Labour History News
A World of Labour
A World of Labour: Transnational and Comparative Histories
An International Conference of the Society for the Study of Labour History
University of Ulster, Coleraine, Northern Ireland, UK, 1-3 Sept 2008
Recent years have seen historians moving beyond the nation-state as the principal unit of historical analysis. Contemporary globalisation has helped shape a growing interest in the history of world-wide networks of power, communication and social and economic formation. Within an English-speaking world, the repackaging of aspects of imperial history under the heading of the 'British World' has added further pressure for global, transnational and comparative histories. This conference aims to explore these issues, with a particular emphasis upon labour and working-class histories. The society wishes to encourage the widest possible definition of labour history and to embrace social, cultural, economic and political approaches to the past. Themes for consideration could include:
- Transnational and global institutions
- Internationalism in labour history
- Formal and informal labour networks
- Global examples of associational culture
- Activities or campaigners operating in more than one national context
- Social and culture rituals across territories
- Strikes, violence, and resistance in comparative perspective
- International markets and their effect on labour migration
- Class, race, ethnicity and gender in transnational or comparative perspective
- Transnationalism, globalisation and Diaspora as conceptual issues or problems
- The strengths and weakness of comparative labour history
- Professor John Belchem (Liverpool)
- Professor Stefan Berger (Manchester)
- Professor Marcel van der Linden (Amsterdam)
- Professor Melanie Nolan (Wellington, NZ)
Please email proposals (300 words maximum per paper) and brief CV (one page maximum) to Professor Donald MacRaild or Dr Charlotte Alston by 1 May 2008.