Christian G. De Vito

This book reflects the development of Latin American labour history across broad geographical, chronological and thematic perspectives, which seek to review and revisit key concepts at different levels. The contributions are closely linked to the most recent trends in Global Labour History and in turn, they enrich those trends.　

Here, authors from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico, Peru and Spain take a historical and sociological perspective and analyse a series of problems relating to labour relations. The chapters weave together different periods of Latin American colonial and republican history from the vice-royalties of New Spain (now Mexico) and Peru, the Royal Audiencia de Charcas (now Bolivia), Argentina and Uruguay (former vice-royalty of Río de La Plata) and Chile (former Capitanía General).

Este artículo invita a estudiar la cuestión de la multiplicidad de las mitas en el marco analítico de la tensión perdurable entre el "sistema toledano"-basado en la tríada de reducción, tributo y mita-y los regímenes enfrentados de control y explotación de la mano de obra, que fueron producidos principalmente por el impacto de las migraciones indígenas en la población tributaria. Con ese fin, se aborda primero la competencia por los mitayos y las migraciones indígenas como dos áreas donde se manifestó dicha tensión. Luego el artículo se concentra en algunas prácticas de coacción que se incorporaron tanto en la conservación como en la subversión del sistema toledano. La tercera y última sección destaca algunas similitudes y diferencias entre ciertas modalidades de coacción laboral, tanto en la región andina como fuera de ella. Palabras clave: mitas, coacción laboral, trabajo indígena, mundo andino, perspectiva comparada.

This article is an invitation to study the question of the multiplicity of the mitas within the analytical frame of the long-lasting tension
between the ‘Toledan system’ -based on the triad: reduccion, tribute and mita -and the competing regimes of labour extraction that
emerged primarily from the impact of indigenous migrations on the tributary population. To that end, I first address the competition for
the mitayos and indigenous migrations as two areas where that tension became visible. Then I focus on some practices of coercion
that were embedded in both the preservation and subversion of the Toledan system. The third and concluding section offers some
comparative remarks on selected modalities of labour coercion within the Andean region and beyond

En este capítulo, se analizan las relaciones punitivas establecidas entre esclavos, esclavistas y autoridades coloniales desde la perspectiva del paternalismo. Centrándose en el territorio de la Audiencia de Quito colonial y la República del Ecuador entre comienzos del siglo XVIII y la abolición de la esclavitud en 1851, el capítulo se desarrolla en tres direcciones. En el primer apartado, se abordan las interacciones entre el Estado y los esclavistas bajo el prisma de la protección. En el segundo apartado, se hace foco en el paternalismo como repertorio de prácticas de legitimación y contestación del castigo. En el último apartado, se evalúan las continuidades y discontinuidades del impacto del paternalismo en los castigos a los esclavos a lo largo del tiempo, tanto durante el período colonial como posteriormente.

This chapter analyzes the punitive relationships among slaves, slaveholders and colonial authorities from the perspective of paternalism. Focusing on the territory of the colonial Audiencia de Quito and the Republic of Ecuador between the early eighteenth century and the abolition of slavery in 1851, the chapter proceeds in three directions.
The first section addresses the interactions between the State and the slaveholders through the lens of “protection.” The second section turns to paternalism as a repertoire of both legitimation and contestation of punishment. The final section assesses the continuities and discontinuities in the impact of paternalism on the punishments of slaves across time, both during and beyond the colonial period.

This introduction highlights the contribution of the special issue to a radical contex-tualisation of the history of the enslaved. In particular, it suggests that the conditions and circumstances that foster or hamper practices of enslavement need to be studied as part of a broader set of labor relations. And it proposes that shifts in the practices of enslavement are closely related to broader transitions in power relations. This double expansion allows connecting the history of enslavement and the enslaved with broader themes in labor and social history.

This article pursues two goals. First, it reviews recent literature calling for a revised and extended history of work. Based on that review, it then explores the possibility of a new, empirically based analytical and methodological framework for the study of labor relations and the reinterpretation of contemporary issues, including precariousness, “modern slavery,” social inequality, and dependence. We contend that viewing labor relations as standardly diverse, coexisting, entangled, and overlapping across history provides an alternative organizing principle for the research field and is central to the understanding of larger social processes. To this end, we propose a contextualized, interrelational and transepochal approach to labor relations and labor experiences and discuss the potential of three research strategies: the analysis of the historical semantics of labor relations, the detailed study of coercion, and the historical investigation of the relation between precariousness and flexibility.

