Work Semantics. In Search of an Alternative Conceptual Matrix for Labour and Social Historians

The idea for the project presented in this volume began with an encounter and a discovery. When we – a medievalist and a sinologist – first met in autumn 2017, we realised that although we came from different disciplines and worked on different regions and time periods, we were struggling with the same problem: As historians working on slaving practices in the Venetian empire (14th–16th centuries) respectively servitude in late imperial China (15th–19th centuries), we were both spending much of our time explaining the contextual differences and similarities between the social configurations we were studying to the broader community of social, labour, and global historians. We both felt that our objects of study did not fit well within the much-debated subfield of “free and unfree labour”, and that the postcolonial critiques and the so-called global turn in history did not solve the conceptual problem we were facing. Integrating a medieval or Chinese case study into a conference panel or a special journal issue on household service or slavery helped to enlarge the horizon of the historiographical debates on the history of unfree labour relations, but the umbrella terms of these subfields of study and the limited conceptual referencesavailable did little to help us understand and properly convey the social taxonomies shaping the power relations we were studying.The idea for the project presented in this volume began with an encounter and a discovery. When we – a medievalist and a sinologist – first met in autumn 2017, we realised that although we came from different disciplines and worked on different regions and time periods, we were struggling with the same problem: As historians working on slaving practices in the Venetian empire (14th–16th centuries) respectively servitude in late imperial China (15th–19th centuries), we were both spending much of our time explaining the contextual differences and similarities between the social configurations we were studying to the broader community of social, labour, and global historians. We both felt that our objects of study did not fit well within the much-debated subfield of “free and unfree labour”, and that the postcolonial critiques and the so-called global turn in history did not solve the conceptual problem we were facing. Integrating a medieval or Chinese case study into a conference panel or a special journal issue on household service or slavery helped to enlarge the horizon of the historiographical debates on the history of unfree labour relations, but the umbrella terms of these subfields of study and the limited conceptual referencesavailable did little to help us understand and properly convey the social taxonomies shaping the power relations we were studying

Asservir pour punir : la nature pénale du statut d’esclave dans la Chine des Ming (1368-1644)

« Châtier pour punir » se propose d’explorer l’identité des « esclaves » (nubi 奴婢) en Chine impériale tardive. En s’appuyant sur les sources juridiques et institutionnelles d’époque Ming (1368-1644), cet article examine les caractéristiques intrinsèques du statut d’esclave et s’attache en particulier à mettre en évidence l’existence d’un lien conceptuel fort (et très ancien) entre asservissement et châtiment. Ce faisant, cet article entend contribuer au renouveau des études concernant l’histoire du fait servile en Chine impériale, sujet trop peu étudié par les études chinoises occidentales et dont les aspects conceptuels, pourtant fondamentaux, ont été négligés par les historiens chinois.“Enslavement as a punishment” explores the identity of “slaves” (nubi 奴婢) in late imperial China. Based on a close examination of institutional and legal sources promulgated under the Ming (1368-1644), this article proposes a reinterpretation of slaves’ status by shedding a new light on the strong (and ancient) conceptual link between enslavement and punishment—in particular on the conception of enslavement as a means to extend incriminations to a criminal’s kin and family. In so doing, this article aims at contributing to renew the interest for the social history of slavery in China, a field that has received little attention from Western Chinese studies and the conceptual dimensions of which have been neglected by Chinese historians.本文運用明代的法律文獻來分析明政府有關奴婢的法律思想。前人對於奴婢身份和地位的研究，一般注重於奴婢的社會地位或生活概況，很少關注對其法律思想和法律概念的界定。本文研究奴婢身份的內在特性，並指明奴性和懲罰之間的概念關係。作為一種對明代奴婢身份的新視角研究，本文也希望能夠激励西方中國學學者對此稀罕領域的研究，同時充填中國歷史學者在基本概念層次上的不足

Panel “Comparative Perspectives on the Trafficking of Chinese Immigrants to Cuba: 'Coolies' in Cuba, Qing Policies, and Spanish Interests” [panel discussant]

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Domestic Law and Slavery in Late Imperial China: Glimpses from Lineage Registers

International audienceOver the past century, the late imperial Chinese nubi system has been the subject of numerous studies. Depicted as a highly exploitative mode of labor coercion, it has nonetheless been radically differentiated from slavery. In this article, I explore how nubi were conceptualized in late imperial China through the lens of lineages’ domestic regulations and admonitions. Nubi bondage was first and foremost a living experience of strong asymmetric dependency. However, as a de jure institution, its conceptual and normative dimensions do matter as they justified the enslavement of human beings and contributed to shaping household practices. Domestic regulations reveal a process that transformed outsiders into absolute inferiors. This consideration alone is an incentive to reconsider the alleged disqualification of nubi as a form of “slavery” and to engage broader comparisons with slavery in a more global perspective

Capture, Bondage, and Forced Relocation in Asia (Conference Report)

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[CfP] Masterclass: The Transformations in the World of Work

Call for Papers Germany Institute (DIA), Amsterdam / International Institute of Social History (IISH), Amsterdam / N.W. Posthumus Institute, Nijmegen "The Transformations in the World of Work: Bringing Sociological and Historical Perspectives Together" Prof. dr. Nicole Mayer-Ahuja, University of Göttingen International Masterclass, 10 June 2020, IISH, Amsterdam Since the 1970s, work is transforming all over the world. A sharp decline in employment, the dispersion of industrial uni..

The Language of Slavery in Late Imperial China: Translation, comparison, contextualization [présentation dans un workshop]

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Conference "Capture, Bondage and Forced Relocation in Asia"

From March 13 to March 14, Claude Chevaleyre and Jennifer Gaynor have organized an international conference at ENS-Lyon, France, entitled "Capture, Bondage, and Forced Relocation in Asia" Funded by the Crafoord Foundation, Linnaeus University, the École Normale Supérieure of Lyon, IDEX-Lyon and the Lyons East Asia Institute View program For several years, networks of historians have gradually formed around workshops, conferences and digital humanities projects to reassess the place and hi..

Les tableaux d’obligations luctuaires sous les Ming [présentation dans un séminaire]

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Beyond Maritime Asia. Ideology, Historiography, and Prospects for a Global History of Slaving in Early-Modern Asia

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