Achtung, das Abendkolloquium beginnt ausnahmsweise um 17.00 Uhr!!
Zoom-Link: https://univienna.zoom.us/j/68503202024?pwd=YWZWUkJHb1NTTjBOcVAvcFYzaGNvdz09#success
In this lecture, I propose to evaluate the level of engagement and the contribution of the field of Chinese studies to the history of labour and coercion in the periods prior to the late nineteenth century. Based on a bibliographical review, I will attempt to outline the main trends and topics in early-modern Chinese labour history, as well as the factors that may explain blind spots and biases in the field. Doing so will help set the stage for a critical reevaluation of the ways in which historiography has dealt with the issue of labour and coercion in the context of early-modern China. Recent proposals of reconceptualization – coming, for instance, from global labour history, new social history and historical semantics – will be discussed through case studies, to try and asses not only how they can help “deprovincialize” China, but also to propose new ways of doing comparison in history of labour and coercion.
Claude Chevaleyre is CNRS researcher at Lyon Institute of East Asian Studies (France). His main field of research is social history of Ming and Qing China, and in particular coerced labour, slaving practices, and human trafficking. His current research projects include the “Grammars of Coercion” project developed with Juliane Schiel for the COST action “Worlds of Related Coercions in Work”.
