Call for Papers
7th International Conference of the Association of Indian Labour Historians
in collaboration with the V.V. Giri National Labour Institute
March 27-29, 2008, New Delhi
The 7th International Conference of the Association of Indian Labour Historians is being held on March 27-29, 2008 in collaboration with the V.V. Giri National Labour Institute, NOIDA. The conference held every two years show cases the best writings on labour history and provides a platform for interaction between Indian and foreign scholars and between academics and social activists to interact and reflect on common themes of interest. In keeping with the format of earlier conferences we propose a set of issues as the main themes of the conference, though papers outside this rubric will also be considered for presentation on the basis of their quality and general importance for the discipline of labour history.
Social Histories of Work
How have societies viewed and regulated work in history? Are societies
distinguished by distinct sets of attitudes, norms and institutions within
which work is performed? Why and how have societies kept labour and work
in different social registers and when have these registers come together
so that labour and work have become indistinguishable? We hope to hear historical
accounts of labour processes and the interface of technique and skill with
social and institutional norms to have a richer understanding of human experience
of work across societies. We specially welcome international, regional,
sectoral and temporal comparisons.
Law, Labour and Labour Market
Historical evolution of labour relations has been mediated by law and law
like action of the state. Law‘s constitutive role in the labour market
is now being recognized. We have focused consistently in our conferences
on the legal constitution of labour regimes and reiterated the importance
of understanding law as a crucial ingredient in its constitution. In this
conference we invite the participants to focus on the processes and mechanisms
that link the sphere of law making with the evolving labour market institutions
on the one hand and the shaping of labour relations on ground on the other
hand. Law, we expect to discover, worked consistently to shape expectations,
norms and custom governing labour relations. On the other hand Law itself
became a terrain constituted by the conflicting pressures of different interests.
We expect our paper presenters to be especially attentive to the mutually
constitutive character of legal regulatory regimes and labour relations.
This process we hope will throw light on the ways in which the temporal
changes in regulatory regimes correlate with changes in labour markets and
labour relations.
By far the bulk of the world workforce is still located in the rural areas. Yet the historiography of labour both in the developed and underdeveloped societies have paid much less attention to these workers. They have been viewed as merely a stage in the transformation into the industrial and urban working class. The treatment of this important social group as a residual or an anachronism has skewed our understanding of the historical experience of the working people. In this conference we will make special efforts to correct this historiographic limitation by inviting papers to focus on the historical and contemporary conditions of existence of the rural labourers. While agriculture undoubtedly was the mainstay of the rural labourers historically non agricultural occupations have played a crucial role in stabilizing the economic and social conditions of the rural workers. Participants are invited to focus strongly on comparative historical and micro social investigations on rural working lives.
Deadlines
We invite historians, social scientists and labour activists and other scholars
with interest in labour history to present academic papers and participate
in the proceedings of the conference.
Paper presenters are requested to send an abstract
not more than 300 words to the conference by November 15, 2007. We expect
the final papers by selected participants definitely by March 1, 2008.
Selected paper presenters will be informed by December 1, 2007 about their
final participation.
Contact
Please send the abstracts and the papers electronically to ailhindia@gmail.com
or the following postal address:
VVGNLI_AILH International Conference on Labour History
c/o Archives of Indian Labour
V.V.Giri National Labour Institute
Sector 24, NOIDA, Gautam Budha Nagar
U.P 201301
India
The Association will provide hospitality to all the participants for the
duration of the conference. Travel costs by second class AC Railway or its
equivalent will be provided for selected participants from within India.
We are unable to support the travel costs of foreign participants but will
strongly support their application to any funding agency or their own institutions
to defray their travel costs.