Universität Wien

070304 SE African labour and trade union history (2026S)

from a global and comparative perspective (approx. 1940 - 2010)

8.00 ECTS (2.00 SWS), SPL 7 - Geschichte
Continuous assessment of course work
Moodle
Tu 19.05. 09:45-13:00 Seminarraum 2, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, 1090 Wien, Spitalgasse 2-4, Hof 1

Registration/Deregistration

Note: The time of your registration within the registration period has no effect on the allocation of places (no first come, first served).

Details

max. 25 participants
Language: English

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

Important additional information about the course: This course will be held in blocks (180 minutes with a 15-minute break) and in person on the following dates:
3 March, 10 March, 17 March, 21 April, 28 April, 12 May, 19 May.
Please ensure that you are available on these dates from 9:45 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
To pass the course, you may only miss one session with a valid excuse.
The seminar requires a significant amount of reading and the completion of an assignment over the Easter holidays (between 17 March and 21 April).
There will be no more in-person sessions after 19 May. Final papers can be submitted by 15 July 2026 at the latest.

Please read the following information regarding language requirements:

The course will be held in English.
Weekly assignments must be submitted in English.
The research literature will consist mainly of English-language works, but will also include German-language works.
Both English-language and German-language primary sources will be discussed in the seminar.
The final thesis may be submitted in either German or English.

  • Tuesday 03.03. 09:45 - 13:00 Seminarraum 2, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, 1090 Wien, Spitalgasse 2-4, Hof 1
  • Tuesday 10.03. 09:45 - 13:00 Seminarraum 2, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, 1090 Wien, Spitalgasse 2-4, Hof 1
  • Tuesday 17.03. 09:45 - 13:00 Seminarraum 2, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, 1090 Wien, Spitalgasse 2-4, Hof 1
  • Tuesday 24.03. 09:45 - 13:00 Seminarraum 2, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, 1090 Wien, Spitalgasse 2-4, Hof 1
  • Tuesday 14.04. 09:45 - 13:00 Seminarraum 2, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, 1090 Wien, Spitalgasse 2-4, Hof 1
  • Tuesday 21.04. 09:45 - 13:00 Seminarraum 2, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, 1090 Wien, Spitalgasse 2-4, Hof 1
  • Tuesday 28.04. 09:45 - 13:00 Seminarraum 2, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, 1090 Wien, Spitalgasse 2-4, Hof 1
  • Tuesday 05.05. 09:45 - 11:15 Seminarraum 2, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, 1090 Wien, Spitalgasse 2-4, Hof 1
  • Tuesday 12.05. 09:45 - 13:00 Seminarraum 2, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, 1090 Wien, Spitalgasse 2-4, Hof 1

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

In his famous book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972), Guyanese historian Walter Rodney developed a dialectical view of Euro-Atlantic relations: Europe had underdeveloped Africa, but at the same time it was Africa's labour (force) that had developed Europe and North America. More than forty years later, Frederick Cooper recalled in a research overview (2006) ‘how much Africa has been shaped by its connections to the rest of the world and how much the world as we know it has been shaped by the labour of Africans.’ After a peak in the 1960s and 1970s, interest in labour history and Africa waned in the following decades; Cooper's study Decolonisation and African Society (1996) is therefore considered an important exception. Since the mid-2000s, however, labour history has experienced a significant revitalisation under the label of ‘global labour history,’ not least due to the stronger focus on the ‘global’ in many humanities disciplines. At the same time, the scope, reach and methodological limitations of global labour history – and Africa's place in it – remain the subject of intense debate. Against this backdrop, historians such as Rodney, Cooper and Andreas Eckert are calling for Africa to be given prominent consideration in global labour histories.
The aim of the seminar is to introduce students to the diversity of global labour history and Africa's central role in this field of research. In the introductory module, we will discuss fundamental texts on global labour history with reference to Africa. Subsequently, selected topics will be explored in greater depth, linking to the research focus of the course leader:
• Labour and trade unions in colonial Africa from a comparative perspective (British, French, Portuguese colonies)
• African trade unions and the international trade union movement: institutions, networks, mobility in the 20th century
• Interconnections between Austrian contemporary history and African labour and trade union history (decolonisation, anti-apartheid, development policy)
• Recent developments: global supply chains, labour disputes and trade unions in Africa (approx. 2000s to 2010s)
Each three-hour module (including a 15-minute break) combines work on a thematic complex with an introduction to a source genre. The sessions are based on introductory and overview literature as well as the joint analysis and critical discussion of sources. Students learn about different types of sources, such as newspaper articles, ‘grey literature’ and magazines, official and private correspondence, work reports and statistics, eyewitness interviews and films. All primary sources are provided via Moodle; relevant online archives and institutions are also presented. The aim is to provide practical training in the methodological use of sources from global labour and trade union history and to critically assess their significance.

