

We will then shortlist some applications and arrange to have a chat about the project and how it might work as a residency at AGIT. We will aim to get back to all applicants three weeks after the final deadline. 

 

https://aaagit.org/opencall-2023/

 

CfP: Travail et syndicalisme en Afrique au XXème siècle

2 months ago

Le septième numéro de Revue d’Histoire Contemporaine de l’Afrique (RHCA), à paraître à la fin de l'année 2024, sera consacré au thème « Travail et syndicalisme en Afrique au XXème siècle », sous la direction de Françoise Blum (CHS, CNRS), Ophélie Rillon (IMAF, CNRS) et Elena Vezzadini (IMAF, CNRS).

 

Un appel à contributions est lancé pour le 1er Novembre 2023. Pour voir l’appel dans son intégralité : https://oap.unige.ch/journals/rhca/announcement/view/34 

 

Calendrier prévisionnel :

 

1 novembre 2023 : date limite d’envoi des propositions d’articles inédits, une page maximum en français ou en anglais 

 

5 novembre 2023 : notification aux auteur.e.s des propositions retenues.

 

10 janvier 2024 : date limite d’envoi des articles rédigés (50 000 signes maximum).

 

Fin d’année 2024 : parution du dossier

CfP: Reflections from the archives 50 years after the Coup d’Etat in Chile

2 months ago

November 22, 2023 - Online format

The CIDOC Research and Documentation Center of the Finis Terrae University opens the call for papers for the seminar "Reflections from the archives 50 years after the Coup d'état in Chile". This instance aims to promote the meeting, discussion and exchange of experiences from the archives -understanding these from their definition as documents and institutions-, emphasizing their contextual probative and informative value, expanding their historical and social visibility, their relationship with the reconstruction of memory and their revision from the perspective of the field of research.

After the seminar, the participants will be asked to send their papers in article format to be evaluated and, in compliance with the editorial requirements, they may be published in a dossier of Amoxtli, academic journal of the Faculty of Humanities and Communications of the Finis Terrae University.

The seminar is an open and free activity, which brings together researchers, students, institutions and archivists oriented to the discussion of the following thematic axes:

-Suppression and rescue of archives: the cases of organizations of resistance and State repression
-Resignification of archives in their role of reconstruction of historical memory
-Documents in exile: international coordination and collaboration
-Personal archives and testimonials
-Access to Information: Human Rights, truth and justice
-Education and archives: new approaches, knowledge and historical perspectives

Programming

- October 13: final deadline for proposals submission.
- October 25: the accepted proposals are reported and the final program is published.
- November 22: holding the meeting in online format. Each presentation will have a duration of 15 minutes.
Registrations

Those interested should send an email indicating their personal data and institutional affiliation. Additionally, it is requested to send a summary of the presentation of 250 words and 3 key concepts. Proposals must be sent to cidoc@uft.cl or svaldebenito@uft.cl and will be evaluated by a commission made up of CIDOC members.

For a new Anarchist Center in Lisbon (Portugal)

2 months ago

Three collectives that belong to the history of Portuguese anarchism – Centro de Cultura Libertária, BOESG (library) and A Batalha (newspaper) – got together to buy a new Anarchist Center in the Lisbon region: a common space, open to old and new collectives, that will rid us, once and for all, of the pressure brought about by gentrification and real estate. The new Anarchist Center will be a social center but will also host the relevant archives and libraries of the three collectives. In the coming months, we will be hosting a massive fundraising campaign, and we are asking for the contribution of all persons and collectives solidary to the anarchist cause.

 

 

For a new Anarchist Center in Lisbon!

The space that the Centro de Cultura Libertária (CCL) has occupied and rented for almost 50 years is again in danger. The continuous pressure exerted by gentrification and the real estate market, which has lead to the eviction of so many people and associations and forced them to leave the city centers, targets the CCL again, this time with definitive force: after years of threats and eviction processes that we resisted, in March 2024, the CCL will have to definitively leave its historic headquarters in Cacilhas (Almada, Portugal).

