A WORLD OF LABOUR: TRANSNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE HISTORIES
An International Conference to be held at the 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 worldwide networks of power, communication and social and economic formation. Within an Englishspeaking
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;
Social and culture rituals across territories;
Formal and informal labour networks;
Strikes, violence, and resistance in comparative perspective;
Activities or campaigners operating in more than one national context;
International markets and their effect on labour migration;
Class, race, ethnicity and gender in transnational or comparative perspective;
Internationalism in labour history;
Global examples of associational culture;
Transnationalism, globalisation and Diasporas;
The strengths and weakness of comparative labour history
Confirmed keynotes:
Prof. John Belchem (Liverpool)
Prof. Stefan Berger (Manchester)
Prof. Marcel van der Linden (Amsterdam)
Prof. Melanie Nolan (Victoria, NZ)
We welcome proposals for individual papers of 20 minutes, or for panels of up to four papers of that length. Some financial
assistance may be available to postgraduates travelling from other parts of the UK or Ireland. A selection of the papers may be published in the Society’s journal, Labour History Review.
Please email proposals (300 words maximum per paper) and brief CV (one page maximum) to Professor Donald MacRaild d.macraild@ulster.ac.uk or Dr Charlotte Alston c.alston@ulster.ac.uk by 1 May 2008.