An International Workshop organized by Association of Indian Labour Historians (India) under the SEPHIS Programme and the International Institute of Social History
The workshop was held to discuss the possibility of a new framework for Global labour history in view of the urgent need for reconstituting the older frameworks which had evolved around fixed binaries of space, time and social relations. A more meaningful way of comparison would be to focus on sites, forms and relations of labour that habitually straddle the classical divides of labour history. Papers to be presented at the workshop should focus on the following themes.
Legalities: For a new global labour history there is a need to rethink notions of law, legality and labour moving beyond earlier distinctions between legal/illegal, crime/labour, regulated/unregulated.
Mobility: With increasing attention now being paid to circular mobility, cross border labour migration and the history of mobile work sites, mobility is brought back to the centre of labouring experience.
Solidarities: Themes which transcend the organic models of community and associational forms of class, comparisons of transient and temporary solidarities, forms such as social networks forged at workplaces and neighborhoods at both the global and the local level are expected to be dealt with in the papers under this rubric.
Relations of Gender: What seems important today is not just the visibility of women and women's work, but the interrogation of received ideas such as male working class formation and notions of masculinity implicit in traditional notions of solidarity.
Multiplicity of Labouring Identities: The hyphenated identities such as homeworker, peasant-worker, self-employed and 'labouring poor' - a term usually reserved for the pre-industrial worker - have made a strong come back in recent literature.
Impact of New Technology on Work: New technologies especially those based on communications and information have deeply impacted labour relations. Both dispersion and congregation of workforce is occurring specially in the new economy. Are there historical parallels for the way these technologies have impacted work relations?
Program and Participants (pdf)
Postal Address:
Association of Indian Labour Historians
42 Deshbandhu Society
15 Patparganj, Delhi - 110092
India
