Social and Labour History News

Berlin, 13-15 February 2025

Center for Research on Antisemitism, Technische Universität Berlin (ZfA TU Berlin) and FernUniversität in Hagen are pleased to invite applications for a research workshop entitled “Political Utilization of the Term of ‘Genocide’ in the Former Soviet Sphere of Influence: Legal and Historical-Political Discourses.” The workshop is scheduled for February 13–14, 2025 in person (up to 12 participants), held at the Berlin Campus of the Hagen University, and on 15. February 2025 online.

Programm

The naming of a mass crime as “genocide” is a political issue and has long gone beyond the dimension of international law. Increasingly in recent years, political actors in the states of the former Soviet Union and the satellite states have been drawing comparisons with the present by referring to historical violence described as genocidal. For years, Putin’s regime in the Russian Federation has used trumped-up accusations of genocide as a means of political pressure. The newly invented concept of the “Genocide of Peoples of the USSR” during World War II is used in Russia to declare the Soviet population the main victims of the Nazis. At the same time, Vladimir Putin’s conduct of the war in Ukraine is being tried in The Hague as genocidal. His conduct of the war was also one of the reasons why the German Bundestag subsequently recognized the Holodormor as genocide after parliamentarians had twice rejected a petition on the matter in previous years.
In response to civil protests in the summer of 2020, the Belarusian regime developed a historical-political project around the “Genocide of the Belarusian People” in World War II in order to create a national identity after the brutal suppression of demonstrations. Both regimes share a common rhetoric of the inevitability of struggle with a “collective West,” which had already gone to war against the USSR in 1941 and is now attacking Russia again in Ukraine.
The use of the term “genocide” in state rhetoric can also be observed in other former Eastern Bloc countries. For example, in Poland, the massacre committed by Ukrainian nationalists against Polish civilians in Volyn during World War II is called “genocide.” In 2023, the spokesperson for the Polish Foreign Ministry demanded that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy apologize to his Polish counterpart. Especially in the successor states of the former western Soviet republics, such as the Baltic states and Ukraine, the term “genocide” is used to describe Stalinist crimes. The fact that the experience of the Soviet occupation must also be part of the European culture of remembrance was demonstrated by the European Parliament, which established 23 August as a pan-European day of remembrance for the victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes. The examination of Soviet crimes from a post-colonial perspective can also be observed in other former Soviet republics such as Kazakhstan.
The workshop aims to discuss the usage in political rhetoric and (pseudo)-academic writings references to mass violence as an act of “genocide” in the states of former Soviet sphere of influence. Topics of presentations may include, while not being limited to, the following:
- international relations and political motivation for recognition or denial of genocides;
- historical justification for ongoing genocide recognitions;
- role of witnesses in contemporary legal and historical processes related to “genocide” and mass atrocities;
- role of current court processes in the public domestic and international sphere;
- scholars and activists as actors in the politics of history, especially in relation to the recognition and commemoration of genocides;
- recognition or denial of “genocides” in the Eastern Bloc countries after the adoption of the Genocide Convention in 1948;
- status of the victim of genocide in Eastern European politics, both domestically and in international relations.
We welcome presentations at all career stages, particularly (but not exclusively) from the fields of history, cultural anthropology, ethnology, cultural studies, Eastern European studies, Slavic studies, literary studies, social sciences, law, and related disciplines. Proposals should be submitted in English and include an abstract up to 250 words and a short biographical note (approximately 100 words) by October 31, 2024. Please submit your application at https://forms.gle/e89ioSf3v9qJkTCB6. Applicants will be notified by November 30, 2024.
The workshop organizers are Dr. Irina Rebrova, researcher at ZfA TU Berlin, Alfred Landecker lecturer, and Gundula Pohl, researcher and PhD candidate at the department of Public History, FernUniversität in Hagen. The workshop will be conducted in English. The organizers will provide accommodations (one night in Berlin) and most meals. Travel expenses will be reimbursed up to a maximum of 130 euros. Given our tight financial constraints, we would appreciate, if you could explore alternative funding options for your participation in the workshop. We aim to publish successful presentations in a peer-reviewed volume after the workshop. If you have any questions, please contact Irina Rebrova or Gundula Pohl via workshop.genocidestudies@gmail.com. This workshop is made possible by financial support of Alfred Landecker Foundation and Zeitlehren Foundation.

