Writing Global Histories of Socio-economic Rights III
Workshop at the University of Bochum
Organisers:
Stefan Berger (Bochum)
Rory Hanna (Sheffield)
Julia Moses (Sheffield)
Registration deadline: 13 February 2026
Format: Hybrid (in-person and online participation)
Join here: https://ruhr-uni-bochum.zoom.us/j/69245443753?pwd=HBJXbtjdnP7HJJ0RYmuKm0awbVGIQb.1#success
Programme
Friday, 20 February 2026
10:00–10:30 CET
Arrival, coffee, and introductions
Stefan Berger, Julia Moses
10:30–11:30 CET
Hybrid Keynote Lecture
Ulrike Lindner (University of Cologne)
Epistemic Inequalities and their Consequences: The International Labour Organisation and its Treatment of Colonial Workers after 1919
Chair: Julia Moses (Sheffield)
11:30–12:30 CET
Panel 1: Vulnerability and Social Rights at Work
- Veronica Kimani (Kenyatta University, online)
Women, Ujamaa and Work - Nina Schneider (Eichstätt-Ingolstadt)
Disputing the Rights of Child Workers: Global Connections, Local Contexts, 19th–21st Centuries - Alicia Gorny (Bochum)
Female Eigenart – Between Protection and Exclusion. Femininity, Labour Rights, and the Politics of Access
Chair: Rory Hanna (Sheffield)
12:30–1:30
Lunch
1:30–3:00 CET
Panel 2: Conceptualising Social Rights, from Local to Global
- Manfred Wannoefel (Bochum)
Global Social Rights and their Limitations in the Informal Sector: The ILO Decent Work Programme with Examples from India and Mexico - Sophia Friedel (Bochum)
The Paradox of Voice: Co-Determination, Industrial Democracy, and the Compulsion to Work - Rory Hanna (Sheffield)
Social Rights and Global Unemployment: Günter Grass and a Trade Union Development Proposal for Tanzania, 1970–1973 - Julia Moses (Sheffield)
Social Rights, Historical Thinking and Concepts of Universalism in Postwar Europe
Chair: Stefan Berger (Bochum)
3:00–4:00 CET
Coffee and closing discussion
Chairs: Stefan Berger, Julia Moses
Writing Global Histories of Socio-Economic Rights II
Histories of Socio-Economic Rights in East Africa
Workshop at the University of Dar es Salaam
Organisers:
Niels Boender (Edinburgh)
Max Chuhila (Dar es Salaam)
Emma Hunter (Edinburgh)
Programme
Thursday, 19 February 2026
10:30–11:00 Arrival and Welcomes
11:00–12:00 Keynote
Salvatory Nyanto – Religion, Ujamaa and Development Imperatives in Post-Colonial Tanzania: Divergent Interpretations, Contestations and Dissent, c. 1961-2001
12:00–1:00 Panel 1
Musa Sadock – A Pain in the Neck: The Kilombero Sugar Cane Workers’ Strike in Globalized Tanzania
Daniel Branch – A Man of the World: Tom Mboya and the American Associational State
1:00–2:00 Lunch
2:00–3:30 Panel 2
Niels Boender – Debating Domestic Workers’ Rights in East Africa, 1945 to 1970
Andrea Kifyasi – Teach Him to Fish, and You Feed Him for a Lifetime:” Revisiting the Prospects and Challenges of China-Tanzania’s Medical Knowledge Exchange Relations, 1968-2000s.
Jessica Turner – Economic knowledge production in Tanzania, 1961 to 1990
3:30-4:00 Closing Remarks
Research Arcade
An interactive exhibition exploring the social sciences
31 October – 2 November 2025
‘Fair Pay? Global Histories of Workers’ Rights
Map out your own story about the history of worker’s rights in this interactive exhibition taking a global look at how people understand, express and contest their work-related rights in different parts of the world, at different points in time.’
Join researchers from the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University for a fun, interactive and family-friendly showcase featuring activity stands and exhibits that explore the ideas and issues that shape our everyday lives.
Writing Global Histories of Socio-Economic Rights
University of Sheffield, 5-6 June 2025
Human rights have risen to prominence in recent historical research. The post-1948 human rights regime, its precursors, and the role of human rights within processes of decolonisation have become central themes in current historiography. Yet socio-economic rights, especially those related to work, have yet to be tackled comprehensively by historians, not least from a global perspective.
How have work-based rights been articulated, implemented and contested within and across different nations and regions? What transnational connections have facilitated the diffusion of rights related to work (broadly conceived), and how have conceptions of such rights varied across time and place? And, what are the challenges to historians trying to write these histories from a global and connected perspective?
This workshop, organised under the auspices of the AHRC-funded GLOSOC project (Global Socio-Economic Rights, Local Contexts: www.glosoc.org), seeks to develop new conceptual approaches to writing a global history of socio-economic rights.
To register for online or in-person attendance, please email glosoc@sheffield.ac.uk before the 20th of May to receive further information.
Thursday, 5 June
10:30–11:00 Arrival/Coffee
11:00–11:15 Introduction
Julia Moses, University of Sheffield
11:15–12:30 Panel 1: Theorizing Social Rights about Work
Chair: Chris Renwick, University of York
Speakers:
Steven Jensen, Danish Institute for Human Rights – Economic and Social Human Rights in the 20th Century: Analytical Reminders
Ben Jackson, University of Oxford – W. Arthur Lewis and Global Fabianism
Niels Boender, University of Edinburgh – Late-colonial Labour ‘Stabilisation’ in East Africa – A Social Rights Issue?
12:30–1:15 Lunch
1.15-2.30 Panel 2: Labour Movements and the role of the ILO
Chair: Daniel Laqua, Northumbria University
Speakers:
Stefan Berger, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany – Remembering the Struggle for Social and Economic Rights: the Example of the Ruhr Area in Germany
Laura Caruso and Andres Stagnaro, Universidad Nacional de San Martin / CONICET, Argentina – Defining and Regulating Labour: A Connected History of the ILO and Latin America [ONLINE]
Bernard Thomann, INALCO, Paris – ‘Social dumping’ and the Minimum Wage in twentieth-century Japan
2:30–2:45 Coffee
2:45–4:00 Panel 3: Women’s Work
Chair: Max Chuhila, University of Dar es Salaam
Speakers:
Poppy Cullen, Loughborough University – ‘Women’s Work’ in NGO activities in 1950s Kenya
Selin Çağatay, Central European University, Vienna – Women’s Work and Labour Rights in Family Planning Education: The Impact of International and Local Actors in Turkey, 1960s-1980s [ONLINE]
Juliet Tiwaah Gyabeng and Daniel Worku, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris – ERC Women at Work Project: Writing about the lives and labor of women workers: potters and dressmakers in urban Ghana and Ethiopia (1920-1980) [ONLINE]
7:30 Workshop Dinner for Speakers/Panel Chairs
Friday, 6 June
10:00–11:30 Panel 4: Inclusion
Chair: Sebastian Gehrig, University of Sheffield
Speakers:
Kerem Oektem, Frank Nullmeier, Delia Gonzalez de Reufels and Laura Andrea Álvarez Tobar, University of Bremen, Germany – Inclusion of Social Groups into Social Security: A Global and Historical Analysis [ONLINE]
Kiran Mehta, University of Leicester – Contesting Workers’ Rights in Prison: Britain and its Empire in the long Nineteenth Century
Rory Hanna, University of Sheffield – Ideas of Worker Participation in Management during the Mid-Twentieth Century: Local Variations, Common Challenges
11:30–1:00 Lunch and concluding discussion
Chair: Emma Hunter, University of Edinburgh