Labor History (History) Research Papers (original) (raw)

The History of DİSK (1975-1980) Volume 2

This chapter examines the intersection between biopolitics and colonialism in Bartolome de las Casas's 'Memorial de remedios' para las Indias (Memorial of Remedies for the Indies 1516), an early text that was lengthened and edited by Juan... more

This chapter examines the intersection between biopolitics and colonialism in Bartolome de las Casas's 'Memorial de remedios' para las Indias (Memorial of Remedies for the Indies 1516), an early text that was lengthened and edited by Juan Lopez de Palacios Rubios (1450-1524). A proposal to the king, the Memorial of Remedies offers a detailed humanist plan for what is often and deceptively described as peaceful coloniality.

This article features a connected history of punitive relocations in the Spanish Empire, from the independence of Spanish America to the " loss " of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines in 1898. Three levels of entanglement are... more

This article features a connected history of punitive relocations in the Spanish Empire, from the independence of Spanish America to the " loss " of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines in 1898. Three levels of entanglement are highlighted here: the article looks simultaneously at punitive flows stemming from the colonies and from the metropole; it brings together the study of penal transportation, administrative deportation, and military deportation; and it discusses the relationship between punitive relocations and imprisonment. As part of this special issue, fore-grounding " perspectives from the colonies " , I start with an analysis of the punitive flows that stemmed from the overseas provinces. I then address punishment in the metropole through the colonial lens, before highlighting the entanglements of penal transportation and deportation in the nineteenth-century Spanish Empire as a whole.

15 premières pages. Table des matières, introduction et premier document.

CLEFS-CONCOURS HISTOIRE CONTEMPORAINE CAPES AGREGATION. 220 documents, 617 pages.

In recent years, scholars have demonstrated that affluent societies have a disproportionate environmental impact. A focus on wealth, however, can obscure how poverty also propels ecosystem destruction, particularly when combined – as in... more

In recent years, scholars have demonstrated that affluent societies have a
disproportionate environmental impact. A focus on wealth, however, can obscure how poverty also propels ecosystem destruction, particularly when combined – as in Singapore – with uncaring administrators, and the ruthless logic of imperialism. In this colony, poor Chinese, Malays, archipelagic South-east Asians, and Indians struggled to eke out a living by razing rainforest, because they possessed no better options. As these workers struggled to transform forests into farms, houses, and roads, they created an ecology of poverty that had catastrophic consequences for
humans and tigers alike. Finding ever less forest in which to hide from humans, the mighty cats instead began to regard some people as prey. Unable to flee, poor Chinese, Malays, archipelagic South-east Asians, and Indians sought to protect themselves by killing tigers. In the end, the humans vanquished the cats, but not without enduring hundreds of fatalities. Colonial Singapore’s environmental history reminds us that the people who carry out the work of eradicating nature often do so because they possess limited alternatives for survival. As a corollary, caring for and protecting the environment is inseparable from caring for and protecting people.

The essays in this volume provide a new perspective on the history of convicts and penal colonies. They demonstrate that the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were a critical period in the reconfiguration of empires, imperial... more

The essays in this volume provide a new perspective on the history of convicts and penal colonies. They demonstrate that the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were a critical period in the reconfiguration of empires, imperial govern-mentality, and punishment, including through extensive punitive relocation and associated extractive labour. Ranging across the global contexts of Africa, Asia, Australasia, Japan, the Americas, the Pacific, Russia, and Europe, and exploring issues of criminalization, political repression, and convict management alongside those of race, gender, space, and circulation, this collection offers a perspective from the colonies that radically transforms accepted narratives of the history of empire and the history of punishment. In this introduction, we argue that a colony-centred perspective reveals that, during a critical period in world history, convicts and penal colonies created new spatial hierarchies, enabled the incorporation of territories into

CO-AUTHORED WITH PETER LIMB, MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY (USA) WHO ISN'T ON ACADEMIA.EDU: Our research compares and contrasts the transnational activism of maritime unions in Australia and the United States in what became the first and... more

CO-AUTHORED WITH PETER LIMB, MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY (USA) WHO ISN'T ON ACADEMIA.EDU: Our research compares and contrasts the transnational activism of maritime unions in Australia and the United States in what became the first and longest example of global solidarity in the post-World War II era – the anti-apartheid movement. Dockworkers, with a deep history of solidarity, occupied a strategic position to exert real influence on the South African state by refusing to unload South African cargo. We analyze the actions of the Waterside Workers’ Federation (WWF) in Australia and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) in the US, namely by exploring notions of solidarity and political unionism among marine transport workers, ideological motivations for solidarity activism, ethnic and race relations among workers, and labor connections these maritime unions made beyond the waterfront. We find and account for similarities and differences in Australian and US labor activism that often is underrepresented and incompletely explained in the literature.

