Labour Matters

This volume, in honour of Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, brings together a set of essays that highlight some of the major transformations in the field of labour history today. The present juncture is one in which the geographical boundaries of the discipline, which were narrowly configured around the nation-state, are being challenged; and the analytical category of labour, for long identified with the industrial, unionized and male worker, has been stretched to include hitherto marginalized, informal workers. The shift away from Eurocentric comparisons in recent years has meant a questioning of the spatial, temporal and relational binaries that were dominant in the writing of labour history earlier. By focusing on sites, forms and relations of labour that habitually cut across the classical divides of labour history, the essays explore connections between events and processes across time and space. They demonstrate that global history is not just history at a global scale, but a macro-view of historical processes of importance to human societies and their systematic analyses at all scales. Global history, the contributions in this volume show, can be solidly based on micro-historical studies, if these studies connect with the larger areas of inquiry.