Kontakt

workshop.genocidestudies@gmail.com

Coimbra/Portugal, 9-12 September 2025

The European Rural History Organisation (EURHO) announces the Call for Sessions for its next conference in Coimbra (Portugal), 9-12 September 2025.

Rural History 2025

The 7th Biennial Conference of the European Rural History Organisation (EURHO) continues the tradition of the EURHO conferences, held before in Bern (2013), Girona (2015), Leuven (2017), Paris (2019), Uppsala (2021/22) and Cluj (2023).

The EURHO Rural History Conferences have provided a welcoming atmosphere to present the results of already consolidated projects or to test exploratory ideas. The study of rural and agrarian past has involved researchers and students from different disciplines. Historical perspectives have usually been shared with anthropologists, archaeologists, architects, economists, geographers, linguists, sociologists and, recently, biologists, geneticists and chemists. Following the trends of previous conferences, Rural History 2025 in Coimbra would like to receive proposals for sessions and papers that cross analytical perspectives, interdisciplinary methodologies and new scientific objects. The current challenges facing science and society call for new contributions from scholars working on different perspectives of our rural and agrarian past. The Organising Committee encourages the submission of proposals that promote in-depth and pluralistic analyses, dealing with any chronology or territory.

Sessions will be led by a chair or by a chair and a discussant, and will have at least three papers. Each session organisers can decide the maximum number of papers in their panels, although the organising committee recommend no more than 5 proposals for each session, as it will take up two hours. If necessary, the possibility of double sessions could be considered, at the request of those interested, if the space availability allows it.

You can submit your session proposals until 30 September 2024. A session proposal must include: title, name and affiliation of the organiser and co-organisers (up to three researchers), and an abstract (300-500 words) introducing the topic, its scope and approach. Also, the information of at least three papers should be included to ensure the viability of the panel. For each of them, the name and affiliation of the authors and a short abstract (150-200 words) is necessary. After the call for session deadline, if your panel is accepted, it will be open for proposals during the call for papers, as in previous editions of the conference. Participants may not propose more than two paper presentations at the conference sessions.

We also are open to proposals for meet-the-author sessions and the new meet-the-project sessions, to present recently published books or newly approved research projects. In this case, commentators or discussants should be included, besides the author.

Go to submission system at the Conference Website: https://ruralhistory2025.org/call-for-sessions-submission/

Call for Sessions at the Conference Website: https://ruralhistory2025.org/call-for-sessions/

Kontakt

Dulce Freire and Carlos Manuel Faísca, e-mail: ruralhistory2025@gmail.com

https://ruralhistory2025.org/

Warsaw/Poland, 2-3 Feburary 2025

The interdisciplinary workshop aims to bring together scholars interested in refugees and refugee policies in the context of post-Communist transformations. Against the dominant focus on emigration, we emphasise refugee reception (or refusal) in countries and places undergoing significant political, social, economic and cultural changes.

Reinventing the Refuge: Protection of Refugees in Post-Communist Countries

Exploratory workshop (Warsaw, February 3-4, 2025)

Organised by ERC Consolidator project Unlikely Refuge? Refugees and Citizens in East-Central Europe in the 20th Century, Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Czech Academy of Sciences, in cooperation with the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

The interdisciplinary workshop aims to bring together scholars interested in refugees and refugee policies in the context of post-Communist transformations. Against the dominant focus on emigration, we emphasise refugee reception (or refusal) in countries and places undergoing significant political, social, economic and cultural changes.

Economists, social scientists and historians paid much attention to the ideas behind the changes after the demise of state socialist regimes. Numerous works engage with the negative economic and social cost of the transformation and the critique of neoliberal dictates over political and social systems searching for alternatives to state socialism. Migration remained on the margins of this discussion and was often conceptualised as outmigration from the empowerished East, the “brain drain”, or examined as moral panics based on exaggerated images of masses of Eastern Europeans moving to the West.