Resumen: Este artículo presenta una historia conectada de las reubicaciones punitivas en el Imperio español, desde la independencia de Hispanoamérica hasta la "pérdida" de Cuba, Puerto Rico, y Filipinas en 1898. Aquí se destacan tres niveles de enredo: este artículo observa simultáneamente a los fl ujos punitivos derivados de las colonias y de la metrópoli; reúne el estudio del transporte penal, la deportación administrativa y la deportación militar; y discute la relación entre reubicaciones punitivas y encarcelamiento. El artículo comienza con un análisis de los fl ujos punitivos que provenían de las provincias de ultramar. Luego abordo el castigo en la metrópoli a través de la lente colonial, antes de resaltar los enredos del transporte penal y la deportación en el Imperio español del siglo XIX en general.

Micro-spatial history brings together the analytical perspective of microhistory and the methodology of global history. It views historical processes as the outcomes of multiple social practices across time, and across singular, yet connected places. This article argues that a micro-spatial approach implies the rejection of the concept of ‘scale’ and is based on the avoidance of the standard conflation between the type of analysis (micro/macro) and its spatial scope (local/global). Grounding social processes opens up historical studies to views that are alternative to the local/global, the agency/structure and the short-term/long-term divides. Moreover, it allows seeing the construction of scales as an object of historical research. An invitation to self-reflexivity on the epistemology and methodology of history, the micro-spatial perspective also offers new visions of the social role of the historian, foregrounds ‘usable pasts’ that subvert contemporary common places and accentuates the importance of scholarly co-operation.

The essays in this volume provide a new perspective on the history of convicts and penal colonies. They demonstrate that the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were a critical period in the reconfiguration of empires, imperial govern-mentality, and punishment, including through extensive punitive relocation and associated extractive labour. Ranging across the global contexts of Africa, Asia, Australasia, Japan, the Americas, the Pacific, Russia, and Europe, and exploring issues of criminalization, political repression, and convict management alongside those of race, gender, space, and circulation, this collection offers a perspective from the colonies that radically transforms accepted narratives of the history of empire and the history of punishment. In this introduction, we argue that a colony-centred perspective reveals that, during a critical period in world history, convicts and penal colonies created new spatial hierarchies, enabled the incorporation of territories into

This article features a connected history of punitive relocations in the Spanish Empire, from the independence of Spanish America to the " loss " of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines in 1898. Three levels of entanglement are highlighted here: the article looks simultaneously at punitive flows stemming from the colonies and from the metropole; it brings together the study of penal transportation, administrative deportation, and military deportation; and it discusses the relationship between punitive relocations and imprisonment. As part of this special issue, fore-grounding " perspectives from the colonies " , I start with an analysis of the punitive flows that stemmed from the overseas provinces. I then address punishment in the metropole through the colonial lens, before highlighting the entanglements of penal transportation and deportation in the nineteenth-century Spanish Empire as a whole.

The essay aims to «spatialize» microhistory, that is, it proposes a microhistory sensitive to spatiality. I therefore seek to outline a historiographical approach capable of deconstructing the alleged universality of the macro-analytical categories used to describe historical phenomena that at the same time addresses the dialectics between the singularity of each site and the connections produced among sites by the circulation of individuals, objects, ideas, and representations. The essay is divided into four parts. The first section focuses on the way distinct microhistorical approaches have related to the issue of space. The second investigates research strategies that have emerged in the past decade in order to write «global microhistories». In the third section I highlight the key elements of a trans-local microhistory (or "micro-spatial history") through examples drawn from my research in the fields of convict labour and the history of psychiatry. The final section contends that trans-local microhistory is part of global history, and I draw out broader implications for the field.

