Labour Network

Chairs:

The Labour Network encompasses all aspects of work, labour relations and labour struggle in a global and long-term perspective, including the influence of these global developments on local cases, and vice versa. Besides class, other constituent elements, such as gender, ethnicity, religion, age and nationality, are believed to be indispensable for the historical analysis of work and workers in their broadest definition.

Call for Sessions and Papers on Labour and Working Class Studies Sixteenth European Social Science History Conference (ESSHC) Lyon, France 21–24 April 2027  CfP Deadline: 15 April 2026  

 One of the largest networks of the ESSHC is Labour. Labour can provide a powerful analytical lens to study the interconnectedness of political, economic, environmental and cultural developments through attention to diverse sites and forms of work. We believe that advances in labour history are achieved by analysing global developments in labour relations and labour struggles, and by exploring how these global dynamics interact with local and national contexts. It also remains essential to recognise the multiple constituent dimensions of working-class and working-subject identities beyond class, including gender, ethnicity, religion, age, and citizenship status, and other markers of social positioning. Labour history offers essential insights into pressing contemporary issues such as globalisation, social inequality, migration, environmental change, and precarity. 

  • Possible topics for proposals include, but are not limited to, colonial and imperial relations, activism, management strategies, and unpaid and care labour (e.g. reproductive labour and domestic work), across various sites such as factories, plantations, mines, or households.
  • We also welcome contributions that investigate coercive labour relations across historical and contemporary settings, ranging from slavery and indenture to conscription, debt bondage, penal labour, and more subtle forms of labour coercion within formal and informal economies.
  • We explicitly encourage approaches that consider (non-human) animals, interspecies labour, and the material and affective entanglements that shape work in agrarian, household, and other multispecies environments.
  • The Labour Network seeks to broaden its temporal, geographical, and disciplinary scope and therefore encourages sessions and papers from all time periods and all regions.
  • We also welcome the organisation of conference sessions that move beyond the traditional conference panel, such as film screenings, book panels, etc. Roundtable discussions that present and discuss importantbooks, articles, changing institutional and educational structures, or include labour activists are also encouraged.
  • The Labour Network welcomes any session or paper proposals dealing with all topics and periods in labour and working class history and studies, but we do especially encourage the submission of session proposals. 

Please carefully read the selection criteria below before submitting your proposal. Since the coherence of sessions will be an important criterion, propositions of full sessions with four to five papers will be easier to accommodate in the conference programme than single papers. However, we do accept single paper proposals, both in order to include them in proposed sessions and to compose a limited number of new sessions. We have a preference for sessions with a comparative character, geographically and/or chronologically. We heartily encourage young scholars, such as PhD and master students, to organise sessions and propose papers within the Labour Network. We remind you of the Jan Lucassen Prize for the best paper by a junior scholar at the ESSHC.
For specific questions about the Labour Network, please contact the chairs: Fia Cottrell-Sundevall (fia.cottrell-sundevall@su.se), Timon de Groot (timon.de.groot@iisg.nl), and Zhanna Popova (contact@zhannapopova.info). 

Criteria for selection For the purpose of transparency and as guidance for your submissions, please find below a list of the key criteria that will guide our selection. We will prioritise:
● session proposals with a minimum of three and a maximum of five speakers.
● single and double session proposals, but no triple session proposals. Double sessions may include a minimum of six and a maximum of ten speakers.
● sessions that include speakers from more than one institution and/or country.
● We will not accept session or paper proposals that substantially overlap with those presented at previous conferences or at previous editions of the ESSHC. If your session or paper proposal is a sequel to a session or paper you presented earlier, please state it explicitly in your submission and explain how the new proposal differs from the previous one(s).
● There will be some time-slots for sessions stemming from individual paper proposals. We will also actively seek to place individual papers in appropriate session proposals. When evaluating session proposals, the chairs of the Labour Network will be guided by the following priorities:
● multiple spatial contexts, rather than a single country.
● a comparative approach.
● balanced themes, approaches, and time-frames within the field of labour history.
● balanced composition of senior and junior researchers (including PhD and master students).
● balanced gender representation among speakers, chairs, and discussants. In case you have any doubt regarding these criteria, please do not hesitate to contact us prior to your submission.