In recent years the field of labour history has expanded its scope of
research from an almost exclusive focus on industrial, blue-collar,
unionized, male labourers to include workers’ multiple, overlapping
identities as well as concepts like work, occupational categories, and
labour relations in a broader and gendered perspective. To this end, this
mini-symposium has two related objectives. The first aim is to highlight
the work of artisans, craftsmen, labourers, and the concomitant labour
relations of artisanal and craft production. The second goal is to
contribute to the internationalization of Ottoman and Turkish labour
history. More generally within the field of Ottoman history there is an
urgent need to understand developments in the Empire within the broader
context of Eurasia. Global labour history has the potential to open
comparative perspectives on the Ottoman Empire that have until now been
largely unexplored. The Department of History at İstanbul Bilgi University
would like to invite you to this international gathering that will include
contributions on work and labor in India, the Ottoman Empire and the
Turkish Republic, Russia, as well as reflections on shifts in global labour
relations over the last five hundred years.
Date: 30 November 2012
Time: 14.00-18.30
Venue: İstanbul Bilgi University Santral Campus
Board of Trustees Meeting Room (Santral Residence Building)
For further information please contact
Tevfik Karatop: tevfik.karatop [at] bilgi.edu.tr
M. Erdem Kabadayi: mekabadayi [at] bilgi.edu.tr
PROGRAM
Session I 14:00 – 16:00
Vijaya Ramaswamy (Jawaharlal Nehru University) – Craft Technologies and
Craft Communities in Peninsular India: Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries
Bidisha Dhar (University of Jadavpur / International Institute of Social
History, Amsterdam) – The Embroidery Artisans of Lucknow (India) Since 1850s
Suraiya Faroqhi (Istanbul Bilgi University) – Bursa Artisans of the late
Eighteenth century
Coffee Break 16:00 – 16:30
Session II 16:30 – 18:30
Gijs Kessler (International Institute of Social History, Moscow) - Changing
Labour Relations in Manual Brickmaking, Russia 15th - 20th centuries
Gavin Brockett (Wilfrid Laurier University) / M. Erdem Kabadayi (Istanbul
Bilgi University) - Crafts and Occupations from the Ottoman Empire to the
Turkish Republic
Jan Lucasssen / Karin Hofmeester (International Institute of Social
History, Amsterdam) –Explaining shifts in labour relations worldwide
between 1500 - 2000
[cross-posted, with thanks, from H-Labor]