Yet, the political re-opening and softening of borders made these countries into spaces of refuge. Reacting to people searching for protection, post-Communist countries integrated into international networks and organizations and adopted the 1951 Refugee Convention on the one hand and built national laws and institutions on the other hand. This history, however, was never systematically and comparatively analyzed, apart from isolated incidents such as those that contributed to the fall of the “Iron Curtain” (for instance the escape of East Germans to the West in 1989). The development of refugee policies in the context of post-Communist transformation still remains insufficiently researched.

The workshop aims to facilitate an exchange of ideas about these themes, discuss the first results, and identify questions, methods and research avenues. It advances a critical and multifaceted perspective and treats refugees not only as subjects of processes of transformation but also as active players within. Contributions can reflect on, but are not restricted to, the following subject areas:
- Institutions, legislation and political transformation, and relations to citizenship regimes
- Civil society, humanitarian and other non-governmental organizations
- Welfare, health care, the lens of “care”
- Media and public opinion (including approaches based on corpus linguistics)
- Internationalisation versus nationalisation in refugee policies
- Securitization, spatial management of refugees and refugee camps
- Links between labour migration and refugees and refugee status
- Refugee agency, entrepreneurship and contribution to social transformations
- Knowledge production, accessibility of sources and possible gaps in historical research

While starting from research on post-Communist transformation, we also invite comparison to changes of refugee policies in other parts of the world and other comparative cases of a declared transformation to democracy, or to discussion of longer term (dis)continuities.

We invite short papers and presentations of research projects which we will combine into panels around shared themes and questions and allow ample space for discussion. We welcome work-in-progress contributions.

The workshop will also offer an opportunity to discuss the first results of the efforts of the ERC Consolidator project Unlikely Refuge? Refugees and Citizens in East-Central Europe in the 20th Century to research and analyse refugee policies in the “long 1990s”. This will include the presentation of findings of an oral historical project during which some key actors of refugee policies and aid in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland were interviewed.

Paper/presentation proposals (max. 250 words) and short bios (max. 200 words), as well as any questions, should be directed to unref-public@mua.cas.cz.

Submission deadline: October 31, 2024

The decision on acceptance will be communicated by November 30, 2024. The organizers will provide financial support for travel and accommodation.

Kontakt

unref-public@mua.cas.cz

https://www.unlikely-refuge.eu/2024/09/03/cfp-reinventing-the-refuge/

KOPFARBEIT – Sozial- und kulturgeschichtliche Blicke auf die „andere Seite“ der Arbeit im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Neue Perspektiven auf die Gewerkschaftsgeschichte 10)

Ort: Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, Düsseldorf
Datum: 13.-14. November 2025
Deadline für die Einreichung der Abstracts: 15. Januar 2025
Organisationsteam: Knud Andresen (Hamburg), Franziska Rehlinghaus (Göttingen), Désirée Schauz (Karlsruhe)

Für die Labour History ist die körperliche Arbeit in Produktionsprozessen der Industriemoderne auch heute noch einer der zentralen Bezugspunkte für die Beschreibung des historischen Wandels der Arbeitswelt. Der „Abschied vom Malocher“ „jenseits von Kohle und Stahl“ wurde damit überwiegend als Geschichte der einschneidenden Veränderung einer alten Form der Erwerbsarbeit beschrieben. Im Gegenzug reüssierten bereits vor fünfzig Jahren Konzepte wie die „Dienstleistungs-“ oder „Wissensgesellschaft“, mit denen Expert:innen bis heute den Strukturwandel am Bedeutungsgewinn der sogenannten Kopfarbeit festzumachen versuchen. Als Gegenbegriff zur „Handarbeit“ blieb das Konzept der Kopfarbeit bislang allerdings vage. Welche Phänomene beschreibt der Begriff der Kopfarbeit eigentlich? Was kennzeichnet die durch sie erzeugten Produkte und Dienstleistungen? Und wie lassen sich Kopfarbeiter:innen sozial und politisch in der Geschichte vom 19. bis ins 21. Jahrhundert verorten?

Die Reihe „Neue Perspektiven auf die Gewerkschaftsgeschichte“ nimmt sich dieser Fragen auf einer Tagung zum Thema Kopfarbeit vom 13. bis zum 14. November 2025 in Düsseldorf an. Die Tagung möchte ausloten, welche Potenziale die Beschäftigung mit „Kopfarbeit“ für eine Geschichte der Arbeit bietet. Die Beitragsvorschläge sollten sich auf eine oder mehrere der vier folgenden Perspektiven beziehen.