This study represents the first substantial investigation of the human resource management practices within the Victorian Railways over the period 1864-1921. The employment and management strategies of the organisation are examined using... more

This study represents the first substantial investigation of the human resource management practices within the Victorian Railways over the period 1864-1921. The employment and management strategies of the organisation are examined using a range of models and theories drawn from labour economics, new institutional economics and human resource management.

Invalid cookery was a key skill of trained nurses up until the 1960s and before the introduction of intravenous feeding was the sole way of keeping sick and wounded patients alive. Although historically seen as mundane, food preparation... more

Invalid cookery was a key skill of trained nurses up until the 1960s and before the introduction of intravenous feeding was the sole way of keeping sick and wounded patients alive. Although historically seen as mundane, food preparation and feeding took significant amounts of time of a nurse’s daily work. For Australian military nurses on hospital ships and working in hospitals in Egypt and Greece in 1915, feeding soldiers suffering malnutrition and wounds became a significant part of a military nurse’s workload and inventive solutions were necessary in countries overflowing with casualties and short on food supplies. Neglected in the rich and growing body of military and civilian hospital histories in Australia, invalid cookery is a lost part of nursing work these days and thus is of interest to those seeking to define nursing practice in this period.

Bundan birkaç sene öncesine kadar “sefaleti” tartışılan emek tarihçiliğimizde bir “bahar” havasının esmeye başladığı haberini, ilk olarak Toplumsal Tarih’in 2014 yılına ait Türkiye İşçi Sınıfı Tarihinde Bahar alt başlıklı sayısından... more

Bundan birkaç sene öncesine kadar “sefaleti”
tartışılan emek tarihçiliğimizde bir “bahar”
havasının esmeye başladığı haberini, ilk
olarak Toplumsal Tarih’in 2014 yılına ait
Türkiye İşçi Sınıfı Tarihinde Bahar alt başlıklı sayısından
almıştık. Ertesi yıl, yine bu sayının editörleri
Y. Doğan Çetinkaya ve Mehmet Ö. Alkan’ın derlediği
Tanzimat’tan Günümüze Türkiye İşçi Sınıfı Tarihi
1839-2014 kitabında da bu bahar havası artarak devam
etmiş, Çetinkaya daha da ileri giderek emek tarihinin
“sefaletten ihyaya” ulaştığını müjdelemişti.
İşçi sınıfı hakkındaki tarihsel bilgimizin niceliksel
olarak artmakta olduğu sevindirici bir gerçek ancak
bu artışa eşlik eden ve etmeyen metodolojik yaklaşımların
tartışılması konusunda emek tarihçileri
olarak yavaş ve çekingen kaldığımız da en az bunun
kadar gerçek. Örneğin feminist tarihyazıcılığının
son kırk yılda ürettiği yeni yaklaşımlar ve toplumsal cinsiyetin tarihsel çalışmalarda analitik bir kategori
olarak ele alınmasının yarattığı epistemolojik krizler,
kopuşlar ve yenilikler henüz Türkiye’de işçi sınıfının
tarihsel kavranışına dair hiçbir taşı yerinden oynatabilmiş
değil. “Sefalet” dönemimizin belki de sonuna
rastlayan ve akademik tarihçiliğimizde maalesef
çok az örneği bulunan bir polemikte, Yiğit Akın ve
Ahmet Makal’ın yaklaşımlarını eleştirirken, Gülhan
Balsoy’un işaret ettiği toplumsal cinsiyet körlüğü sorununu,
esen “bahar” havası da ortadan kaldıramadı
henüz. Üstelik emek tarihi feminist tarihyazımının
en etkin örneklerini üretmiş, alanın temel kavramlarının
toplumsal cinsiyetlendirilmiş kullanımlarını
ortaya sermiş, yeni sorular ortaya atmış ve kaynak
kullanımına dair yeni yaklaşımlar geliştirmişken, durum
bu. Bu makalede, bu eksikliği gidermeye yönelik
bir müdahale yaparak emek tarihinde toplumsal cinsiyetin
kavramsallaştırılması ve bir analitik kategori
olarak kullanılmasını tartışmaya açıyoruz.

