‘disparate in voice,sympathetic in direction’: gendered political blackness and the politics of solidarity

While political blackness seems to be making quite a comeback, this resurgence has also met with frustration and ambivalence. This paper aims to make sense of why this mobilising concept is accepted in some contemporary black feminist circles and outright rejected in others. It unpicks the diasporic dimensions of political blackness, reflecting on the issues that converged to foreground ‘black’ as the basis for mobilising women of African and Asian decent to engage in collective activism. Attention is given to the Organisation of Women of Asian and African Descent, a national network that linked black women’s organisations and expressed and projected what the author defines as gendered political blackness. Interrogating its implications and the tendency towards ideological policing, the author argues that political blackness must be viewed as a politics of solidarity. If it is to maintain its viability, political blackness needs reframing, contextualising and further analysis. A retelling of its ideological underpinnings, and crucially the tensions and contradictions inherent in political blackness, offers a critical lens through which to rethink how we use it as a mobilising tactic in the present.     

‘A Woman’s Place …’: Male Representations of University Women in the Student Press of the University of Liverpool, 1944–1979

Deciphering the manner in which women have been, and continue to be, represented in society is an integral element of a feminist critique. This article explores male representations of university women as presented in the student press of the University of Liverpool between 1944 and 1979. It is suggested that university women were represented as ‘other’ and stereotyped in a negative manner in the years 1944 to 1959. Furthermore, they were presented as unattractive, unwelcome, and in most cases at university to find a husband. The years 1960 to 1979 signified a shift with regard to the representation of university women; however, continuity with the earlier period was retained in the visual imagery of female students and the way in which ‘careers’ were presented as distinctly male. University women remained part of the ‘male gaze’ and were, ultimately judged on the basis of their sexual attractiveness to the derision of their intellectual abilities.     

The development of capitalism in the Atlantic world: England,the Americas,and West Africa, 1450–1900

Abstract

The paper traces the development of capitalism in England, the Americas, and West Africa over a long time period, 1450–1900. The developments in these major regions of the Atlantic Basin during the period were strongly interconnected and ultimately gave rise to the nineteenth-century Atlantic economy which integrated the major economies of the Atlantic world. The development of capitalism in the three specified geographical areas is analyzed in the context of the interconnected developments. Central to the historical analysis is a discussion of the contending conceptions of capitalism as a socioeconomic system. The paper shows that the original conception by Karl Marx, which identified free wage earners separated from their means of production and entrepreneurs who own those means of production as the defining elements, was generally accepted by supporters and critics for several decades; attempts to redefine began in the 1960s. The paper contends that, unlike the original Marxian conception, the new conceptions fail to capture precisely and accurately the dynamic elements which distinguish capitalism unambiguously from other forms of socioeconomic organization and do not facilitate a sharply focused historical investigation of its development over time. The employment of enslaved Africans in large-scale commodity production in the Americas was critical to the development of capitalism in England and in the Americas, but the adverse effects on West Africa’s economies held back the development of markets and the market economy and, ultimately, the development of capitalism in the region.     

Wage labor in historical perspective: a study of the de-proletarianization of the African working class in Zimbabwe, 1960–2010

Abstract

This paper traces the rise and fall of wage labor in Zimbabwe between c.1960 and 2010. Building on Giovanni Arrighi’s seminal study, ‘Labour supplies in historical perspective: a study of the proletarianization of the African peasantry in Rhodesia’, we argue that the 1950s were the highpoint of African wage labor participation in the Southern Rhodesian/Zimbabwean economy. From that point, the percentage of wage labor as part of the economically active population fell consistently until the collapse of the Zimbabwean economy from the late 1990s onward, when it shrunk emphatically. This process is observable elsewhere in southern Africa over the second half of the twentieth century. Writing in the 1960s when the Southern Rhodesian economy was diversifying and absorbing large numbers of African workers from within and beyond the country’s borders, Arrighi overstated the stability and longevity of the proletariat. From that point, though, combined internal and external forces resulted initially in the stagnation of secondary and primary industry and commerce, and latterly in their contraction. The ensuing processes of de-proletarianization, falling wages, and heightened livelihood precarity have been the norm for an ever-increasing proportion of the African working class up to the present.     

The culture of skilled work in a Norwegian shipyard, 1945–90

We anatomise the culture of skilled work in the Solheimsviken shipyard in Bergen, Norway, from 1945 to 1990, linking it to democratic impulses within the workforce. This independent culture had strong if bounded democratic elements that were ultimately reflected in the institutions of a worker’s cooperative which operated from 1985. However, a shift away from shipbuilding immediately preceded the cooperative’s foundation and eroded the position of the older skilled workers who had carried the culture, undermining it even before the cooperative’s collapse.     

The nation is our mother: Augusto Sandino and the construction of a peasant nationalism in Nicaragua, 1927–1934

This article explores the creation of a nationalist identity in Nicaragua during the guerrilla war of Augusto Sandino against the occupying United States. The social base of Sandino was the mountain peasants of northern Nicaragua; a social sector usually described as unlikely to become the creators and carriers of a national identity. Yet by using a gendered and familial discourse, which described Nicaragua as the ‘madre patria’ (mother homeland) and the members as his army as brothers, Sandino was successful in activating strong nationalist feelings amongst his peasant followers. The article examines both Sandino's discourse, and how it was interpreted by his peasant followers. It is this attempt to bring their perspectives into the discussion that contributes to this new assessment of the construction of a national identity in Nicaragua.     

