AFTER SLAVERY? LABOUR AND MIGRATION IN THE POST-EMANCIPATION WORLD

This conference seeks to explore the emergence of global patterns of labour and migration in the post-emancipation world in ways that move beyond nineteenth century constructions of 'slavery' and 'freedom' and look instead at the diverse, nuanced and often ambivalent experiences over time and space. It seeks to break down unhelpful assumptions about 'active' and 'passive' migration, and 'free' and 'unfree' labour in order to describe the uneven, ambivalent, but extremely important ways in which labourers and migrants exerted their own agency, asserted their own identities and aspirations, and shaped their own individual and collective outcomes, even in the face of various forms of coercion and exploitation. By bringing together scholars of labour and migration from various disciplinary backgrounds, and regional and chronological specialisms, it aims to open up comparative perspectives and productive conversations that move beyond dominant colonial and post-colonial narratives to explore diverse experiences of labour migration from a range of disciplinary, theoretical and subaltern perspectives.

 

Keynote Speakers

Prof Richard B. Allen (Framingham University, Massachusetts)

Prof David Lambert (University of Warwick)

Prof Professor Julia O'Connell Davidson (University of Bristol)

 

Other confirmed speakers and attendees include Dr Richard Huzzey (University of Liverpool); Prof Henrice Altink (University of York); Prof Crispin Bates and Dr Marina Carter (University of Edinburgh); Dr Saurabh Misra (University of Sheffield), Dr Sascha Auerbach (University of Nottingham)

 

Paper proposals are invited exploring all aspects of the post-emancipation labour experience. Of particular interest are those that deal with the issues of agency among labour migrants, as well as the theoretical and conceptual problems involved in the study of labour and migration in both historical and contemporary contexts. Key themes may include: lived experiences and quotidian encounters; agency, identity and social mobility; government regulation, legislation and formal and informal controls; gender, family and domestic relations; patterns of migration, re-migration and return; colonial and post-colonial debates; conceptual and theoretical issues around categories of labour migration etc. If you would like to submit a paper proposal, please send a 250 word abstract by 8th April 2016 to a.major@leeds.ac.uk. Notification of acceptance of papers will be given by 30th April 2016.