Alain P. Michel, « Le travail des ingénieurs en entreprises. Formation, socialisation et activités des ingénieurs en perspective européenne de longue durée », pour le dossier « Ingénieurs et entreprises aux XIXe-XXIe siècle », Artefact.... more

Alain P. Michel, « Le travail des ingénieurs en entreprises. Formation, socialisation et activités des ingénieurs en perspective européenne de longue durée », pour le dossier « Ingénieurs et entreprises aux XIXe-XXIe siècle », Artefact. Techniques, histoire et sciences humaines, n° 13/2020, p. 9-46.
Engineers work. Who are they? How were they trained? What are they doing? For which companies and under what conditions? Can we identify a typology of engineers in Western Europe of the XIXth-XXth century? It is not easy to answer these interrogations which resonate with the new subject of contemporary history for teaching competitions in France: “Work in Western Europe from the 1830s to the 1930s. Hands craft and industrial work, practices and social issues”. This opening paper has been informed by this specific focus. First, we link the need for new engineers with the industrialization processes. Then we correlate the structuring of training systems with the specific state configurations. Next we study the ways of socialization of engineers and tackle the challenges of the feminization of the engineering profession. Finally, we study a few cases of engineers in action in the companies they work for. An engineer is a multifaceted character. His portrait and that of his group, changes according to the transformations of the landscape in which he interacts. We strive to bring out the major features of European engineers.

Avrupa Emek Tarihçileri Ağı bünyesinde çalışmalarını sürdüren Fabrika Tarihi Çalışma Grubu'nun koordinatörleri olarak, Mart 2015'ten beri Britanya Akademisi'nin desteğiyle yürütmekte olduğumuz Fabrika Tarihi Projesi kapsamında, sizi 20.... more

Avrupa Emek Tarihçileri Ağı bünyesinde çalışmalarını sürdüren Fabrika Tarihi Çalışma Grubu'nun koordinatörleri olarak, Mart 2015'ten beri Britanya Akademisi'nin desteğiyle yürütmekte olduğumuz Fabrika Tarihi Projesi kapsamında, sizi 20. Yüzyıl Türkiye'sine Fabrikalardan Bakmak adlı derleme bir kitap projesi için birlikte düşünmeye davet ediyoruz. Editörlüğünü Görkem Akgöz ve Aslı Odman'ın birlikte yapacağı bu derleme kitap, bir yöntem olarak fabrika tarihi yazma fikrini, farklı fabrikalar üzerine tarihsel çalışmalar yürütmekte olan araştırmacıların bulguları üzerinden tartışmaya açmak amacındadır. Genellikle emek tarihi literatürü çerçevesinde bir fabrika üzerine yoğunlaşan tarihsel analizler, ulusal düzeyde formüle edilmiş geniş soruların dar bir ölçekte ele alındığı çalışmalardır. Bir analiz birimi olarak fabrikanın, bu geniş soruların çalışılabilir hale getirilmesinin ötesinde metodolojik bir işleve sahip olduğunu ve sosyal tarihçilik için avantajlı bir analiz ölçeği sunduğunu savlıyoruz. Fabrikalar, 18. yüzyıldan beri teknik ve toplumsal devrimlerin, tasarım alanında yeniliklerin, içinde bulundukları politik ve ekonomik momentin işaretleri olagelmiştir. Kapitalist üretimin ve artı-değere el koymanın gerçekleştiği mekânlar olarak fabrikalar, emek ve sermaye ilişkisinin mekânsal ve zamansal olarak somutlaştığı bağlamlardır. Emek tarihinin fabrikalara işçi odaklı bakışı, bu karmaşık ilişkiler evreninin eksik bir resmini ortaya koyar. Bu resim yine de değerlidir; zira analizin fabrika düzeyinde gerçekleştirilmesi, işçilerin homojen bir kolektiviteden ziyade, farklı gündelik ve politik deneyimlere sahip öznellikleri bağlamında ele alınmasına da olanak sağlar. Bununla beraber, emek tarihinin, fabrikada çalışan diğer gruplara odaklanan yönetim çalışmaları, fabrikanın bütününe odaklanan işletme tarihi, siyasi rejim ve/ya çalışma ilişkileri/ekonomisi gibi disiplinlerle diyalog içine girmesi önemlidir. Fabrikalar safi endüstriyel çalışma mekanları olmanın ötesinde, hammade tedariği, barınması, mahalle inşası, lojistik ve tüketicileri de kapsayan bütünlüklü bir şekilde yaklaşıldığında, 19 ve 20. yüzyıl Türkiye kent tarihinin önemli unsurları olarak da karşımıza çıkarlar. İstanbul gibi şehir merkezlerini, fiziksel varlığının sınırlarından başlayarak değiştiren fabrikalar kadar, küçük yerleşim merkezlerinde, hatta kırda kurulduktan sonra kentsel dinamikler yaratan fabrikaların kent ve kapitalizm tarihi içinde ele alınmaları, her iki anlayışı da derinleştirme potansiyeline sahiptir. Benzer şekilde, Türkçe literatürde oldukça sınırlı bir yere ve odağa sahip olan işletme tarihi perspektifini emek tarihiyle verimli bir diyalog içerisine sokmak da fabrika düzeyinde yapılan analizler yoluyla mümkündür. Bu açıdan, fabrika tarihi, tarihsel analizde mikro ve makro ölçeklerin birlikte kullanımı açısından verimli bir alan da oluşturur. Farklı disiplinlerden araştırmacıların yine farklı tarihsel dönemlere ait fabrika tarihi çalışmalarını biraraya getiren bu derleme kitap, 20.yüzyıl Türkiye'sinin fabrikalarını anlatırken, ilgili dönemlerin devlet-toplum ilişkileri, emek siyaseti, fabrika rejiminde toplumsal cinsiyet, kent tarihi / yerel tarih, kapitalistleşme dinamikleri, örgütlü ve örgütsüz mücadele deneyimleri, kentsel bellek gibi pek çok soruyu da yanıtlamayı

