Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa 

Organized by the History Workshop, University of Witwatersrand, and the Centre for Sociological Research, University of Johannesburg, in association with the International Association of Labour History and the International Conference of Labour and Social History.

This conference has 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.

Full Conference Description [1]