Big questions and big data: The role of labour in recent global economic history

This article argues that global labour history (GLH) and global economic history have much to offer each other. GLH would do well to raise sweeping questions – for instance about the origins of global inequality – engage more with theory, and increasingly use quantitative methods. Instead of seeing labour and labour relations as historical phenomena to be explained, they can serve as important explanatory variables in historical analyses of economic development and divergence. In turn, economic historians have much to gain from the recent insights of global labour historians. GLH offers a more inclusive and variable usage of the concept of labour, abandoning, as it does, the often narrow focus on male wage labour in the analyses of many economic historians. Moreover, GLH helps to overcome thinking in binary categories, such as “free” and “unfree” labour. Ultimately, both fields will benefit from engaging in joint debates and theories, and from collaboration in collecting and analysing “big data”

Entangled histories - Unravelling the impact of colonial connections of both Javanese and Dutch women’s work and household labour relations, c. 1830-1940

In this article I investigate changing household labour relations and women’swork in the Dutch empire. I question how colonial connections affected thedivision of work between men, women, and children, not only in the colony –the Dutch East Indies (i.c. Java), but also in the metropolis – the Netherlands.Entanglements can be found in the influences of colonial economic policieson both colony and metropolis, as well as in the more indirect effects ofcolonial exploitation and taxation, and, finally in the sphere of sociopoliticsand ideologies. I will analyse the entanglements between the Netherlandsand Java in these domains, comparing similarities and differences, but alsopaying attention to the connections and transfers between both parts of theDutch empire. Although some of the conditions and developments werehighly specific to the Dutch empire, I aim to show that the method ofcomparing and establishing direct and indirect connections between differentparts of an empire can lead to new insights that can also be applied toother parts of the world and different time periods

Women, work and colonialism in the Netherlands and Java: comparisons, contrasts and connections, 1830-1940

Recent postcolonial studies have stressed the importance of the mutual influences of colonialism on both colony and metropole. This book studies such colonial entanglements and their effects by focusing on developments in household labour in the Dutch Empire in the period 1830-1940. The changing role of households’, and particularly women’s, economic activities in the Netherlands and Java, one of the most important Dutch colonies, forms an excellent case study to help understand the connections and disparities between colony and metropole. The author contends that colonial entanglements certainly existed, and influenced developments in women’s economic role to an extent, both in Java and the Netherlands. However, during the nineteenth century, more and more distinctions in the visions and policies towards Dutch working class and Javanese peasant households emerged. Accordingly, a more sophisticated framework is needed to explain how and why such connections were – both intentionally and unintentionally – severed over time

Introduction: Domestic work in the colonial context: race, color, and power in the household

Domestic and caregiving work has been at the core of human existence throughout history. Poorly paid or even unpaid, this work has been assigned to women in most societes and occasionally to men often as enslaved, indentures, "adopted" workers. While some use domestic service as training for their own future independent households, others are confined to it for life and try to avoid damage to their identities (Part One). Employment conditions are even worse in colonizer-colonized dichotomies, in which the subalternized have to run the households of administrators who believe they are running an empire (Part Two). Societies and states set the discriminatory rules, those employed develop strategies of resistance or self-protection (Part Three). A team of international scholars addresses these issues globally with a deep historical backgroun

De draad in eigen handen : Vrouwen en loonarbeid in de Nederlandse textielnijverheid, 1581-1810

In De draad in eigen handen onderzoekt historica Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk de sekseverhoudingen binnen de textielnijverheid in de Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden, met name het spinnen en weven. Met reden: de textielnijverheid was er in de zeventiende en achttiende eeuw een belangrijke economische tak, waarin zowel mannen als vrouwen werkten. Centraal in dit boek staan vier plaatsen waarin de textielnijverheid een voorname positie innam: Leiden, 's-Hertogenbosch, Tilburg en Zwolle. Daarbij wordt aandacht besteed aan zowel het macroniveau, de betekenis van de bedrijfstak voor de 'nationale' economie, als het microniveau: wat betekenden bepaalde ontwikkelingen voor de individuele textielarbeid(st)er? De studie levert een schat aan nieuwe gegevens op. Zo blijkt dat, anders dan velen denken, spinnen geen exclusief vrouwenberoep was: ook veel mannen sponnen. Voor de eerste keer is een systematische berekening gemaakt van de vraag naar spinarbeid in de zeventiende en achttiende eeuw. Ook zijn voor het eerst reeksen spinlonen voor die periode in kaart gebracht. Dit onderzoek maakt duidelijk dat binnen de textielnijverheid zeker sprake was van arbeidsdeling naar sekse, maar dat deze niet eenduidig kan worden verklaard. Er ligt een intrigerend web van economische, socioculturele en institutionele factoren aan ten grondslag, die elkaar beïnvloedden én versterkten. Niettemin lijken economische ontwikkelingen en de opkomst van de loonarbeid doorslaggevend te zijn geweest.Lucassen, J.M.W.G. [Promotor

Temporary Service? A Global Perspective on Domestic Work and the Life Cycle from Pre-Industrial Times to the Present

In recent years, labor history has taken a “global turn”, increasingly focusing on labor relations in the non-Western world. This article aims to challenge existing perceptions of the history of domestic work in Europe from a global labor history perspective by comparing them with the histories of domestic workers the world over. It seeks to discern continuities and discontinuities in the life cycles of domestic workers around the world over a long period of time. The profound influence of globalization and women’s emancipation on the contemporary international division of labor may make it seem quite new, but it remains rooted in older patterns of migration, colonial relations, and gender and ethnic stereotypes