place in Leiden (The Netherlands)-https://esshc.socialhistory.org/news/esshc2020. The ESSHC brings together scholars interested in explaining historical phenomena using the methods of the social sciences. The conference is characterized... more

place in Leiden (The Netherlands)-https://esshc.socialhistory.org/news/esshc2020. The ESSHC brings together scholars interested in explaining historical phenomena using the methods of the social sciences. The conference is characterized by a lively exchange in many small groups, rather than by formal plenary sessions. It is organized in a large number of networks that cover specific fields of interest. One of the largest networks of the ESSHC is Labour. We think that progress in Labour History is being made by analysing global developments in labour relations and labour struggles, including the influence of these global developments on local and national contexts and vice versa. It also remains essential to take into account other constituent elements of working class identities besides class, such as gender, ethnicity, religion, age and nationality. Labour can also provide an analytical lens to study the interconnectedness of political, economic, and cultural developments, and specific issues such as management strategies, colonial relations, factories and other sites of production (plantations, mines, households), slavery, free and unfree labour, formal and informal labour activism, etc. Moreover, labour history provides essential insights into pressing contemporary issues such as globalization, social inequality, migration, and precariousness. The Labour Network welcomes any session or paper proposal dealing with all topics and periods in labour and working class history. For a detailed list of the criteria that we will follow in our selection, see the annex 1 below. Please, read it carefully when preparing your proposal. The Labour Network seeks to broaden its temporal and geographical scope, and therefore encourage sessions and papers from all time periods and all regions. We welcome the organisation of conference sessions that move beyond the traditional conference panel, such as film screenings, book panels etc. Roundtable discussions that present and discuss important books, articles, changing institutional and educational structures and other concerns within labour history are also encouraged. The conference language is English. Since the coherence of sessions will be an important criterion, propositions of full sessions with three to five papers will be easier to accommodate in the conference programme than single papers. However, we do accept single paper proposals, both in order to include them in proposed sessions and to compose a limited number of new sessions. Moreover, while most sessions choose the panel format, other types of sessions are encouraged. We also have a preference for sessions with a comparative character, geographically and/or chronologically. Also, we advise you to seek alliances with other ESSHC-networks, propose joint sessions and/or specify any other networks that are related to your theme in your proposal. We heartily encourage young scholars, such as PhD and master students, to organize sessions and propose papers within the Labour Network. We remind you that the Jan

This call for paper aims to bring together historians and social scientists of different hues who study the factory in a historical perspective to discuss new research focused on the factory as a unit of analysis. The focus is on thematic... more

This call for paper aims to bring together historians and social scientists of different hues who study the factory in a historical perspective to discuss new research focused on the factory as a unit of analysis. The focus is on thematic and methodological perspectives that engage with dimensions such as gender, race, the spatial and transnational turn, the discourse analysis etc. that have cross-fertilised with the perspective of class that was traditionally adopted by the labour history of the factory. Monographs on the factory were once frequent, and some were models of their genre, but they sometimes adopted an overly narrow industrial relations lens (or, worse, the hagiographic tone of a company history) that obfuscated what could be gained from an integrated, interdisciplinary and multi-focal gaze. We aim to foster a novel research agenda on the factory that would be located at the intersection of different disciplines and sub-disciplines, looking at a variety of agents, and crossing the boundaries of national historiographies of industrialization and de-industrialization. While this perspective argues for a history of the factory that is interdisciplinary, labour historians have much to gain from it. As a field labour history has widened in scope in the past thirty years: the history of everyday life, of communities, of urban space, of gender and the reproductive sphere are now part and parcel of labour histories. These methodological and theoretical developments have had a tremendous influence on labour history. We look for contributions that build upon these developments and further encourage a dialogue between labour history and other fields. As a complex organization employing large number of workers the factory is a point of convergence of different social phenomena, some transnational in scope such as resources, employees and circulation of commodities. Studying a factory in all its aspects encompassing the transnational flows of capital and trade, internationally shaped investment decisions, the interactions between international and national regulation, national and international labour migration could move our research questions from the fallacies of a narrowly national focus. We also recognise that the definition of factory is open to interpretation as models of organisation of production have been arguably adopted in the service sector (call centres) or in logistics and distribution (warehouses) where workers are highly regimented and constantly gauged against statistical performance standards, primarily speed. These workplaces adopt Taylorist practices that once characterized factory production, such as the strategic use of technology to control the pace of working and the fragmentation and mechanization of tasks to deskill workers. The onus is on the researcher to argue why a particular workplace should be considered a " factory " and benefit from intellectual dialogue with the papers of this working group. We are calling for papers that focus on a factory or a coherent group of factories from any aspects, but in particular from an integrated, interdisciplinary and multi-focal gaze. Papers that deal with the politics of the working-class in general, not linked to a particular factory, are better suited to other working groups in the European Labour History Network. We invite proposals for papers and roundtables addressing one or more of the following themes:

The integration of the countries of eastern and southeastern Europe into global flows of migration has become a major issue not only in migration policy debates , but also in analysing longer term social change in the region. Changes in... more

The integration of the countries of eastern and southeastern Europe into global flows of migration has become a major issue not only in migration policy debates , but also in analysing longer term social change in the region. Changes in the magnitudes of migrant remittances can be of crucial social and political importance. In this study, I link a conceptual contribution with a three-step empirical inquiry. First, I conceptualize migrant remittances as a form of external economic dependency. Next, I describe recent changes in the strength of the empirical relationship between migrant remittances as percentages of the GDP and per capita GDP for all societies of the world utilizing data from two online data sets. Employing what Charles Tilly (1984) called " variation-finding comparison, " I examine, next, the – as it turns out, quite sizeable – residual variation in the relative magnitude of remittances that remains after controlling for per capita GDP, and interpret it as a marker for patterns of remittance dependency. Finally, I trace the recent trajectories of the societies that had, until one generation ago, constituted the Soviet " bloc " against the backdrop of the global distribution in remittance dependency. The data have been adopted from two sources: Estimates for migrant remittances as percentages of the GDP of their home country come from the online World Develop

The story of wages in nineteenth‐ and early twentieth‐century Australia has largely been told through official published statistics and the experiences of skilled artisans and construction labourers. Utilising wage book data from an early... more

The story of wages in nineteenth‐ and early twentieth‐century Australia has largely been told through official published statistics and the experiences of skilled artisans and construction labourers. Utilising wage book data from an early successful manufacturing plant – a biscuit factory – we reveal the earning histories of several neglected groups of Australian workers. We specifically investigate the effects of the 1890s depression, the introduction of a wages board, and shifting demographics on the wages of unskilled factory hands, women, juvenile workers, and commercial clerks. We demonstrate that typical Australian wage series studies have misinterpreted the impact of these phenomena.