Review Essay of the following volumes:
S. Bernabeu Albert and C. Martinez Shaw coord., Un oceano de seda y plata. El universe economico del Galeon de Manila;
S. Bernabeu Albert coord., La Nao de China, 1565-1815. Navegacion, comercio e intercambios culturales;
S. Bernabeu Albert, C. Mena Garcia and E.J. Luque Azcona coord., Conocer el Pacifico. Exploraciones, imagenes y formacion de sociedades oceanicas;
M.A. Bonialian, El Pacifico Hispanoamericano. Politica y comercio asiatico en el imperio espanol (1680-1784);
B. Tremml-Werner, Spain, China, and Japan in Manila, 1571-1644. Local Comparisons and Global Connections;
T. Seijas, Asian Slaves in Colonial Mexico. From Chinos to Indians;
E.M. Mehl, Forced Migration in the Spanish Pacific World: From Mexico to the Philippines, 1765-1811;
R.F. Buschmann, E.R. Slack Jr. and J.B. Tueller eds., Navigating the Spanish Lake. The Pacific in the Iberian World, 1521-1898;
R.F. Buschmann, Iberian Visions of the Pacific Ocean, 1507-1899.

This bibliographic essay seeks to contribute to the understanding of convict labour from a global and long-term perspective. First the conditions conducive to the emergence and transformation of convict labour are addressed by framing this coercive labour form within broader classifications of labour relations and by discussing its connection with the problem of governmentality. Subsequently, an overview of the literature is undertaken in the form of a journey across time, space, and different regimes of punishment. Finally, the limitations of the available literature are discussed, the possibility of a longer-term (pre-1500) and global history of convict labour is considered, and some theoretical and methodological approaches are suggested that could favour this task.Dans cet essai bibliographique, les auteurs tentent d'approfondir les connaissances sur le travail des prisonniers dans une perspective mondiale et sur une longue durée. D'abord, les conditions propices à la naissance et la transformation du travail des prisonniers sont évoquées, en définissant cette forme de travail coercitif à l'intérieur de classifications élargies de relation de travail, et en discutant son lien avec le problème de la gouvernementalité. Ensuite, un panorama de la littérature spécialisée est esquissé sous la forme d'un voyage dans le temps, dans l'espace et sous différents régimes de peines. Enfin, les limites de la littérature disponible sont examinées, la possibilité d'une histoire sur une longue durée (remontant à avant l'an 1500) et mondiale du travail des prisonniers est considérée, et diverses approches théoriques et méthodologiques propres à favoriser cette tâche sont suggérées.Traduction: Christine Krätke-Plard Dieser bibliographische Aufsatz versucht, aus globaler und langfristiger Sicht einen Beitrag zum Verständnis der Sträflingsarbeit zu leisten. Zunächst werden die Bedingungen angesprochen, die die Entstehung und Veränderung der Sträflingsarbeit begünstigen, in dem diese Form von Zwangsarbeit in den Kontext weitreichenderer Klassifizierungen der Arbeitsverhältnisse gestellt und ihre Beziehung zum Problem der Gouvernementalität diskutiert wird. Anschließend wird ein Überblick über die Literatur geboten, in Form einer Reise durch Zeit und Raum sowie durch verschiedene Strafregimes. Schließlich werden die Grenzen der vorliegenden Literatur diskutiert; die Möglichkeit einer langfristiger angelegten (vor 1500 ansetzenden) Globalgeschichte der Sträflingsarbeit wird ins Auge gefasst und es werden einige theoretische und methodologische Ansätze vorgeschlagen, die diesem Vorhaben dienlich sein könnten.Übersetzung: Max Henninger Este ensayo bibliográfico aspira a ser una contribución a la comprensión del trabajo cautivo desde una pespectiva global y de larga duración. Comienza por situar las condiciones que conducen a la emergencia y transformación del trabajo cautivo en un marco más amplio de clasificación de las relaciones laborales y se dialoga sobre su conexión con la cuestión de la gubernamentalidad. A continuación se lleva a cabo una panorámica de la literatura existente sobre el tema como si se tratara de un viaje a través del tiempo, del espacio y de los diferentes regímenes de castigo. Por último, se analizan las limitaciones de las obras a disposición del investigador, considerando la posiblidad de introducir una visión de mayor duración temporal (anterior a 1500), proponiendo una historia global del trabajo cautivo y se sugieren algunas cuestiones teóricas y metodológicas que puedan ir en esa dirección.Traducción: Vicent Sanz Rozalén

Abstract
This article addresses the long-standing continuities in the history of the Italian forensic psychiatric units and views them as the result of conflicting forces, interests, mentalities and strategies at the cross-road of forensic psychiatry, psychiatry, prison and health services. It focuses on the period from the 1960s to the present and deals with, among other issues, the long-term impact of the anti-asylum movements and the on-going debate on the ‘phasing out’ of the forensic psychiatric units.

Article Outline
1. Introduction
2. The anti-asylum movement and the ospedali psichiatrici giudiziari
3. The paradoxes of the period 1980s–early 2000s
4. “Phasing out” the ospedali psichiatrici giudiziari?
Acknowledgments

La dicotomía libre/esclavo se ha mostrado insuficiente para explicar la diversidad y multiplicidad de relaciones y de experiencias laborales en el mundo. De esta certeza surge la necesidad de poner en evidencia y estudiar en perspectiva histórica la coexistencia de sistemas laborales que, por su diferente grado de coerción, la historiografía ha tradicionalmente calificado de “libres” y “no libres”.1 Además de las posibles similitudes y diferencias, se pueden constatar ciertas conexiones y relaciones entre estos regímenes. De hecho, esto demanda superar la distinción misma entre relaciones “libres” y “no libres”, para enfocarse en el continuum de coacción en el cual se sitúan todas relaciones laborales. Un acercamiento de este tipo debe ir de la mano de la reflexión renovada sobre los significados de coerción y libertad asociados a las formas laborales estudiadas en diferentes contextos y periodos...

Assumere una prospettiva globale sulla storia del lavoro e delle migrazioni vuol dire tenere presenti tre aspetti (Brass, van der Linden, 1997; Lucassen, 2008; van der Linden, 2008; De Vito, 2013). In primo luogo, comporta di seguire le tracce dei fenomeni studiati in qualunque direzione esse portino, con una sensibilità particolare per le connessioni prodotte dalla circolazione dei lavoratori e delle lavoratrici, delle merci e dei capitali, delle tecnologie e delle idee sul lavoro. Un approccio globale non implica necessariamente di muoversi su spazi planetari o all’interno di macroregioni, né porta a mettere in secondo piano specificità locali, connessioni sulle brevi distanze e disconnessioni. Richiede piuttosto, sul piano metodologico, di non considerare a priori gli Statinazione come le unità di analisi più appropriate (nazionalismo metodologico) e di non vedere nei percorsi storici seguiti da una determinata regione del pianeta un “modello” al quale ogni altra esperienza storica debba necessariamente conformarsi (etnocentrismo).  In secondo luogo, un approccio globale suggerisce di considerare il lavoro umano in tutte le sue forme, piuttosto che concentrarsi prevalentemente o esclusivamente su alcune di esse, quali il lavoro salariato o la schiavitù per esempio. Ne deriva che fanno parte della storia del lavoro globale tutte le forme di migrazione – “volontaria” e forzata, “interna” e internazionale, permanente e stagionale – e tutte le tipologie di organizzazione dei lavoratori e delle lavoratrici. Infine, una prospettiva globale invita a studiare le esperienze del lavoro nel corso di tutta la storia umana – dalla “preistoria” all’attualità – senza immaginare un’evoluzione lineare verso presunte forme di maggiore libertà e senza presupporre l’esistenza di cesure dal valore universale, quale a lungo è stata considerata per esempio la rivoluzione industriale inglese della fine del xviii secolo (su questo tema rinvio in particolare al capitolo di Stefano Agnoletto in questo volume). Da questo punto di vista, la periodizzazione scelta in questo capitolo, che copre il periodo tra il 1500 e il xxi secolo, riflette semplicemente la necessità di adottare una cronologia analoga a quella della maggior parte dei capitoli contenuti in questo volume. La vastità del campo della storia globale del lavoro e delle migrazioni impone delle scelte, a maggior ragione in un contributo sintetico come questo (per una trattazione sistematica e a più voci: Hofmeester, van der Linden, 2017). Ciascuno dei paragrafi che seguono presenta alcuni apporti centrali della storia globale del lavoro e contemporaneamente indica un approccio che i lettori e le lettrici potranno ritrovare in altre ricerche e sviluppare con riferimento ad altri temi, aree e periodi. Il punto di convergenza qui è dato dalla questione del controllo sulla forza lavoro e dalla dialettica che ne deriva: tensione tra l’esigenza padronale e dei policy-makers di sincronizzare tempi, luoghi e modalità della disponibilità della manodopera con le proprie esigenze produttive e geopolitiche, da un lato, e dall’altro la necessità dei lavoratori e delle lavoratrici di sottrarsi a tale controllo, di affermare una propria autonomia dentro e oltre la produzione, talvolta anche di costruire alternative di società non basate sulla mercificazione del lavoro...

