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Key research themes
1. How are non-human actors and multi-species relations reshaping the conceptual boundaries of labour history?
This research theme examines the expanding conceptualization of labour beyond traditional human-centric notions, incorporating non-human agents such as animals, plants, and technologies. It challenges the anthropocentrism that has historically dominated labour historiography by integrating insights from multi-species history, environmental humanities, and Anthropocene studies. This expansion matters because it aligns labour history with pressing planetary concerns and opens up new methodological avenues for understanding labour as a complex interplay between humans and their ecological and technological environments.
Key finding: This paper identifies a critical lacuna in labour history: the exclusion of animals and plants as active participants in labour processes. It argues that labour historians have remained anthropocentric while environmental... Read more
2. What are the international trajectories and methodological evolutions in labour historiography across different national contexts?
This theme focuses on the diverse historiographical traditions, intellectual developments, and institutional contexts shaping labour history in various countries. It highlights how labour history has responded to globalizing forces, feminist and decolonial critiques, and socio-political pressures, resulting in pluralistic methodologies and thematic expansions. Understanding these trajectories is essential for scholars to situate their research within broader comparative frameworks and to appreciate the translation of labour history’s analytical tools across borders.
Key finding: The paper provides an encompassing survey of labour historiography worldwide, revealing that labour history has embraced new analytical categories (race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality) and methodological turns, such as the... Read more
Key finding: This survey emphasizes the foundational role of British labour history, particularly through the Society for the Study of Labour History (SSLH), and its profound influence on labour historiography internationally. It... Read more
3. How have labour movements been revitalized through rank-and-file mobilization, social protest, and institutional change across democracies?
This theme investigates the dynamics of labour movement resurgence by examining the interplay between grassroots mobilization, protest activities, and changes in labour institutions. It engages with comparative political economy and social movement theory to understand conditions promoting labour’s reinvigoration, the challenges posed by institutional decline, and the reciprocal effects between labour activism and institutional reform. This inquiry is key for scholars analyzing labour’s capacity for renewal and democratic participation in contemporary and historical contexts.
Key finding: The paper identifies rank-and-file mobilization and popular protest as critical drivers for revitalizing labour institutions in liberal democracies. Through comparative analysis of the US, Britain, and Germany, it reveals... Read more
4. What are the socio-economic and political narratives embedded in labor history through national case studies spanning empire, industrialization, and resistance?
This theme explores how labour history reflects broader nation-building, colonial, and socio-political dynamics within specific regional and temporal contexts. It pays particular attention to labour’s intersection with ethnicity, gender, state policies, and class formation in non-Western and colonial/postcolonial settings. These narratives illuminate labour’s role in transformative historical moments and contribute to a decolonized and intersectional understanding of labour history.
Key finding: This edited volume demonstrates how labour histories in Greece and Turkey reveal converging patterns and divergences amid transitions from Ottoman imperial rule to nation-states. Notably, it highlights how labour... Read more
Key finding: The book provides an in-depth study of labour and industrialization in early Republican Turkey, challenging nostalgic and simplistic narratives of state-led economic modernization. By combining political economy with... Read more
Key finding: This chapter uncovers how gender nonconforming Black and Indigenous peoples in colonial New Orleans resisted racial capitalist labour regimes by forging alternative networks and practices that challenged normative racial and... Read more
5. How do digital and public history initiatives transform the practice and dissemination of labour history in contemporary contexts?
Focusing on labour history’s engagement with public audiences, this theme interrogates the methodological and political challenges of making labour history accessible and meaningful outside academia, especially amid neoliberal deregulation and technological change. It explores how digital tools and platforms foster knowledge democratization, interactive scholarship, and community involvement. This is vital for understanding labour history’s evolving functions and for historians aiming to impact public discourse and workers’ self-representation.
Key finding: The article documents the emerging practice of Public Labour History in Brazil through the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro’s Laboratory of Studies on Worlds of Labor History (LEHMT-UFRJ), which employs diverse digital... Read more