1. Auf der Tagung soll diskutiert werden, wie sich das Konzept der Kopfarbeit und Parallelbegriffe wie die Geistes- oder Wissensarbeit seit dem 19. Jahrhundert wandelten, welche Menschen und welche Tätigkeitsformen hierunter subsummiert und mit welchen Wertvorstellungen und gesellschaftlichen Funktionsbeschreibungen die Begriffe aufgeladen wurden. Während sich die begriffliche Unterscheidung zwischen geistiger und körperlicher Arbeit bis ins 19. Jahrhundert zurückverfolgen lässt, scheinen sich die Grenzziehungen zwischen beiden Konzepten und ihre Definitionen im Laufe des 20. Jahrhunderts immer wieder verschoben zu haben. In den 1920er Jahren zählten zu den Geistesarbeiter:innen noch vorrangig Wissenschaftler:innen, Intellektuelle und Künstler:innen. Mit den Debatten über den Wandel hin zur „Wissensgesellschaft“ wurde die geistige Arbeit seit den 1960er Jahren zu einer viel umfassenderen Kategorie, die nun weitere Personengruppen inkludierte und sich dabei auch demokratisierte. Für das sozialistische Staatsverständnis, das der industriellen Handarbeit eine herausgehobene Bedeutung zumaß, stellte die „Intelligenz“ und damit die Kopfarbeit allerdings eine ideologische Herausforderung dar. Fremd- und Selbstbeschreibungen wichen mitunter voneinander ab.
Aus einer genderhistorischen Perspektive ist zu fragen, inwieweit sich im Zuge des semantischen Wandels auch Geschlechterzuschreibungen veränderten. Begriffs- und diskursgeschichtliche Untersuchungen können hier ebenso Aufschluss geben wie ikonographische Ansätze, die sich mit bildlichen und medialen Repräsentationen von Arbeit auseinandersetzen. Die Kämpfe um die Grenzziehungen zwischen geistiger und körperlicher Arbeit und ihre Fluidität werden dabei besonders zu diskutieren sein.

2. In wirtschafts- und sozialgeschichtlicher Perspektive ist von Interesse, welche Berufe, Tätigkeitsfelder und Wirtschaftssektoren der Kopfarbeit im historischen Wandel analytisch zugeordnet werden können. Welche Bereiche lassen sich neben Forschung und Entwicklung, Medien- und Kreativwirtschaft als typisch für „Kopfarbeit“ ausmachen? Wie verhält sich die Kopfarbeit zur etablierten Unterscheidung zwischen Angestellten und Arbeiter:innen? Gibt es Tätigkeitsfelder, die sich beispielsweise durch die Computerisierung von der Hand- zur Kopfarbeit gewandelt haben? Wo entstanden gänzlich neue Berufe? Welche Anforderungen wurden an Kopfarbeiter:innen in Bezug auf ihre Ausbildung, Kompetenzen und Qualifikationen gestellt, und welche Normen wurden hierfür entwickelt? Lassen sich die von den Sozialwissenschaften identifizierten neuen Sozialfiguren wie der IT-Spezialist, die Beraterin oder der Coach dem Konzept der Kopfarbeit zuordnen?

3. Für den Übergang von der Industrie- zur Wissensgesellschaft wurden ursprünglich vor allem die technologischen Revolutionen im Informations- und Kommunikationsbereich als treibende Kraft angesehen. Aus praxeologischer Sicht stellt sich die Frage, wie die neuen Technologien und die fortschreitende Digitalisierung im letzten Drittel des 20. Jahrhunderts die Praktiken des Arbeitens und ihre Organisation in materieller, räumlicher und zeitlicher Dimension verändert haben. Die Digitalisierung transformierte nicht zuletzt auch die industrielle Produktion und deren Arbeitsprozesse, in deren Folge eine neue Flexibilität des Arbeitens und Denkens gefordert wurde. Hier werden Beiträge gewünscht, die sich der Frage widmen, wie sich in diesem Prozess das Verhältnis von körperlicher und geistiger Arbeit neu bestimmte.