Scholars have paid relatively little, fragmented and discontinuous attention to the history of convict transportation in the Spanish empire... Only two syntheses centred on convict transportation are available to date: Ruth Pike’s pioneering study on penal servitude in early modern Spain, published in 1983, and Lauren Benton’s more recent chapter in A Search for Sovereignty. Both focus on the flows directed to the presidios, or military outposts, in the five decades between the end of the Seven Years’ War (1754-1763) and the beginning of the process of Latin American independence (1810s-1830s).
The history of convict transportation in the Spanish empire, however, is much longer and includes a broader range of punitive regimes. The first two sections of this chapter take this expanded chronological and thematic frame in order to offer an overview, and to provide, respectively, a general description and periodisation of the various forms of convict transportation and a preliminary evaluation of the quantitative scale of the phenomenon as a whole. In the subsequent sections I use the presidio perspective to explore aspects of convict transportation that can be equally investigated in relation to other mobility-oriented punishments. First, I seek to provide a comprehensive description of convict flows to the presidios and relate them to the structure of the Spanish empire. I then foreground the distinctiveness of each route and the variety of groups of prisoners transported along different routes and standing in each destination, and point to the entanglements and disentanglements between the convict voyages and the journeys of other migrants. Finally, I address the relationship between the process of sentencing, the destinations of transportation and agency, and the role that punishment-related spatial mobility played in the lives of the convicts. All in all, the chapter foregrounds the way convict transportation was shaped by, and in turn impacted on, the structures, spatiality, conceptualisations and goals of the empire – a point that I especially highlight in the concluding section.

This essay seeks to highlight the potential of the concepts of labour flexibility and labour precariousness in developing the historical study of the interactions between (“free” and “unfree”) labour relations. At the same time, it highlights the impact of a global and long-term approach to labour flexibility and labour precariousness on the contemporary debate in this field. To this double aim, I define labour flexibility as the relative advantage attached by employers and policy-makers to certain labour relations, based on the opportunity to recruit, locate and manage workforces in the place, time and task most conducive to the former’s own economic and political goals. In other words, labour flexibility expresses the employers’ and policy-makers’ quest to synchronise the availability of what they perceive as the most appropriate workforce, with their productive and political needs. In turn, labour precariousness is defined here as the workers’ own perception of their (lack of) control over their labour power, in relation to other workers, the labour market, and the social reproduction of their workforce.
The relational nature of these definitions represents one of this essay’s contributions to the debate on labour flexibility and labour precariousness in both historical studies and contemporary debates. Whereas many contradictory definitions of these phenomena exist in scholarship, those provided here have arguably the advantage of connecting labour flexibility/precariousness to the issue of control over labour: they indicate how labour flexibility relates to external (employers’ and/or policy-makers’) control over the workforce, whereas labour precariousness relates to workers’ control over their own labour force. By foregrounding the question of control, and ultimately of power, these definitions additionally allow for a focus on the “constraint agency”  of historical and contemporary actors at the crossroads of materiality and perceptions, external categorisation and self-representation.
My argument especially builds on the findings of two distinct streams in recent scholarly literature: the re-conceptualisation of the role of multiple labour relations in the process of labour commodification, which has been proposed within the context of Global Labour History; and the studies that have addressed contemporary labour precariousness from a historical and global perspective. Starting from these new approaches, the paper explores five directions. The first section sketches the outlines of a conceptualisation of labour flexibility and precariousness vis-à-vis the process of labour commodification. The second section, largely referring to my own empirical research and selected examples from secondary literature on late-colonial and post-colonial Spanish America, poses space, time, and State- and private control of the workforce as key components of labour flexibility. Based on the same empirical findings, the third section addresses the limits of the employers’ control over the workforce. The fourth section raises the question of the workers’ perception of the precariousness of their labour, and its interrelation with workers’ agency. The concluding section points to distinct fields where the global, long-term, and relational approach to the study of labour flexibility and precariousness directly contributes to contemporary debates and scholarship in the field.

