Call for Papers: Labor and the Military
International Labor and Working-Class History (ILWCH) is planning an issue on labor and the military and invites essay proposals from those doing research in this large field.
The military and the working class have intersected in myriad ways, especially in the era of mass conscription armies. Millions of workers served in, fought in, and died in the armed services. They brought their political and cultural values into armies and their military experiences back into labor movements and working-class communities. Militaries have been large employers of civilian employees, on bases in home countries and abroad and, indirectly, in the vast armament industries. In some countries, like China and Iran, they directly control large parts of the economy, including major industrial establishments. Military employment practices have reflected and shaped civilian sector labor relations, race relations, and gender roles. Armies have been used to break strikes and labor movements and have launched coups designed to defeat left-wing and labor movements or, occasionally (as in Portugal and more recentlyVenezuela) to defeat conservative forces. Labor historia ns have not paid a great deal of attention to the military, studying a few facets of its relationship to the working class (such as the use of soldiers to break strikes) but largely or completely ignoring others. Twenty years after the end of the Cold War, war and militarism remain prominent features of both advanced industrial societies and less developed ones.
Our goal is to publish a cluster of articles (possibly including an historiographical essay) about different geographical areas or comparative studies. Possible themes and topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Class attitudes and class relations in armed forces and the politicization of armies; labor activists in the armed forces
- The recruitment of working-class women into the armed forces and auxiliaries; race and gender and the working-class military experience
- Working-class conscripts in colonial wars
- Demobilization and its impact on labor markets; veterans and veterans' organizations (including union veterans' committees)
- The labor process in the armed services (including "the work of killing"); labor battalions (for example, of Ottoman Armenians during World War I); armies as civilian employers and trends towards privatizing labor (contractors) instead of utilizing the labor of the military recruits
- Military service as a pathway to citizenship
- *Child soldiers
- Military memoirs as a genre of working-class writing - in conjunction with these one might also examine personal photographs as another form of self-representation
- The use of the military against strikes and organized labor
- Military dependents and their treatment
Those interested in participating should send in a brief synopsis of the projected essay (1-3 pages), outlining its major themes and the major archival or other sources to be used. Proposals must be received by April 5, 2010. Send proposals to [mailto]ilwch@smlr.rutgers.edu[/mailto].
We are deliberately soliciting essays on a wide range of topics and themes in order to gain a better sense of the variety of new research underway in this important area. For accepted proposals, the time frame is as follows: first drafts Aug.-Sept 2010; final drafts Feb. 1, 2011 and publication in the fall issue 2011.
International Labor and Working-Class History Rutgers University 50 Labor Center Way New Brunswick, NJ 08901 [mailto]ilwch@smlr.rutgers.edu[/mailto] 732-932-2730