4. Die Geschichte der Arbeit geht traditionell der Frage nach, wie Arbeit und Beruf die soziale und politische Verortung von Individuen prägten. Richtet sich der Blick auf die bislang wenig erforschte Kopfarbeit, so besteht die Herausforderung, herauszufinden, ob sich gemeinsame identitätsstiftende Elemente unter Kopfarbeiter:innen ausmachen lassen. Lassen sie sich als Gruppe oder gar als Klasse mit geteilten Interessen beschreiben? Zeichneten sich die Produkte ihrer Kopfarbeit durch gemeinsame Eigenschaften aus?
Wie manifestierten sich die Versuche der kollektiven Organisation, Einbindung und Interessenvertretung, beispielsweise in Gewerkschaften, Verbänden oder Verwertungsgesellschaften? Inwieweit versuchten Gewerkschaften auf die Interessen der Kopfarbeiter:innen einzugehen? Welche spezifischen sozialen Interessen und politischen Ziele von Kopfarbeiter:innen vertraten sie, wie versuchten sie, diesen im öffentlichen Diskurs Gehör zu verschaffen, welche Konflikte traten dabei auf, und wie erfolgreich waren sie in der Durchsetzung ihrer (sozial)politischen Forderungen? Gerade in den letzten Jahren zeigen die Debatten über die ebenso freien wie prekären Arbeitsbedingungen in der Wissenschaft (#IchbinHanna), wie „klassische“ Kopfarbeiter:innen und ihre Interessenartikulation in den Fokus öffentlicher Aufmerksamkeit und politischer Maßnahmen rücken konnten.

Die Tagung ist interdisziplinär angelegt, Beiträge aus den Sozial- und Kulturwissenschaften sowie weiteren Geisteswissenschaften sind willkommen. Auch wenn der Fokus auf der deutschen bzw. der deutsch-deutschen Geschichte liegt, sind international-vergleichende Untersuchungen von Interesse. Wir bitten alle Beiträger:innen, ihren Gegenstand theoretisch bzw. methodisch zu konzeptualisieren.

Abstracts mit maximal 400 Worten und ein kurzes akademisches CV von maximal einer halben Seite sind – in einer Datei – bis zum 15. Januar 2025 an Désirée Schauz (desiree.schauz@kit.edu) oder Knud Andresen (andresen@zeitgeschichte-hamburg.de) einzureichen.

Zu- oder Absagen werden bis März 2025 versendet.

Die Tagung wird vom Kooperationsprojekt „Jüngere und jüngste Gewerkschaftsgeschichte“ der Hans-Böckler-Stiftung und der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung veranstaltet. Reisekosten und Unterkunftskosten für Vortragende werden durch die Stiftungen übernommen.

Eine Publikation zum Thema der Tagung ist angedacht.

Kontakt

Désirée Schauz: desiree.schauz@kit.edu
Knud Andresen: andresen@zeitgeschichte-hamburg.de
Franziska Rehlinghaus: franziska.rehlinghaus@uni-goettingen.de

This issue of Cadernos do Arquivo Municipal aims to reflect on European colonialism in Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries, trying to explain, through current historical knowledge, the colonial fact —one, similar, transversal in its ideas and practices— structured in different territorial and national strands, and highlighting the deconstruction of myths, ideas and theories that have succeeded each other and metamorphosed to legitimise and justify colonial violence. It is also about giving a voice to Africans, so silenced by the colonial system, by listening to their interpretations of a reality from the near past that left significant marks on their daily lives.

Relations between Europe and the African continent, marked since the 15th century by the commercial dimension, centred on the slave commodity - the enslaved African being bought and exported preferably to the Americas -, changed progressively in the 19th century, acquiring a new relational organisation from the end of the 19th century. The effective occupation of African territories by Europeans and the establishment of a complex system of exploitation of African men, land and wealth marked the colonial relations that were organised, leading to the loss of African autonomy and European domination. The European colonial system lasted for decades, fuelled by myths and ideological justifications, and marked by violent practices of exploitation and control of populations. It came to an end in the 1960s in a large part of the continent, thanks to the resistance of Africans and the ideas of freedom that were blowing through the Western world, but remained in the Portuguese case until 1974, after 13 years of war and destruction, which violently marked African territories and peoples until their national independence.