(from the introductory section)
Convict labor – defined as “the work performed by individuals under penal and/or administrative control”  – has hitherto remained marginal within both theoretical debates on “free” and “unfree” labor, and the literature on the relationship between the abolition process of chattel slavery and the persistence of other forms of coerced labor. In this respect, this chapter aims to bring it back into these debates, by making convict presence visible and by interpreting the role of convict labor at the crossroad of multiple regimes of punishment and labor relations. In particular, the essay addresses three broad questions: What historical conditions favoured the exploitation of convict labor as part of the larger process of commodification of labor? In which economic sectors did convicts work, and how did their tasks differ from those of other laborers? How did convict transportation interact with other labor migrations?
In previous publications, Alex Lichtenstein and I have produced broad surveys of the secondary literature on this topic, spanning centuries and virtually covering the globe.  In order to offer more nuanced descriptions and interpretations of these phenomena, I now sharpen my focus. Besides concentrating exclusively on male convict labor, this chapter deals specifically with the borderlands  of Latin America (Patagonia, Araucanía, Magallanes and Tierra del Fuego), with the double aim of providing a synthesized view of some characteristics of convict labor in this vast and variegated region, and broadening the scope of literature on convict labor in the Americas.
I take the  “long nineteenth century” – from the height of the Bourbon reform in Spanish America (1760s) to the early twentieth century – as the temporal frame of this contribution, covering both the late-colonial and the early post-colonial period. This relatively long-term perspective offers an appropriate timeframe to address the role of convict labor on the eve of the abolition of the slave trade and slavery, as well as to deal with the impact of the “great proletarian migration” from Europe on the composition of the workforce and regimes of punishment.
Throughout this contribution, a triple comparative approach is taken. First, the function of convict labor is explored comparatively within the investigated region. Next, the second half of the eighteenth century and the second half of the nineteenth century are respectively addressed, in order to highlight continuities and changes during the late colonial and the post-colonial periods. Then, in the concluding section, I draw comparisons with experiences in Latin America and beyond to make a broader point on the relevance of the study of convict labor at the crossroads of labor history and the history of punishment.
By focusing on the borderlands, the specific deployment of convicts to colonize those regions is thematized vis-à-vis their exploitation in extant colonies in other Spanish American territories. In urban centres like Havana, Santiago, Mexico City and Lima, by the second half of the nineteenth century colonization was a fait accompli and convict labor complemented or substituted the existing free and coerced workforce. The situation was different in the borderlands of Spanish America, including the Southern Cone, the Gran Chaco and Tucumán, the Floridas, Northern New Spain and Upper California. Whereas military and non-military public work and involuntary military service were the convicts’ main occupations, the overall context diverged as these vast regions remained consistently beyond comprehensive control of the colonial and post-colonial authorities for the majority of the long nineteenth century. From the perspective of the Spanish Crown, as Luíz put it, this was a “double frontier” (doble frontera):  on the one hand, various Indigenous groups controlled these territories; on the other hand, foreign powers, be they competing European powers or concurrent post-colonial states, fought to hold sway. Defending the whole frontier was by no means possible, as policy-makers were fully aware. As the Viceroy of Peru, Manuel de Amat y Junient, wrote to the Secretary of State Julian de Arriaga in February 1767: “The troops and the money of the whole World are not enough to guard and fortify such vast dominions”.  Colonial officials, then, had to make strategic and critical choices about where and how to colonize. They based these decisions on factors including the existence of natural and financial resources, the accessibility of settlements by land and sea, the size and type of the available workforce, and the ability to transport that workforce from other parts of the empire (and eventually beyond its borders). As I will show in this chapter, convict labor in the borderlands was part of this specific configuration of colonization and labor while simultaneously intertwining with other free and coerced labor relations in each site within the region...