We want a space that serves not only the CCL but also the Portuguese anarchist community, a space protected from new threats of eviction, that belongs to us. For this reason, the collective of the centenarian newspaper A Batalha and the collective of the Observatório dos Estragos da Sociedade Organizada Library (BOESG) decided to join their efforts with the CCL for the acquisition of a joint space that would be a new Anarchist Center in the Lisbon area. This will be a space that houses the CCL library, archive and bookshop, as well as the important collections of BOESG and A Batalha; a space for the diffusion and protection of anarchist culture that has as its objective the recovery and protection of memory, a meeting place to promote anarchist ideas; a space open to new and old collectives that want to make use of it.

In the coming months, we will multiply fundraising initiatives and call on all charitable people and collectives to contribute through donations, holding events and publicising the campaign. We know that we have a difficult task ahead of us, but we believe that through the strength of many, working together and through anarchist solidarity, we will be able to bring this idea to a successful conclusion.

Bank account details for donations:
Account Holder: CENTRO DE CULTURA LIBERTÁRIA
IBAN: PT50003501790000215493029
BIC/SWIFT: CGDIPTPL

Crowdfunding: https://whydonate.com/en/fundraising/anarchistcenter

Liberapay: https://liberapay.com/CCL/donate

Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/cculturalibertaria

* * * *

https://www.facebook.com/jornalabatalha
https://www.instagram.com/jornalabatalha/
https://culturalibertaria.blogspot.com
https://www.instagram.com/centroculturalibertaria/
https://www.facebook.com/Biblioteca.BOESG/

Women Who Invented the Sixties:  Ella Baker, Jane Jacobs, Rachel Carson and Betty Friedan

2 months ago

The American Labor Museum hosts “Women Who Invented the Sixties:  Ella Baker, Jane Jacobs, Rachel Carson and Betty Friedan”  Hybrid Book Talk with author Steve Golin on October 21st at 2PM

 

Haledon, New Jersey – On Saturday, October 21st, 2023 at 2:00 PM and in honor of National Arts and Humanities Month, the American Labor Museum/Botto House National Landmark cordially invites the general public to the Museum for a book talk with Steve Golin, author of Women Who Invented the Sixties:  Ella Baker, Jane Jacobs, Rachel Carson and Betty Friedan (University Press of Mississippi, 2022).  This is program is hybrid (in-person and via ZOOM.)

 

While there were many protests in the 1950s—against racial segregation, economic inequality, urban renewal, McCarthyism, and the nuclear buildup—the movements that took off in the early 1960s were qualitatively different. They were sustained, not momentary; they were national, not just local; they changed public opinion, rather than being ignored. Women Who Invented the Sixties tells the story of how four women helped define the 1960s and made a lasting impression for decades to follow.

 

In 1960, Ella Baker played the key role in the founding of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which became an essential organization for students during the civil rights movement and the model for the antiwar and women’s movements. In 1961, Jane Jacobs published The Death and Life of Great American Cities, changing the shape of urban planning irrevocably. In 1962, Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, creating the modern environmental movement. And in 1963, Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique, which sparked second-wave feminism and created lasting changes for women. Their four separate interventions helped, together, to end the 1950s and invent the 1960s.

                            

Steve Golin, Ph.D., taught history at Kansas State University and Bloomfield College. As a scholar, he combines his training in the history of ideas with his interest in social history. A lifelong activist, he focuses his writing on social movements.

 

The Botto House National Landmark, home of the American Labor Museum, is located at 83 Norwood St., Haledon, New Jersey.  It was the meeting place for over 20,000 silk mill workers during the 1913 Paterson Silk Strike.  The Museum offers a free lending library, restored period rooms, changing exhibits, Museum Store, Old World Gardens, educational programs and special events.  For further information and to receive the ZOOM link, please call the Museum at (973) 595-7953 or email labormuseum@gmail.com

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