This Dossier aims to reflect on European colonialism in Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries, trying to explain, through current historical knowledge, the colonial fact - one, similar, transversal in its ideas and practices - structured in different territorial and national strands, and highlighting the deconstruction of myths, ideas and theories that have succeeded each other and metamorphosed to legitimise and justify colonial violence. It is also about giving a voice to Africans, so silenced by the colonial system, by listening to their interpretations of a reality from the near past that left significant marks on their daily lives. The end of colonialism, marked by conflicts of different kinds, the ambiguities of decolonisation and the independence of African countries, but also Africans' current interpretation of this recent historical reality, constitute the other dimension of the historiographical journey of this collective work.

1. The European Occupation of an Autonomous Africa: Exploration, Conquest, Domination (c. 1880-1930)

2. The Construction of a Mythology Legitimising Colonial Violence: Ideas and Facts (c. 1880-1930)

3. The Work of Civilisation: Religion, Instruction, Discrimination, and the Destruction of African Cultures (c. 1930-1960)

4. Colonial Exploitation: The Reorganisation of Territories, the Creation of the ‘Indigenous’ and the Violence of Labour, Taxation and Compulsory Cultures (c. 1930-1960)

5. The Voice of the Africans: Strategies, Resistances, Struggles (c. 1930-1974)

6. Late Portuguese Colonialism and the Legitimisation of Development. New Theories and Myths: Luso-Tropicalism. The ‘Make-up’ of the Colonial System and the Renewed Defence of the Empire (c. 1960-1974)

7. The Propaganda of Colonised Africa through the Image: Advertising, Cinema, Drawing, Press, Exhibitions and Literature.

8. Decolonisation and Independence: concepts, perspectives, interpretations of the processes of organising the new African states in the 1960s.  The late end of the Portuguese colonies: 1974-1975

Submission guidelines

Submission of articles and book reviews to Cadernos do Arquivo Municipal are made through the journal's e-mail: am.cadernos@cm-lisboa.pt

The call for articles for the thematic dossier “Colonising and decolonising: Europe-Africa relations in the 19th and 20th centuries” is open until

December 31, 2024.

• Original and unpublished works are accepted, based on research supported by a strong theoretical-methodological component, within the scope of the journal and relevant to a national and international audience.
• The journal accepts submissions in Portuguese, English, French and Spanish.
• All proposals for articles should be sent to am.cadernos@cm-lisboa.pt
• Cadernos do Arquivo Municipal does not charge any fees for the submission process, peer review, publication and availability of texts.

Conditions for submission

As part of the process, authors are required to check that the submission complies with all the items listed below. Submissions that do not comply with these standards will be returned to the authors.

• The paper is original, unpublished and the parts that come from other works are duly referenced. It is not under review or for publication in another journal. Otherwise, the author(s) should inform the journal editors.
• Authorship is subject to a grace period of four issues.
• Only one proposal per author and/or co-author will be accepted for a single issue and must be submitted using the submission template.
• The section for which the text is intended must be indicated: Thematic Dossier, Articles or Book Reviews.
• Authors' names, ORCIDs, affiliations (R&D centres, faculties and universities) and email addresses.
• Language of the text: Portuguese (according to the new spelling agreement), Spanish, French or English. Title, abstract and keywords in the language of the text, in English and in Portuguese.
• Limit of 10,000 words for articles and 2,000 for book reviews, including footnotes and bibliographical references.

Follow the Publication Guidelines.

Scientific coordination

Isabel Castro Henriques (Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal)

