Global Social History: Class and Social Transformation in World History

This conference interweaves global and social history, exploring global social history as a new field of historical inquiry. The papers aim to demonstrate that we cannot understand the emergence and transformation of social groups across the modern world, such as the aristocracy, the economic bourgeoisie, the educated middle classes, or the peasantry, without considering the impact of global entanglements on class formation. Moreover, the contributions aim to show that we have to examine globalization as a social process which was shaped not least by the agency of particular social groups.

Bringing together established and early career scholars from the fields of social history, global history, labour history, and imperial history, the conference will examine the differences and similarities between particular social groups and processes of stratification in different world areas and their interrelations between the early modern period and the twentieth century. Overall, it will make a substantial contribution to the discipline: it aims to add a global dimension to the field of social history, and to introduce social historical questions to the field of global history.

THURSDAY, 29 AUGUST
13:00 Reception
13:30 Introduction: Christof Dejung (Bern) and David Motadel (LSE)

14:00 Panel 1: Global Interaction, Imperialism and Social Order
Chair: Christof Dejung (Bern)
Andrew Sartori (New York): ‘Society’ as a Space of Norms in a Colonial Context

Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks (Wisconsin): Intersectional Analysis and the History of Globalization

15:30 Coffee Break

16:00 Panel 2: World Markets and Social Stratification
Chair: Francesca Fuoli (Bern)
Christof Dejung (Bern): Spinning the Wheels of Commerce: Mercantile Elites and the Making of Global Markets

Michael Goebel (Graduate Institute Geneva): Density and Differentiation: Cities in Global Social History

17:30 Keynote 1
George Lawson (LSE): A Global Historical Sociology of Class Formation

FRIDAY, 30 AUGUST

9:00 Keynote 2
Mike Savage (LSE): The Rise and Fall of the Social Group: Class, Ethnicity and Gender in Historical Perspective

10:30 Coffee Break

11:00 Panel 3: Monarchies of the World
Chair: Margot Finn (UCL)
Jeroen Duindam (Leiden): Ruling Houses in the Sattelzeit: Europe and the World

David Motadel (LSE): The Global Aristocracy: Royal Encounters in the Age of Empire

12:30 Lunch

13:30 Panel 4: Capitalism and Global Labour
Chair: Martin Bayly (LSE)
Marcel van der Linden (Amsterdam): Relational Inequalities within the World Working-Class, 1800-Present. Preliminary Reflections

Leo Lucassen (Leiden): Labour, Immigration and Xenophobia: A Global History

15:00 Coffee Break

15:30 Panel 5: Subalterns and Tribal Societies
Chair: David Motadel (LSE)
Francesca Fuoli (Bern): Mountain People, Banditry and the Global Subalterns

Elisabeth Leake (Leeds): Tribal Societies in Global History

17:00 Concluding Discussion
Commentary: Richard Drayton (King’s College London)