Call for papers
International Labor and Working-Class History: Special issue on African Labor Histories
Editors: Franco Barchiesi and Stefano Bellucci
Africa is undergoing rapid and unprecedented social and economic changes as a new phase of highly uneven resources-driven growth coincides with the rising influence in the continent of Asian and Latin American emerging economies. Following decades of structural adjustment and neoliberal policies, African labor and labor movements have been marginalized from debates on these far-reaching transformations. Despite the decline of workers' organizations in many African countries, however, current changes in production and labor regimes across the continent raise urgent questions on the very meanings of work practices, working-class identities, labor politics, and their connections to broad patterns of social inequality and contestation. A renewed focus on African workers is therefore crucial to understanding both the social dynamics of continent-wide shifts and what they have to tell us about the nature of an increasingly competitive global capitalism.
This special issue of International Labor and Working-Class History is premised on the assumption that a historical perspective on the forces and processes that have shaped African labor in its complexity, localized practices, and contested meanings is necessary to comprehend its present challenges and opportunities.
Papers are invited to discuss a range of themes that include, but are not limited to:
- Pre-colonial work practices and ideas, and their significance in shaping meanings of work and production;
- Resistance to proletarianization and the uneven penetration of wage labor in the colonial context;
- Patterns of African labor organizing and identities in colonial and postcolonial contexts, especially in relation to economic development and resource extraction;
- The changing relations between labor and state institutions in colonial and postcolonial realities, including the ways in which African workers have contested official development discourse;
- The impact of structural adjustment policies on workers' identities and organizations;
- Changes in labor practices and identities in contexts of informalization, precarity, and the decline of regular employment;
- Gender identities and struggles as shaping the meaning of work and production, for example in the articulation of production, exchange, and the household or the activities of women in urban markets;
- The relations between labor struggles and community movements, religious identities, or ethnic mobilizations;
- The impact on labor of shifting investment flows, from both emerging economies and former imperial powers, across regions, localities, and sectors;
- The politics of international solidarity and global connections and how they shape the agendas of African labor movements.
Prospective authors should send a cover letter (including address, e-mail address, and institutional affiliation), a two-page CV, and an abstract of no more than 500 words. The editors will determine whether the proposed work fits thematically in the upcoming issue.
The deadline for proposals and abstracts is September 1, 2013. The deadline for full drafts of articles is December 31, 2013. All submitted articles must be in English even if the editors will consider abstracts in English, French, Portuguese, Arabic, Kiswahili, or Amharic. Style and submission guidelines will be sent to authors whose work the editors wish to review.
Send correspondence to:
Franco Barchiesi, Department of African American and African Studies, Ohio State University, USA:
barchiesi.1 [at] osu.edu
or
Stefano Bellucci, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam, The Netherlands:
sbe [at] iisg.nl
Stefano Bellucci PhD, Senior Researcher, Head of the Sub-Saharan Africa Desk
International Institute of Social History, Cruquiusweg 31, 1019 AT, Amsterdam
The Netherlands, telephone +31 (0)20 668 5866, www.socialhistory.org
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