University of Fribourg/Switzerland, 12-13 June 2025

Organisers: Laure Piguet, Léa Renard & Alix Heiniger

The history of prisons is “a history of constant reform.” Since at least the beginning of the eighteenth century, these repeated transformations (desired or achieved) (Morris, Rothman, 1995, vii) have been accompanied by the production of knowledge about architecture, physical constraints on the body, gender segregation, violence, sexual practices, proximity or, conversely, “punitive” or “redemptive” isolation. Examples include the well-known surveys carried out by social reformers or parliaments, the charity society surveys and the ordinary knowledge about prisons developed and circulated by prisoners themselves. The many studies on the history of prisons all mention this very strong link between incarceration and the production of knowledge. Michel Foucault, for example, briefly analyses the investigations into prisons and prisoners carried out in France from 1801 onwards as one of the “prison’s technologies” that supported the new worldview on crime, surveillance and punishment (Foucault, 1995, 234). Jacques-Guy Petit took a passing interest in penal statistics in his book on penal incarceration in France between 1789 and 1875 (Petit, 1990, 261-266). Patricia
O’Brien considers that “at the core of the new punishment [from the early nineteenth century] was the claim to specialized knowledge made on behalf of the state” (O’Brien, 1996, 292). Yet very little research has focused specifically on this knowledge (see however Petit, 1995; Kaluszynski, 2013; Salle, 2014; Schull, 2014; Fink, 2016; Génard, Simioni, 2018; Heiniger, 2021), and even less, if any, has attempted to integrate it into the history of knowledge in general, and more specifically into the history of (social) science and statistics. Against the background of this research gap, this conference proposes to take knowledge about prisons and prisoners as an object of study. Following Christian Jacob, we define knowledge as a “the totality of the mental, discursive, technical and social procedures by which a society, and the groups and individuals that constitute it, make sense of the world around them and give themselves the means to act on it or interact with it” (Jacob, 2014, 24). Therefore, we are interested in the reflexive activities of social actors behind (or within) the history of prisons: how can the techniques of inquiry developed to learn about the realities of confinement, as well as theoretical productions on incarceration, help us to understand the perceptions and means of social order in a given period? How did these reflexive activities not only contribute to the
transformation or reproduction of social order, but also to the development of techniques of social inquiry in a broader sense? In other words, our general question is: how did prisons and prisoners contribute to the history and sociology of knowledge and science?

Proposals for contributions to the conference could address one of the following three
areas:

1. Mapping knowledge about prisons and prisoners
If John Howard’s famous survey State of the Prisons in England and Wales (1777) caught the attention of historians (McGowen, 1995, 86-87; Scheerer, 1996, 351; Petit, 1995), it appears to be an exception in the field. Indeed, surveys on prisons and prisoners are neither part of the history of empirical sociology and social surveys nor of the history of statistics. One of the aims of this conference is thus to map the body of knowledge on prisons and prisoners between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries by bringing together scholars working on this topic and encouraging new research. We seek to learn more about the producers, their motives, the results of their efforts and the impact on the reform of and knowledge about prisons in general. The aim is also to move away from a stato-centric approach to knowledge about prisons and prisoners (O’Brien, 1996, 292), and to observe the interactions between different individuals, groups, and institutions, as well as the dynamics and exchanges behind the knowledge produced (Karila-Cohen, 2010). Contributions on “militant knowledge” (Lamy, 2018), “statactivism” (Bruno, Didier, Prévieux, 2014), and on ordinary knowledge produced by prisoners themselves
would be particularly welcome.

2. Observing work in prison
One social activity that has been particularly observed in prisons is that of labour. Since the birth of modern prisons, labour has been seen – besides isolation – as the major vehicle of
inmates’ transformation and rehabilitation; a conception that is closely linked to contemporary
theories of labour which see (“free”) labour as a core societal value and a basis for individual
emancipation and social integration. Work has thus been widely implemented in prisons and
supported by different ideological or practical justifications across history (liberal, socialist,
colonial). Discourses on prison labour must be contextualized and critically questioned against
the background of “a state strategy to discipline racialized and poor segments of the population”
(LeBaron 2018, 153), both in historical and contemporary configurations (for the former, see
studies of workhouses e.g., Carré, 2016; for the latter, see Wacquant, 2009). The global history
of labour (De Vito, Lichtenstein 2013, 2015) as well as critical theory (Rusche, Kirchheimer,
1939) question the links between “theories of punishment” and “theories of labour” (Anderson,
2016). In this perspective, incarceration can be analysed both as a form of social control and as
a source of workforce (O’Brien 1982, 152ff; Stanziani, 2020). We are looking for contributions
that explore the various forms of knowledge produced on the labour-punishment-reformation
nexus2 in different historical and geographical contexts in order to deepen our understanding of
the variable functions assigned to work in prison, the functions it fulfilled, and its effects. This
includes everyday knowledge (social meaning, interpretation and routines) produced by
prisoners about their own work practices. Contributions seeking to understand the extent to
which knowledge about work in prisons might have contributed to our general knowledge about
work will be particularly valued.

