June 8 to 10, 2015. Free/Unfree Labor: Local Constraints and Global Dynamics. Africa, Europe, Asia, 16^th Century to Present Days.

A workshop titled “Free/Unfree Labor: Local Constraints and Global Dynamics. Africa, Europe, Asia, 16^th Century to Present Days” was held from June 8 to 10, 2015 at the College de France (June 8, 9) and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) (June 10) in Paris. This workshop is part of the HeSam (an alliance of French academic institutions) research project (http://www.hesam.eu/blog/tag/travail-force/) led by Alessandro Stanziani, who is the representative of GHC at EHESS.

This project rethinks the conventional view that resumes tensions between free and unfree labor to the transition from feudalism to capitalism in Europe and from slavery to freedom across the Atlantic. Workshops related to this project have been held twice since 2014, and this is first time that the GHC members from Japan have participated. Presentations were made by Hideaki Suzuki (Nagasaki University) and Yuka Tomomatsu (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science/The University of Tokyo) from GHC in Japan, as well as historians, economists, sociologists, and practitioners from Université Paris Sorbonne, EHESS, CNRS, Stanford University, Université de Dakar, the University of Delhi, NGOs, the ILO (International Labour Organization), etc., on historical and contemporary studies (http://ghc.wp.ehess.fr/2015/03/11/freeunfree-labour-workshop-june-8-10-paris/). The workshop comprised research presentations clarifying the dynamics and historical evolution of labor conditions and arrangements in Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Europe from the 16th century up to the present-day.

The first half of the workshop featured papers on historical studies on Europe, Africa, and the Indian Ocean. The presentations—which included a study comparing British and French labor systems, a comparative study on the forced recruitment of sailors, a study on the interconnectedness between changes in the economy and the labor environment in French Sudan after the abolition of slavery, as well as a study on slavery and similar institutions in Swahili society etc.—covered an extremely broad range both in terms of time period and subject.

Suzuki gave a presentation titled “Logics of Bonding and Protection in the Early Twentieth Century Persian Gulf,” focusing on the circumstances surrounding slavery in the first half of the 20th century on the Arabian side of the Persian Gulf, which was a part of the British “informal” Empire. While Great Britain, on the one hand, waved the banner calling for abolition of slavery on the international stage, for a long time they did not take action to end slavery in the region that was right under their own noses. Meanwhile, the British consulate, as the entity standing at the top of the relationship between protector and protected within the local context, attempted to hold onto its “informal” empire. At the same time, the consulate was inundated with appeals from slaves to be freed from slavery, leading it to, at times, issue “emancipation certificates.” In his presentation, Suzuki identified these “emancipation certificates” as a forum in which the two roles of Great Britain described above clashed and thereafter analyzed written records and clarified what, in fact, the slaves were seeking.         

What was impressive throughout the first half of the workshop (which continued in the latter half as well) was the fact that, in response to the individual historical studies, which were fundamentally grounded in excising specific times and spaces, the discussion, while attempting to identify the unique characteristics of each example, actually focused on how to draw together the commonalities of the individual cases. At many workshops and conferences, it is often the case that each researcher reports on their specific example and no deep discussion occurs regarding the interrelatedness of the different examples. In contrast, at this workshop, while each presentation focused on a given case, notably Stanziani, Prabhu Prasad Mohapatra (University of Delhi), and Richard Roberts (Stanford University) did a very effective job of guiding the discussion from the level of local history to a world history = global history context and, in so doing, encouraging extremely lively discussion. This is also evident in Coen Kompier (ILO)’s unveiled surprise at the final round table discussion regarding the persistence of conflict and tense relationships between freedom and suppression of labor as seen from his own positionality.      

The second half of the workshop featured presentations of research on labor-related themes in the present-day including agrarian labor and gender relations in northern Ghana, child labor in the Ivory Coast, child fostering in Senegal, labor conditions and homeless issues in India, and research methodologies for studying forced labor.     

Tomomatsu gave a presentation titled “Meaning of labor: contextualizing a household and agrarian economy in norther Ghana.” She discussed agrarian labor and gender relations from an interdisciplinary approach based on ethnography. She emphasized the importance of contextualization in studies of household and agrarian economy, pointing out the difficulty in understanding family and gender labor relations using dichotomized frameworks such as freedom vs. coercion, political economy vs. moral economy, and market economy vs. non-market economy. She also made a case for the significance of bridging the gap between humanities research and policy discourse in the field of agrarian and household economy and the need for the former to employ more empirical quantitative analysis.

After the presentations, Tomomatsu received numerous questions from historians and economists, regarding the ethnographic content of her research and her interdisciplinary approach. Some explained the difficulty in taking an interdisciplinary approach in France because of institutional constraints (deeply divided academic fields of specialization and, consequentially, difficulties in obtaining employment encountered by individuals having a multidisciplinary background). Taking an interdisciplinary approach to strengthen study data is almost a requirement at the Japanese School of Area Studies. However, this approach may be not only a strength but also a weakness in terms effectively disseminating research outcomes outside of Japan. The argument of linking humanities research findings to policy, which was one of Tomomatsu’s points of emphasis, did not seem to resonate with the audience and did not spark discussion.   

Perhaps the most shocking presentation was the presentation on the labor conditions of brick workers in Indian construction industry in the current period of rapid economic growth. The severe economic circumstances in which migrant workers find themselves—bonded with debt—illustrates the need to contextualize labor structure both from bondage and class perspectives. One historian pointed out the problem of the ILO’s approach to forced labor, namely, that the current conservative definition of forced labor, developed from the standpoint of statistical analysis and policy implementation, is incapable of capturing the contemporary labor conditions in India. 

It is clear that the question of how researchers should discuss world history or global history is extremely difficult but also very important for the GHC. It should be kept in mind is that there is no single answer to this question and that multiple approaches are okay. The workshop, in this sense, serves as one template for effectively discussing global history. In particular, both authors of this summary, participated in a lecture by Prof. Stanziani at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia (University of Tokyo) just prior to the workshop and understood, to a certain degree, Prof. Stanziani’s stance in terms of methodological approach to world/global history.  As such, we were able to see the workshop as an attempt to realize this approach. In addition, so long as world history/global history is not limited to historical study in the narrow sense, somewhere in our minds, we must remain aware of problems related, for example, to the scholarly standpoint of each national “tradition” discussed above.         

There was a very friendly atmosphere at the workshop from beginning to end. The participants were able to deepen discussions and relationships over the three days spent together not only during the workshop but, also, at lunchtime and dinner time (and in some cases, after parties lasting late into the night). The many encounters with diverse researchers with shared themes but different focal regions left us with a sense of the possibilities for development of future international collaborative research. 

(Tomomatsu and Suzuki)