06934 - Labour History

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course students will possess the basic methodological tools to study the changes occurring in social and labour relations over the long term, with particular reference to the transition between modern and contemporary, as well as industrial and post-industrial, eras. They will understand the connections between labour, the economy and ethics, as well as placing the changes they have studied in different spatio-temporal contexts, with a focus on the relationship between local and global. They will know how to use the conceptual categories proper to the discipline for a critical analysis of the debated social and cultural issues, with particular regard to different cultures and genders. They will be versed in the specific terminology of the discipline.

Course contents

The Labour History course 2020/21 has been subdivided into three parts, listed as follows.

1. Fundaments of global labour history: it presents the methodological and historiographic instruments for reading the transformations occurring in the human labour in the long-term and by means of a global perspective. Among the topics analysed: What is labour history? Who are the workers (of both sexes)?; The forms of free and non-free labour; The places and the spaces of work; The periodisation of labour history; Labour conflict and regulations; The sources for the history of work.

2. Key words for the history of labour in the industrial and post-industrial societies: proposes a selection of themes, through which it is possible to deepen the labour history in the contemporary age both in the Euro-Atlantic space and in the global south. Among the key words examined: industrialization and deindustrialization; social question; welfares state, trade unions and the workers’ movement; migrations and mobility; unemployment; labour and human rights; labour, environment and health.

3. Labour precarity in historical and gender perspective: proposes a series of in-depth analysis of the topical phenomenon of labour precarity between the industrial and post-industrial age up to the impact of COVID-19, looking at both the local and global dimensions: 1) the historical origins; 2) the categories of workers; 3) forms of labour; 4) local, national and international context 

Readings/Bibliography

Group A

Christian De Vito, Global labour history. La storia del lavoro al tempo della "globalizzazione”, Ombre Corte, Verona, 2012.

Marcel Van der Linden, Il lavoro come merce. Capitalismo e mercificazione del lavoro (a cura di Christian De Vito e Lorenzo D’Angelo), Mimesis, Milano, 2018.

Cristina Borderias, Manuela Martini (a cura di), Per una nuova storia del lavoro: genere, economie, soggetti, “Genesis”, 2, 2016.

Giulio Ongaro, Giulia Bonazza (a cura di), Libertà e coercizione: il lavoro in una prospettiva di lungo periodo, New Digital Frontiers, Palermo, 2018.

Michele Colucci, Michele Nani (a cura di), Lavoro mobile. Migranti, organizzazioni, conflitti (XVIII-XX secolo), New Digital Frontiers, Palermo, 2015.

Andreas Eckert, Global histories of work, De Gruyter, Berlin, 2016.

Karin Hofmeester, Marcel Van der Linden (a cura di), Handbook the global history of work, Berlin, De Gruyter, 2018.

Christian De Vito, Anne Gerritsen (a cura di), Micro-spatial Histories of Global Labour, Palgrave, 2018.

Marsha Siefert, Labour in State Socialist Europe, 1945.1989. Contributions to a history of work, Ceu University Press, 2020.

Group B 

Alessandro Casellato, Gilda Zarrara (a cura di), Corpi al lavoro, Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, Venezia 2015.

Ariella Verrocchio, Luca Salmieri (a cura di), Di condizione precaria. Sguardi trasversali tra genere, lavoro e non lavoro, Edizioni Università di Trieste, Trieste 2015.

Bruno Ziglioli, “Sembrava nevicasse”. La Eternit di Casale Monferrato e la Fibronit di Broni: due comunità di fronte all’amianto, FrancoAngeli, Milano 2016.

Eloisa Betti, Carlo De Maria (a cura di), Genere, lavoro e salute dal fascismo alla Repubblica. Spazi urbani e contesti industriali, Bradypus, Roma, 2020.

Manfredi Alberti, Senza lavoro. La disoccupazione in Italia dall'Unità a oggi, Laterza, Roma-Bari,2016.

Maria Grazia Meriggi, La disoccupazione come problema sociale. Riformismo, conflitto e "democrazia industriale" in Europa prima e dopo la Grande guerra, Franco Angeli, 2009.

Aree deindustrializzate, Numero monografico, “Meridiana”, 85, 2016.

Eloisa Betti, Precari e precarie. Una storia dell'Italia Repubblicana, Carocci, Roma, 2019.

Eloisa Betti, Le ombre del fordismo. Sviluppo industriale, occupazione femminile e precarietà del lavoro nel trentennio glorioso (Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italia), Bononia University Press, Bologna, 2020.

Alessandra Pescarolo, Il lavoro delle donne nell'Italia contemporanea, Viella, Roma 2019.

Michele Colucci, Storia dell’immigrazione straniera in Italia. Dal 1945 ai nostri giorni, Carocci 2018.

Lorenzo Mechi, L’Organizzazione Internazionale del Lavoro e la ricostruzione europea. Le basi sociali dell’integrazione economica (1931-1957), Roma, Ediesse, 2012.

Eileen Boris, Making the woman worker. Precarious Labor and the Fight for Global Standards, 1919-2019, Oxford University Press, 2019.

Daniel Maul, The International Labour Organization. 100 years of Global Social Policy. DeGruyter, Berlin, ILO.

Città e luoghi del lavoro, Numero monografico, “Città e storia”, 1, 2017.

Maurizio Antonioli, Per una storia del sindacato in Europa, Bruno Mondadori, 2012.

Marc Bloch, ll salario e le fluttuazioni economiche di lungo periodo, New Digital Frontiers, 2019.

Teaching methods

The course will take place with a series of lectures delivered by the teacher and seminar meetings with the presence, apart from the teacher, of outside guests. There will also the visits and practical classes in archives and museums, for a direct contact with the sources and the material culture, compatibly with the emergency of COVID-19.

Assessment methods

For the attending students:

The test consists in:

1. Oral test on the text Christian De Vito, Global labour history. La storia del lavoro al tempo della "globalizzazione, Ombre Corte, Verona, 2012, with a discussion of the aspects dealt with in class. The folder put on the platform with teaching aids is also suggested.
2. Drafting of a critical report on a text chosen from group B, it should be between 8,000 and 12,000 characters in length and it will have to be handed in at least 10 days before the chosen exam date.
3. Drafting of a paper on three seminars, to be chosen among the ones proposed during the course. The paper can be substituted by a second critical report, following the reading of a second text to be chosen among the following: Precari e precarie; Le ombre del fordismo; Di condizione precaria.

The evaluation expressed out of thirty takes account of the critical reflective capacity on the sources and the bibliography, of the capacity to frame the themes of the historiographic context of reference, of the appropriacy of the scientific language, of the expositional clarity.

Attendance of the course and the cycle of meetings is advisable.

For the non-attending students:

The test consists of:

1. Oral exam on the text Christian De Vito, Global labour history. La storia del lavoro al tempo della "globalizzazione, Ombre Corte, Verona, 2012 and on the folder put on the platform with teaching aids.
2. Drafting of two critical reports, each one between 8,000 and 12,000 characters in length, will have to be handed in at least 10 days before the chosen exam date. The text can be chosen as follows: a) one text from Group B; b) one text from among the following: Precari e precarie; Le ombre del fordismo; Di condizione precaria.
   

The evaluation expressed out of thirty takes account of the critical reflective capacity on the sources and the bibliography, of the capacity to frame the themes of the historiographic context of reference, of the appropriacy of the scientific language, of the expositional clarity.

 

Teaching tools

There will be a video projector, power point, audio-visual records, iconographic and other didactic material put onto the platform for teaching aids.

Office hours

See the website of Eloisa Betti