3. Prisons as places of experimentation and prisoners as test subjects
Prisons and prisoners have not only been studied to produce knowledge about incarceration and
its effects, but also to obtain knowledge that can be generalised to the wider population. Maurice
Pappworth noted that “[f]or many centuries the criminal has been regarded as an ideal subject
on whom to perform medical experiments” (Pappworth, 1967, 60). Two case studies are well
known: that of the smallpox inoculations administered to six prisoners in Newgate Prison in
1721 (Behbehani, 1983, 461-462) and that of the Illinois State Penitentiary in Stateville, where
inmates were deliberately infected with malaria in 1944 by scientists from the University of
Chicago to observe the development of the disease and to test drugs (Harcourt, 2011, 443-444).
Beyond these cases, other experiments and their scale remain largely unresearched. As a matter
of fact, the literature on the history of experiments on prisoners focuses largely on the United
States (except for experiments carried out in concentration camps) (Capron, 1973; Washington,
2006; Hornblum, 1997, 2000, 2007). Allen M. Hornblum even suggested that the United States
may be the only “industrialised” country to have continued to use prisoners as test subjects after
the Second World War (Hornblum, 1998, xv). Contributions could explore the history of
experimentation on prisoners outside the United States, as well as the history of such
experimentation from the seventeenth century onwards. Contributions dealing with the impact
of these experiments, and therefore of prisoners, on the history of science (including medicine
and psychiatry) will be particularly welcome, as well as papers documenting these experiments
from the prisoners’ point of view.

Modalities of submission
Please send your abstract (up to 500 words) together with a short biographical note by 15
November 2024 to the following address: laure.piguet@unifr.ch. We will inform you about
our decisions by the end of the year. Particular attention will be paid to proposals’ novelty and
to the use of new primary sources, original methods and/or data. Whereas we accept
contributions focusing on historical configurations from the seventeenth to the twentieth
century only, there is no geographical restriction: papers focusing on all regions of the world
are welcome.

Lyon, 24-25 April 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

by Jean-Numa Ducange

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

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

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

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

La biographie référente qui faisait défaut.

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

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

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

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

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

For further information please contact:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Épilogue. Rêvons un autre monde !

Essai de tableau chronologique

Indications bibliographiques pratiques 

Index

5 encadrés :

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

by Michel Pigenet

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

200 pages

 

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

contact@editions-croquant.org

 

Sommaire :

Introduction. Des États généraux en 1945 ?  

1ère partie  Du projet à sa mise en oeuvre

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

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

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

 

2e partie  Les États généraux, mode d’emploi

 

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

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

6.      Une procédure biaisée ?

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

7.      Débats en résonance

8.      En conclave : tensions et unanimité

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

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

10.   La forme et le fond

11.   Entre progressisme social et conservatisme sociétal

12.   Du côté de la culture

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

5e Partie   Postérité

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

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

16.   Les ruptures de la guerre froide

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

 

Epilogue

 

D’hier…

 

… à aujourd’hui

Et maintenant ?

Paris, 19-21 June 2025

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

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

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

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

Several non-exclusive avenues of inquiry may be explored:

Race, nation, and immigrant labor

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

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

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

Populism, far-right, and deindustrialization

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

Practical Details

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Contact Information

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Grad Student Workshop, June 11-12, 2025

LAWCHA Conference, June 12-14, 2025

University of Chicago

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

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

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

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

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

LAWCHA 2025 Program Co-Chairs:

Lilia Fernandez, University of Illinois at Chicago

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

Conference email: LAWCHA2025@gmail.com

by Dominique Pinsolle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Something More than ‘Capital and Labour’
Ibarz Jordi

Modernising Machinery, Technological Advances and Organisational Change
Betas Thanasis

Continuity and Change in Craft Labour
Hadjittofi Petroula

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

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

 

Universität Bonn & Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies

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

Conference, Bonn, 6-8 May 2025

See the online call for papers

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

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

Conference Details

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

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

Submission Details  

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

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

Organization

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