Previous Conferences

DUKE/WITS WORKSHOP

In 2010 the History Workshop and members of the History Department at Duke University initiated a collaborative project centred on their mutual research interest in insurgent movement and the use of oral history to uncover ‘hidden voices and struggles’. The project has been led by Professors Phil Bonner and William Chafe, who is a prominent historian on the civil rights movement in the United States. Our first objective has been to undertake comparative research of insurgent struggles in the US (civil rights movement) and South Africa (anti-apartheid movement). A workshop to launch this collaboration was hosted at the University of the Witwatersrand in January 2011, where agreement was reached on the primary themes for the research and to arrange a follow-up workshop at which plans for a collected volume based on the research would be finalised. This very successful two-day workshop was held at Wits in mid-January where a frame-work for research collaboration was developed. A full scale conference will be jointly mounted by the two centres, at which delegates from Jawaharlal Nehru University will also present papers. This conference will take place at Duke University with the aim of discussing papers that might be published in a collected volume.

LIFE AFTER THIRTY COLLOQUIUM

The year 2007 marked the 30th anniversary of the History Workshop. It was celebrated in the form of a two-day workshop or colloquium. It was used as an opportunity to map out and consider the various interpretive and theoretical contributions of the Workshop, and as an occasion to reflect on the critiques that have been made of its work.
The colloquium was held at the Wits School of Law?s Chaltsy Centre from the 3-5 April 2009. A list of approximately ninety-five invitees consisting of local and international scholars (those intimately involved with the HW, those with only a passing familiarity, and some of its most out-spoken critics) was drawn up. Select individuals were invited to present papers on a number of specific themes, each focusing on some of the key areas of engagement by the Workshop and providing the substantive topics for the panel discussions.
The five panels around which the colloquium was organised were:

social history,
local history,
oral history,
history in education and
public history

A final panel, titled history of the future, showcased presentations of recent work by postgraduate students in the NRF Chair on ?Local History and Present Realities?, presently attached to the HW. The colloquium was opened on Friday 3rd April with the keynote speech of the Workshop?s chair and longest-serving member, Prof Phil Bonner. Professors Shula Marks, William Beinart and Neeladri Bhattacharya?s concluding comments closed off the event.
A public lecture series was also organised in the week before and after the weekend colloquium with the view of publicising the event as well as of maximising the opportunities for intellectual exchange and debate afforded by the presence of some prominent international speakers. Prof Neeladri Bhattacharya from Jawaharlal Nehru University gave a public lecture on ?Social History and the Post Colonial Turn: A perspective from India? on 1 April 2009 which was organized in association with the Centre for Indian Studies in Africa. He also addressed the social history and concluding panels at the colloquium. Italian oral historian Alessandro Portelli was among the speakers on the oral history panel and delivered a public lecture on ?The Working-Class and the Sublime: Steel Workers, Globalization and Identity?. An exhibition was also put on display in the room adjacent the main auditorium for the duration of the colloquium. Finally, a thirty minutes long documentary featuring interviews with some of the Workshop?s founding members was produced and screened as part of the exhibition.
A cluster of selected articles offering a snapshot of some of the conversations that took place has been edited for publication in a special issue of African Studies (Vol. 69, No. 1, April 2010) dedicated to the colloquium.

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LABOUR CROSSINGS: WORLD, WORK AND HISTORY

The History Workshop, University of Witwatersrand, and the Centre for Sociological Research, University of Johannesburg, in association with the International Association of Labour History Institutions and the International Conference of Labour and Social History and the International Institute for Social History, held a very successful international conference from Friday 5 September to Monday 8 September 2008, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.

This conference had two main aims: first, to contribute to the development of a transnational labour history, and, second, to explore the connections between, and social imaginations of, different types of workers, working class movements and types of work. Labour history has usually been written as a series of national histories, as the history of industrial workers, and as part of the history of the modern period. The transnational turn in labour history has led to a closer scrutiny of relations between labour in different regions of the globe, but also a broadening of our conceptions of labour history: a global perspective on labour history raises questions about such basic conceptions as labour, work and labour movements. This conference aims to engage with the historiography of labour in emerging countries, and help develop a transnational labour historiography.
The keynote speakers were Philip Bonner (History Workshop, Johannesburg) and Peter Linebaugh (University of Toledo). The International Conference of Labour and Social History (ITH) organised a plenary on "New Developments in Labour History: an interregional roundtable" with Marcel van der Linden (International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam), Rana Behal (Association of Indian Labour Historians), Martin Legassick (University of the Western Cape, South Africa), Claudio Batalha (Universidade Esdadual de Campinas, Brazil) and Berthold Unfried (ITH, University of Vienna, Austria). The International Association of Labour History Institutions (IALHI) held a plenary on "The Sharing of Labour and Social Movements Archives between Former Colonial Powers and Former Colonies" with Piers Pigou (South African History Archive, University of the Witwatersrand), Gerd Callensen (Danish Labour Movement Archives), Andr?rochier (National Overseas Archives Center, France), Fran?se Blum (IALHI), and Richard Temple (University of Warwick). There were, besides these main events, many excellent papers and a high level of debate and exchange.
This conference was made possible by the generous support of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (South Africa), African Studies, the University of the Witwatersrand, the University of Johannesburg, SEPHIS, and the International Institute for Social History.
South African organising team: Peter Alexander, Phil Bonner, Jon Hyslop, Bridget Kenny, Derrick O Leary, Noor Nieftagodien, Lucien van der Walt
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RETHINKING WORLDS OF LABOUR: SOUTHERN AFRICAN LABOUR HISTORY IN INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT

The History Workshop, in conjunction with the Sociology of Work Unit, held an extremely successful public debate, international conference and labour history tour from 28 to 31 July 2006: see the Call for papers, the final programme: (PDF version), and a brief report.

The aims of the conference were to:

Promote a transnational and regional view of labour history, with reference to southern Africa, and to comparisons of the less developed and semi-peripheral regions of the global "South."
To reflect on the implications of the "first" globalisation of the 1870s to the 1930s for the "second" globalisation that started in the 1970s.
To foster collaborative work between scholars, particularly those based in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The keynote speakers were Marcel van der Linden (International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam) and Sumit Sarkar (formerly University of Delhi). The conference opened with a public debate on labour internationalism in the 21st century. The speakers included Gwede Mantashe (former General-Secretary, National Union of Mineworkers), Kim Scipes (American labour activist and writer) and Noor Nieftagodien (History Workshop, University of the Witwatersrand). The conference also included an unique, optional, labour history tour of greater Johannesburg . The organising committee was made up of Peter Alexander, Andries Bezuidenhout, Phil Bonner, Jon Hyslop, Noor Nieftagodien, Nicole Ulrich, and Lucien van der Walt. This conference was made possible by the generous support of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (South Africa), African Studies, the University of the Witwatersrand and the Indian Consulate (South Africa).

A special issue of African Studies, entitled "Transnational and Comparative Perspectives on Southern African Labour History", and edited by Phil Bonner, Jon Hyslop and Lucien van der Walt was produced as one of the conference outputs: African Studies, volume 66, number 2/3, August 2007.