Striking Narratives: class,gender and ethnicity in the ‘Great Grunwick Strike’, London,UK, 1976–1978

This article explores the ways in which dominant narratives and images constructed the industrial dispute that took place between 1976 and 1978 at the Grunwick Film Processing Laboratories in Britain's capital city, London. Since 1978, this strike has achieved almost mythic status in British labour history, as the moment when the trade unions supported the demands of minority women workers. The authors argue that the dominant narratives and images disguise the complexity of events and the diversity of the strikers, constructing a narrative of success and celebration, even though the strikers were not re-employed.     

The genesis of a scientific community: the British Universities Industrial Relations Association and the field of industrial relations in Britain,c.1950–1983

Scholarship dealing with labour-related topics has been prevalent in Britain from the early twentieth century, but a scientific field dedicated exclusively to the study of industrial relations did not emerge until the second half of the century. Although the socio-economic context of the post-war years provided a fertile ground for the field's emergence, the reason for its eventual development was a socialization process that took place in the early 1950s with the establishment of an informal group of industrial relations scholars. The group would grow to become the British Universities Industrial Relations Association and its activities would help the emerging community develop a ‘disciplinary identity’ and form the institutions that would subsequently define the field of Industrial Relations.     

The Representation of ‘Baby-Farmers’ in the Scottish City, 1867–1908

This article explores the manner in which women who provided paid childcare in Scotland were represented and collectively labelled with the pejorative term ‘baby-farmer’ across a forty-year period. It seeks to link the figure of the ‘baby-farmer’ to a wider sphere of discourses and moral frameworks than previously attempted, drawing parallels with other women engaged in processes of semi-public exchange. In so doing the article suggests a more complex articulation of gendered and spatial identity. In particular it asserts that the portrayal of these women was inextricably linked to wider conceptions of the Scottish city and that these pre-existing notions of urban space were integral to the representation of gender.     

The Indian peasant rebellion in the highlands of northern Argentina, 1872–75

The paper describes and discusses the Indian peasant uprising which took place in the Puna (high tableland) of Jujuy Province in Northern Argentina between 1872 and 1875. The origins of the revolt are to be found principally in the land tenure system, and specifically in problems associated with the historical evolution of the colonial encomienda system. The role of ‘outside’ political forces in the uprising is discussed and evaluated, but it is argued that the Indians’ demands for the return of their communal lands was the fundamental issue. In this respect it is suggested that the revolt should be examined within the wider context of Indian revolts and agrarian unrest which affected various parts of the Andean Highlands during the last thirty years of the nineteenth century.     

The appearance of women's politics in the correspondence pages of Aberdeen newspapers, 1900–14

A newspaper's ‘Letters to the Editor’ column represents its readership in a unique way and can provide a useful ‘thermometer’ with which to measure the extent of critical debate and discussion a particular issue generated in a locality. In this article, the letters of women to the editor of the Aberdeen Daily Journal, 1900 to 1914, are analysed to discover the type of political issues with which these women concerned themselves. It is argued that the women must have felt particularly strongly about such issues since they were prepared to take their arguments outside their social circle and to identify themselves as politically active in the pages of their daily newspaper. Political issues dealt with include local government, the suffrage question and government legislation. While much of the evidence used comes from the letters of active suffragists who were usually members of national suffrage associations, it is argued that the period showed an expansion in the type of woman interested in politics, and the corresponding urge to write to the newspapers. This is evidenced in the number of women who firmly stated that they were not suffragists, but became politicised enough to write to the newspaper complaining about the Insurance Act in 1912.     

Peasants,proletarianization and the articulation of modes of production: The case of sugar cane cutters in northern Peru, 1940–69

This article examines the transformation of the labour market for sugar cane cutters in an area of Northern Peru between 1940 and the onset of the Agrarian Reform in 1969. The system of enganche (debt bondage) is described for one large sugar estate and is identified as a historically specific stage in the development of the labour market. This system disappeared in the 1960s, owing to a combination of population growth in the highlands, heavy rural‐urban migration, unionization of field labour and technical change in cane harvesting. The evidence presented suggests that the concept of the articulation of different modes of production is a more useful framework for analysis than that provided by Lewis‐type models of dualism.     

The choice of part-time employment in the United States and Canada, 1955–2000

Abstract

Part-time employment growth in the United States and Canada followed similar trends between 1955 and 1975, which then diverged when part-time employment (as a percent of total employment) stopped growing in the United States but continued to expand in Canada. This divergence in trend in the latter part of the twentieth century is not adequately explained by labor supply demographics, labor demand factors, or union effects. To the contrary, differences in public policy played a pivotal role in allowing Canadian workers to continue to view the choice of shorter hours as attractive, while US workers faced higher costs when choosing part-time employment.