This article examines an understudied consequence of the labor upsurge of the 1930s – namely, the way in which the conflict between conservative business unionism and more radical alternatives of the period fundamentally transformed... more

This article examines an understudied consequence of the labor upsurge of the 1930s – namely, the way in which the conflict between conservative business unionism and more radical alternatives of the period fundamentally transformed business unionism itself. The author illustrates this through a case study of the struggle within the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) between the business unionist leadership and an insurgent movement spearheaded by the Trotskyist leaders of Minneapolis Local 544. In order to defeat the insurgents, the IBT leadership violated their commitment to anti-statist voluntarism, using newly enacted labor policies to mobilize coercive state power in their favor. This episode foreshadowed expanded state intervention in union affairs in the post-war period and marked the ascendancy of a new model of industrial business unionism. The latter blended innovative tactics borrowed from radical challengers with the narrow economism and political conservatism of its craft business unionist forebears.

Florent Le Bot, « 1906, Changer la vie. Jean Guéhenno, mémorialiste des ouvriers fougerais de la chaussure », Cahiers Jean Guéhenno, 2e volume, Les Amis de Jean Guéhenno, Fougères, 2010, p. 40-54. Dans le cadre d'un doctorat d'histoire... more

Florent Le Bot, « 1906, Changer la vie. Jean Guéhenno, mémorialiste des ouvriers fougerais de la chaussure », Cahiers Jean Guéhenno, 2e volume, Les Amis de Jean Guéhenno, Fougères, 2010, p. 40-54.
Dans le cadre d'un doctorat d'histoire portant sur les spoliations antisémites dans la branche du cuir, Florent Le Bot a montré l'importance des communautés industrielles localisées, telles Fougères, Romans, Cholet ou Limoges, dans une économie de la chaussure en archipel. Parmi les sources de son travail, publié désormais sous le titre La Fabrique réactionnaire. Antisémitisme, spoliations et corporatisme dans le cuir, 1950-1950 (cf. bibliographie indicative en fin d'article), les écrits de Jean Guéhenno sur la fabrique fougeraise ont pu trouver toute leur place.

Το ιδιαίτερα εκτενές αυτό άρθρο αυτό σκιαγραφεί τη διαδικασία της συγκρότησης εργατικής τάξης στην Ελλάδα κατά την περίοδο 1870-1936. Η ανάλυση δομείται στη βάση ενός συνεχόμενου που ορίζεται πάνω στη διάσταση «δεσμοί των εργατών με την... more

Το ιδιαίτερα εκτενές αυτό άρθρο αυτό σκιαγραφεί τη διαδικασία της συγκρότησης εργατικής τάξης στην Ελλάδα κατά την περίοδο 1870-1936. Η ανάλυση δομείται στη βάση ενός συνεχόμενου που ορίζεται πάνω στη διάσταση «δεσμοί των εργατών με την ύπαιθρο». Διερευνώνται εξελίξεις τόσο στο επίπεδο των μεταλλασσόμενων κοινωνικοοικονομικών δομών όσο και σε αυτό των υποκειμενικών προδιαθέσεων των εργατών. Το άρθρο προχωρεί σε εκτενή ανασκευή της ευρύτατα διαδεδομένης -αν και συνήθως υπόρρητης- άποψης σύμφωνα με την οποία η Ελλάδα ήταν μια χώρα σχετικά ικανοποιημένων μικροαστών μικροϊδιοκτητών, και εξετάζει τα δομικά και υποκειμενικά χαρακτηριστικά κομβικών στρωμάτων του εργατικού πληθυσμού, τόσο στον προλεταριακό πυρήνα όσο και στα πολύ ευρύτερα στρώματα των εργαζόμενων φτωχών του άτυπου τομέα. Υποστηρίζεται πως παρά τα μεγάλα δομικά και συγκυριακά εμπόδια (π.χ.
τη ρευστή αγορά εργασίας, την αρχική αποτυχία της γηγενούς εργατικής τάξης να ενσωματώσει τους Μικρασιάτες πρόσφυγες, το εντεινόμενο πρόβλημα της ανεργίας και
την κρατική κατασταλτικότητα, κ.λπ.), η διαδικασία συγκρότησης εργατικής τάξης προχώρησε σημαντικά κατά τη μεσοπολεμική περίοδο. Λίγο πριν την επιβολή της δικτατορίας Μεταξά, και παρά τα συνεχιζόμενα οργανωτικά προβλήματα του θεσμικού εργατικού κινήματος, το εργατικό συλλογικό «εμείς» φαίνεται να είχε αποκτήσει ουσιαστική φαντασιακή-συμβολική υπόσταση, αλλά και σημαντική ελκτική δύναμη για τα πολυάριθμα στρώματα της φτωχολογιάς των πόλεων. Για να τεκμηριώσει την άποψη αυτή, το άρθρο βασίζεται σε πρωτογενές υλικό από τον Τύπο της εποχής και μια ποσοτικοποίηση της εργατικής συγκρουσιακότητας της περιόδου 1919-1936.

Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 2018.

This workshop aims to bring together historians and anthropologists to discuss new research that chooses the factory as a unit of analysis. The focus is on inquiring new methodological and epistemological perspectives on the subject in... more

This workshop aims to bring together historians and anthropologists to discuss new research that chooses the factory as a unit of analysis. The focus is on inquiring new methodological and epistemological perspectives on the subject in order to explore the historical and contemporary dynamics of capitalism at the point of production in an interdisciplinary fashion. The workshop aims to initiated a collaborative, interdisciplinary conversation preliminary to the preparation of a thematic issue on factory as an object of inquiry.

Abstract: Although the Chartist movement is often seen as focused on domestic reforms, Chartist newspapers and journals of the 1830s and 1840s extensively commented upon various aspects of the expanding British empire, including slavery... more

Abstract: Although the Chartist movement is often seen as focused on domestic reforms, Chartist newspapers and journals of the 1830s and 1840s extensively commented upon various aspects of the expanding British empire, including slavery and abolition, Christian missionary activity, emigration policy, and the colonial wars of the era. This essay argues that the Chartist press developed wide-ranging criticism of several facets of the colonial system, describing the empire as “the outworks of the
citadel of corruption,” an integral part of the hierarchical structures which disenfranchised and impoverished the working classes in Britain. The Chartist press appropriated Orientalist discourse as a way to characterize metropolitan elites and colonial administrators, rejected the notion that missionaries offered moral and social uplift to indigenous populations, and celebrated foreign resistance to British aggression. This radical working-class archive can help us better understand the extent to which imperial expansion was contested in Victorian Britain.

Traditionally when Americans went to work they expected that they would earn a reasonable wage, work in a safe environment, put in a 40 h week, collect paid vacation days, earn sick leave, have the right to organize and receive health and... more

Traditionally when Americans went to work they expected that they would earn a reasonable wage, work in a safe environment, put in a 40 h week, collect paid vacation days, earn sick leave, have the right to organize and receive health and retirement benefits. Increasingly, however, fewer and fewer workers receive these rights and today only a minority of people in the United States work under these conditions. The decline in real wages, benefits, rights and safety experienced by twenty-first century American workers has correlated with a decline in organized labor. Corporations and the right have assailed unions to erode worker’s rights and “increase competitiveness” in a globalized, neo-liberal, capitalist, world. The attacks on unions spring from a monstrous lie, that politicians and corporations gave labor these benefits and thus workers no longer need unions. On the battlefield of public policy, these assaults on organized labor work in a fundamentally ideological way that calls the continued existence of unions into question. In this paper, I will discuss how archaeological studies of labor’s struggle can reveal that contrary to the monstrous lie, workers and their families won worker’s rights with blood and that solidarity and organization remain essential to maintain these rights. The paper begins with the present state of labor’s struggle and looks to the past to consider its preconditions. Archaeologists have studied strikes, the lived experience of working class life and class war to study history backwards and these studies contribute to the labor’s struggle for the future.

