A Global Collaboratory on the History of Labour Relations in the period 1500-2000

Introduction

The International Institute of Social History is working on a Global Collaboratory on the History of Labour Relations in the period 1500-2000, in collaboration with the Institut für Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte in Vienna. In this project we want to make an inventory of all types of labour relations worldwide, varying from slavery, indentured labour and share cropping, to free wage labour and self-employment from 1500 up until today. Our aim is first to gather statistical data on the occurrence of all types of labour relations in all parts of the world during five cross-sections in time, i.e. 1500, 1650, 1800, 1900 and 2000. Then we would like to develop an international research proposal aimed at explaining the rise and decline of types of labour relations from 1500 to 2000.

For more information please see:

• Project description
• Introduction to the Collaboratory by Marcel van der Linden and Jan Lucassen (pdf, 50Kb)
• List of participants of the Collaboratory
• First workshop - Program
     Minutes of the first workshop (pdf, 140 Kb)
     Pictures of the first workshop
• Second workshop - Program
     Minutes of the second workshop (pdf, 334 Kb)
     Pictures of the second workshop
• Latin America workshop - Program
     Minutes of the Latin America workshop (pdf, 134 Kb)
• Third workshop - Program
     Minutes of the third workshop (pdf, 431 Kb)
• Fourth workshop - Program
• Middle East and North Africa workshop - Program
     Minutes (pdf, 99 Kb)
• Second Middle East, Ottoman Empire Workshop - Program
• An Africa workshop was held in Berlin on 6 and 7 November - Program
• The Fifth Workshop on Work: Ethics, Norms, Valuations, Ideologies. Global Perspectives, 1500-1650 was held on 13-14 November 2009 at the Gerda Henkel Stiftung in Düsseldorf. A position paper was written by Christine Moll-Murata. (pdf, 410 Kb) - Program
• A discussion list for the members of the projectgroup has been set up
• Collaboratory pages have been set up
• Overviews of available data per region
• Definitions of labour relations (pdf, 350 Kb)
• Taxonomy (pdf, 13Kb)
• Source book of the database (pdf, 94 Kb)
• Concept manual for gathering and entering data in the database (pdf, 48 Kb)

If you want more information about the project, please contact Prof. Dr. Karin Hofmeester: .
The project is sponsored by the Gerda Henkel Stiftung, Düsseldorf and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO).