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Click here for the Call for Papers for the 2008 international Labour History conference, 5-8 September : LABOUR CROSSINGS: WORLD, WORK AND HISTORY.
Click here for the programme (accurate on 3 September 2008).
The conference has been completed: a great success! Any post-conference queries should go to Lucien van der Walt by clicking here .
Click here for information about the international 2006 Labour History conference, 28 to 31 July: RETHINKING WORLDS OF LABOUR: SOUTHERN AFRICAN LABOUR HISTORY IN INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT.
Click here for information about other past History Workshop conferences.
LABOUR CROSSINGS: WORLD, WORK AND HISTORY
The History Workshop, University of Witwatersrand, and the Centre for Sociological Research, University of Johannesburg, in association with the International Association of Labour History Institutions and the International Conference of Labour and Social History and the International Institute for Social History, held a very successful international conference from Friday 5 September to Monday 8 September 2008, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
This conference had two main aims: first, to contribute to the development of a transnational labour history, and, second, to explore the connections between, and social imaginations of, different types of workers, working class movements and types of work. Labour history has usually been written as a series of national histories, as the history of industrial workers, and as part of the history of the modern period. The transnational turn in labour history has led to a closer scrutiny of relations between labour in different regions of the globe, but also a broadening of our conceptions of labour history: a global perspective on labour history raises questions about such basic conceptions as ‘labour’, ‘work’ and ‘labour movements’. This conference aims to engage with the historiography of labour in ‘emerging countries’, and help develop a transnational labour historiography.
The keynote speakers were Philip Bonner (History Workshop, Johannesburg) and Peter Linebaugh (University of Toledo). The International Conference of Labour and Social History (ITH) organised a plenary on "New Developments in Labour History: an interregional roundtable" with Marcel van der Linden (International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam), Rana Behal (Association of Indian Labour Historians), Martin Legassick (University of the Western Cape, South Africa), Claudio Batalha (Universidade Esdadual de Campinas, Brazil) and Berthold Unfried (ITH, University of Vienna, Austria). The International Association of Labour History Institutions (IALHI) held a plenary on "The Sharing of Labour and Social Movements Archives between Former Colonial Powers and Former Colonies" with Piers Pigou (South African History Archive, University of the Witwatersrand), Gerd Callensen (Danish Labour Movement Archives), André Brochier (National Overseas Archives Center, France), Françoise Blum (IALHI), and Richard Temple (University of Warwick). There were, besides these main events, many excellent papers and a high level of debate and exchange.
This conference was made possible by the generous support of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (South Africa), African Studies, the University of the Witwatersrand, the University of Johannesburg, SEPHIS, and the International Institute for Social History.
South African organising team: Peter Alexander, Phil Bonner, Jon Hyslop, Bridget Kenny, Derrick O'Leary, Noor Nieftagodien, Lucien van der Walt
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PREVIOUS CONFERENCE: RETHINKING WORLDS OF LABOUR: SOUTHERN AFRICAN LABOUR HISTORY IN INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT
The History Workshop, in conjunction with the Sociology of Work Unit, held an extremely successful public debate, international conference and labour history tour from 28 to 31 July 2006: see the Call for papers, the final programme: (MS Word version, PDF version), and a brief report.
The aims of the conference were to:
- Promote a transnational and regional view of labour history, with reference to southern Africa, and to comparisons of the less developed and semi-peripheral regions of the global "South."
- To reflect on the implications of the "first" globalisation of the 1870s to the 1930s for the "second" globalisation that started in the 1970s.
- To foster collaborative work between scholars, particularly those based in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The keynote speakers were Marcel van der Linden (International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam) and Sumit Sarkar (formerly University of Delhi). The conference opened with a public debate on labour internationalism in the 21st century. The speakers included Gwede Mantashe (former General-Secretary, National Union of Mineworkers), Kim Scipes (American labour activist and writer) and Noor Nieftagodien (History Workshop, University of the Witwatersrand). The conference also included an unique, optional, labour history tour of greater Johannesburg . The organising committee was made up of Peter Alexander, Andries Bezuidenhout, Phil Bonner, Jon Hyslop, Noor Nieftagodien, Nicole Ulrich, and Lucien van der Walt. This conference was made possible by the generous support of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (South Africa), African Studies, the University of the Witwatersrand and the Indian Consulate (South Africa).
A special issue of African Studies, entitled "Transnational and Comparative Perspectives on Southern African Labour History", and edited by Phil Bonner, Jon Hyslop and Lucien van der Walt was produced as one of the conference outputs: African Studies, volume 66, number 2/3, August 2007.
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OTHER PAST HISTORY WORKSHOP CONFERENCES
- The Witwatersrand: Labour, Townships and Protest, 1987
- Popular History, 1990
- Structure and Experience in the Making of Apartheid, 1990
- The Mfecane Debate, 1991
- Public History , 1992
- Work, Class, Culture, 1992, with the Sociology of Work Unit
- Myths, Monuments and Museums, 1992
- Democracy: popular precedents, practice, culture
- The Truth and Reconciliation Commission: commissioning the past, 1999, with the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation
- Forging the Links between Historical Research and the Policy Process, 1999
- AIDS in Context: explaining the social, cultural and historical roots of the epidemic in Southern Africa, 2001
- The Burden of Race? ‘Whiteness’ and ‘Blackness’ in modern South Africa, 2001, with the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research
- The United Democratic Front, 2003
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