This workshop aims to bring together historians and anthropologists to discuss new research that chooses the factory as a unit of analysis. The focus is on inquiring new methodological and epistemological perspectives on the subject in... more

This workshop aims to bring together historians and anthropologists to discuss new research that
chooses the factory as a unit of analysis. The focus is on inquiring new methodological and
epistemological perspectives on the subject in order to explore the historical and contemporary
dynamics of capitalism at the point of production in an interdisciplinary fashion. The workshop
aims to initiated a collaborative, interdisciplinary conversation preliminary to the preparation of
a thematic issue on factory as an object of inquiry to be submitted to journals such as History &
Anthropology or International Labor and Working‐Class History. Participants to the workshop will
contribute to establish an agenda for research, the themes to be explored in the issue and invited
to submit their papers for consideration.

L'esplodere dell'attenzione in Italia intorno alla public history, a partire dal 2016, non poteva che incontrare l'apprezzamento da parte di chi-come il sottoscritto e la Fondazione Valore Lavoro (FVL) per cui opera-da tempo era impegnato... more

L'esplodere dell'attenzione in Italia intorno alla public history, a partire dal 2016, non poteva che incontrare l'apprezzamento da parte di chi-come il sottoscritto e la Fondazione Valore Lavoro (FVL) per cui opera-da tempo era impegnato su questo fronte, che in prima approssimazione, e semplificando molto le cose, potremmo definire come una "terra di mezzo" tra la ricerca storica e la divulgazione più commerciale. L'apertura del dibattito sulla public history infatti non solo forniva finalmente una cornice dentro alla quale inserire, dichiarandone la statura scientifica, le attività che noi-insieme a molti altri attori come si evince da questa pubblicazione-stavamo portando avanti, ma ha offerto anche tanti, ricchi e interessanti, spunti di riflessione sulla natura, l'utilità, la metodologia e il fine di una maniera di "fare storia" diffusa ma ancora percepita come poco convenzionale dagli addetti ai lavori, nonostante sia quella che più frequentemente incontra appunto il "pubblico". Questioni deontologiche e prassi operative, esempi di buone pratiche espositive e/o narrative e connessioni con il mondo della ricerca, uso di molteplici fonti-dagli oggetti ai documenti alle fotografie alle interviste orali-e rapporto con il pubblico, natura democratica e "partecipativa" della public history e tematiche dell'autorialità, abusi della storia e l'infinita discussione sulla Historia magistra vitae, per fare una rapida carrellata, sono state e sono a tutt'oggi le questioni aperte sulle quali siamo chiamati a ragionare e intorno alle quali si dipana il nostro modo di fare storia in pubblico e con il pubblico 2. La FVL aveva iniziato a interrogarsi in maniera operativa su tutti questi aspetti proprio sulla spinta delle proprie attività. Dalla mostra l'Archivio del paese del 2012, dedicata ai materiali conservati nell'archivio storico della Camera del Lavoro, fino al film documentario In cerca della felicità, un lavoro di storia orale sull'immigrazione nel pistoiese che ci aveva portato a ragionare intorno alla shared authority fra ricercatori e testimoni e sul come scrivere e raccontare la Storia attraverso il video 3. Con la Chiave a stella, secondo step di un percorso iniziato nel 2015 intorno al mondo contadino, abbiamo avuto l'occasione di mettere alla prova tutte le nostre ipotesi di lavoro dentro a un progetto che ha funzionato da raccoglitore per molteplici linguaggi e percorsi di avvicinamento alla Storia. Sulla scorta dell'esposizione La mezzadria nel Novecento. Lavoro, storia, memoria, che significativamente era lo spin off di un duplice lavoro di salvaguardia archivistica e ricerca storiografica-circostanza che ci rimanda subito a uno 1 Citazione tratta da E. J. Hobsbawm, Lavoro, cultura e mentalità nella società industriale, Torino, Einaudi, 1986, 2 Su questi temi vedi Public history. Discussioni e pratiche, a cura di P. B. Farnetti, L. Bertucelli, A. Botti, Milano-Udine, Mimesis, 2017. 3 Il progetto, che ha usufruito di un contributo della Fondazione cassa di risparmio di Pistoia e Pescia, è stato realizzato fra il 2016 e il 2017 in collaborazione con l'Associazione italiana di storia orale (AISO), con il coinvolgimento dell'allora presidente Giovanni Contini, e l'associazione Promo cinema-Festival Presente italiano, che ha fornito un valido consulente nella figura di Michele Galardini.