Assessment and permitted materials

Participation in the units (i.e. reading and discussing specialist literature, commentary) = 20 points

Timely and proper submission of weekly assignments on the source exercises (approx. 1 page) in the corresponding Moodle forums, regular presentation of these documents in plenary or in groups = 30 points

Writing a final paper on a topic of your choice, approx. 6000 words including bibliography (±10–15%), using at least two primary sources (deadline: 15 July 2026) = 50 points

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

1 (Very good) 90–100 points
2 (Good) 81–89 points
3 (Satisfactory) 71–80 points
4 (Sufficient) 56–70 points
5 (Insufficient) 0–55 points

Regular attendance at the course; only one unit may be missed with justification.
Complete and timely submission of the 1-page assignments.
Short presentations on the source exercises.
Active, well-read participation in the seminar.

Examination topics

This is a course with continuous assessment.

Reading list

Bellucci, Stefano, und Andreas Eckert, Hrsg. General Labour History of Africa. Workers, Employers and Governments, 20th-21st Centuries. James Currey, 2019.

Bellucci, Stefano. „African Trade Unions in Historical Perspective“. Africana Studia. International Journal of African Studies 28, Nr. 1 & 2 (2017): 1 & 2.

Burawoy, Michael. A comparison of strikes among Zambian workers in a clothing factory and the mining industry. Bd. 10. Communication / University of Zambia, Institute for African studies. [S.n.], 1974.

Burton, Eric. „Kindred by Choice: Trade Unions as Interface between East Africa and East Germany“. In Socialist Internationalism and the Gritty Politics of the Particular. Second-Third World Spaces in the Cold War, herausgegeben von Kristin Roth-Ey. Bloomsbury, 2023.

Cooper, Frederick. Africa since 1940: The Past of the Present. New approaches to African history. Cambridge University Press, 2002. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511800290.

Cooper, Frederick. „African Labor History“. In Global Labour History. A State of the Art, herausgegeben von Jan Lucassen. Peter Lang, 2006.

Cooper, Frederick. Decolonization and African society: The labor question in French and British Africa. Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Cooper, Frederick. „The Senegalese General Strike of 1946 and the Labor Question in Post-War French Africa“. Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue Canadienne des Études Africaines 24, Nr. 2 (1990): 165–215.

Eckert, Andreas. „Why all the fuss about Global Labour History?“ In Global Histories of Work, herausgegeben von Andreas Eckert. De Gruyter, 2016.

Föger, Katharina, und Eric Burton. „Kleines Land, großer Dienst: Anti/Kolonialismus, Anti/Rassismus und Entwicklung in Zeitschriften des Österreichischen Gewerkschaftsbundes, 1953–1968“. zeitgeschichte 52, Nr. 3 (2025): 305–36. https://doi.org/10.13109/zsch.2025.52.3.305.

Freund, Bill. „Labor and Labor History in Africa: A Review of the Literature“. African Studies Review 27, Nr. 2 (1984): 1–58.

Freund, Bill. The African worker. Cambridge University Press, 1988.

Grau, Ingeborg. „Kolonialismus, Arbeit und Gender in Südnigeria“. In Wie aus Bauern Arbeiter wurden. Wiederkehrende Prozesse des gesellschaftlichen Wandels im Norden und im Süden einer Welt, herausgegeben von Olaf Bockhorn, Ingeborg Grau, und Walter Schicho. Brandes & Apsel; Südwind, 1998.

Harisch, Immanuel R. „Nkrumahism, East Germany, and the South-East Ties of Ghanaian Trade Unionist J.A. Osei during the Cold War 1960s“. International Journal of African Historical Studies 54, Nr. 3 (2021): 309–32.

Harisch, Immanuel R., und Eric Burton. „The Missing Link? Western Communists as Mediators Between the East German FDGB, the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), and African Trade Unions in the Late 1950s and Early 1960s“. International Labor and Working-Class History 103 (2023): 292–311. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0147547922000333.

Harisch, Immanuel R., und Goran Musić. „Workers’ Proto-Diplomacy: Early Contacts between Zambian and Yugoslav Trade Unions, 1959–1962“. International Review of Social History 69, Nr. 3 (2024): 411–38. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020859024000622.

Harisch, Immanuel R., und Gédéon N’goran Bangali. „A Communist Ambassador of Labour. Abdoulaye Diallo, the World Federation of Trade Unions, and Unionism in Francophone West Africa, 1947—1957“. International Review of Social History, forthcoming 2026, 1–32.

Lindsay, Lisa A. „Domesticity and Difference: Male Breadwinners, Working Women, and Colonial Citizenship in the 1945 Nigerian General Strike“. The American Historical Review 104, Nr. 3 (1999): 783–812.

Moodie, Dunbar. „The Moral Economy of the Black Miners’ Strike of 1946“. Journal of Southern African Studies 13, Nr. 1 (1986): 1–35.

Richards, Yevette. „Labor’s Gendered Misstep: The Women’s Committee and African Women Workers, 1957–1968“. International Journal of African Historical Studies 44, Nr. 3 (2011): 415–42.

Association in the course directory

MA Geschichte: Seminar aus Geschichte, PM4.
MA Globalgeschichte und Global Studies: SE-Teil, PM3/1.
IDMA Zeitgeschichte und Medien: Seminar, PM4a / Seminar aus dem Bereich Zeitgeschichte, PM4b.

Last modified: Tu 21.04.2026 15:46