Global Labour History: Perspectives from East to West, from North to South

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Published: Jun 3, 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/historein.22456
Keywords:
Global Labour History Historiography
Dimitra Lampropoulou
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4007-9529
Leda Papastefanaki
University of Ioannina and Institute for Mediterranean Studies/FORTH
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0857-2807
Abstract
Historical reflection on the premises, risks and limitations of the global perspective in labour history has led to a new synthesis of theory and empirical research. The article introduces the conceptual framework and the main characteristics of a flourishing research area, that of global labour history. Finally, this introductory article presents the five articles of the special issue on “Global Labour History: Perspectives from East to West, from North to South”, and discusses how each of them is in dialogue with the topics addressed by global labour history.
Article Details
  • Section
  • INTRODUCTION
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Author Biographies
Dimitra Lampropoulou, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

Dimitra Lampropoulou is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of History and Archaeology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, where she teaches modern and contemporary history. Her main research areas are the history of the twentieth century, labour history, the history of social movements, of youth, and of welfare, memory studies, and oral history. She is a member of Contemporary Social History Archives (ASKI), the Greek Oral History Association, the journal Historein and the European Labour History Network (ELHN). She has published Γράφοντας από τη φυλακή: Όψεις της υποκειμενικότητας των πολιτικών κρατουμένων, 1947-1960 [Writing from prison: facets of political detainees’ subjectivity, 1947–1960], and Οικοδόμοι: Οι άνθρωποι που έχτισαν την Ελλάδα, 1950–1967 [Construction workers: the people who built Athens, 1950–1967], as well as a large number of articles in collective volumes and historical journals. She is currently writing a book entitled Pupils of the Night: A Little Social History of Postwar Greece.

Leda Papastefanaki, University of Ioannina and Institute for Mediterranean Studies/FORTH

Leda Papastefanaki is Associate Professor of Economic and Social History at the Department of History-Archaeology, University of Ioannina. She is a Collaborating Faculty Member at the Institute for Mediterranean Studies/Foundation for Research and Technology. Her monographs are Εργασία, τεχνολογία και φύλο στην ελληνική βιομηχανία: Η κλωστοϋφαντουργία του Πειραιά, 1870-1940 [Labour, technology and gender in Greek industry: the Piraeus textile industry (1870–1940) (Irakleio: Crete University Press, 2009) and Η φλέβα της γης: Τα μεταλλεία της Ελλάδας, 19ος–20ός αιώνας [The veins of the earth: the mines of Greece, 19th–20th century] (Athens: Vivliorama, 2017). Her recent publications include (with Rossana Barragán Romano) “Women and Gender in the Mines: Challenging Masculinity Through History: An Introduction,” in “Women and Gender in Mining: Challenging Masculinity Through History”, special issue, International Review of Social History (2020). She is co-editor with M. Erdem Kabadayı of the volume Working in Greece and Turkey: A Comparative Labour History from Empires to Nation States, 1840–1940 (New York: Berghahn, forthcoming). Her research interests focus on the social and economic history of industrialisation and labour in the Mediterranean context in the 19th and 20th centuries, gender history, urban history, Jewish history.

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