The editorial introduction and the twelve chapters of this volume address the relationship between indebtedness and bondage in the Indian Ocean World (IOW). Geographically, the contributions cover the whole region, from East Africa to Japan – the index at the end of the book appropriately lists key-places, but maps are unfortunately wanting. The chronological focus lies on the period from the eighteenth century to the present, but previous centuries are covered, for example, in essays on Japan, Korea, and the Islamic legal tradition. The (relatively) long-term approach makes continuities and discontinuities emerge, the latter especially in relation to the nineteenth century internationalization of the IOW economy and the related growth in labour demand...

Report of the conference "Trabajo y trabajadores: Congreso Latinoamericano y del Caribe", held in La Paz, Bolivia, 2-8 May 2017.
The conference resulted in the foundation of the RELATT - Red Latinoamericana de Trabajo y Trabajador@s, or Latin American Labour History Network.

On 4-7 April 2018 the 12 th European Social Science History Conference will take place at Queen's University in Belfast (Northern Ireland) – https://esshc.socialhistory.org/esshc-belfast-2018. The ESSHC brings together scholars interested in explaining historical phenomena using the methods of the social sciences. The conference is characterized by a lively exchange in many small groups, rather than by formal plenary sessions. It is organized in a large number of networks that cover specific fields of interest. One of the largest networks is Labour. We think that progress in Labour History is being made by analysing global developments in labour relations and labour struggles, including the influence of these global developments on specific contexts and vice versa. It also remains essential to take into account other constituent elements of working class identities besides class, such as gender, ethnicity, religion, age and nationality. Furthermore, we see the emergence of substantial new areas of study within Labour History, for example: the connected histories of colonial and metropolitan labour across the early modern and modern periods; the " provincialization " of Atlantic slavery vis-à-vis the emergence of new research on the experiences of enslavement in the medieval Mediterranean and the early modern Indian Ocean, Asia and the Pacific; a renewed approach to the question of free and unfree labour; the entanglements between the management of slave, indentured, convict and wage labour; the entanglements between the study of labour relations and workers' individual and collective agency; and the focus on single sites of production and reproduction (plantations, factories, mines, households, manufactures, docks, railways etc.). Moreover, we witness a growing tendency to foreground labour history in order to understand pressing contemporary issues, such as globalization, social inequality, migration, labour precariousness, mass incarceration and citizenship. The Labour Network welcomes any session or paper proposal dealing with all topics and periods in labour and working class history. For a detailed list of the criteria that we will follow in our selection, see the annex 1 below. Please, read it carefully when preparing your proposal. As part of the Labour Network programme, at the ESSHC 2018 we aim to organize three 'Methodological Sessions'. These are sessions where methodological issues in the study of Labour History are explicitly foregrounded (this does not prevent the papers to be also empirically based). For example, you may think of sessions on new perspectives in comparative labour history, on the role of petitions in the study of workers' agency, on the archives for global labour history, on the alternativeness or complementariness of macro-and micro-analyses in labour history, etc. If you wish to propose one such session, please use 'Methodological Session' as a subtitle to your session. If your panel will not be selected for the 'Methodological Sessions', we will of course still take it into consideration for our regular sessions. In order to broaden the chronological scope of labour history, we will also reserve at least two time-slots for sessions that focus on labour in the Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and/or with longer-term perspectives including the centuries prior to 1500. For these sessions we will seek alliance with related ESSHC networks. The conference language is English.

The Carceral Archipelago conference, held in Leicester from 13 to 16 September 2015, felt just like reading over thirty outstanding monographs in two-and-a-half days, getting to know their authors personally, and having the chance to reflect collectively about their mutual entanglements. It was an intense marathon through the burgeoning field of the global history of convict transportation and convict labour, spanning multiple polities and both the early modern and modern periods. We possibly all felt a bit tired by the end of the conference, but of that kind of satisfied tiredness you experience after a great meal (indeed, meals were outstanding too!)...

Addressing convict transportation –the key feature in the Carceral Archipelago project – implies multi-sited research, that is, research in archives located in different places (and countries/continents). Indeed, as convicts were transported from site to site within and beyond the borders of empires and nation-states, they left traces in official records presently held in repositories across the world...