RHN 128/2016 | Call
Organiser: Dr. Juri Auderset, Archiv für Agrargeschichte, Bern, Switzerland (Presenting author)
11-14 September 2017, Leuven, Belgium
Deadline for submissions: 15 January 2017
Panel at the Rural History 2017 Conference
What Kind of Change?
Transformation of Agricultural Work in Industrial Societies
This panel suggests a closer look at the radical changes, which occurred in agricultural work since the middle of the 19th century. While science and agronomy undoubtedly have influenced not only the perception but also the everyday forms of agricultural work, it is significant that the process of scientization took on rather different characteristics in industry and agriculture, since the two modes of production are embedded in different spatial and temporal frameworks. The idiosyncrasies of agricultural production – the use of living animals and plants – made it inevitable to integrate the process of re-production into the process of production and, therefore, required the organisation of most agricultural work along cyclic rhythms in a spatial vastness alien to industrial working conditions. These fundamental differences influenced the shaping of gender and family relations, the division of labour on the farm and in the field as well as the application of industrial ideas of rationalizing labour, the use of motorized machinery and the introduction of scientific management methods. Therefore, this panel invites scholars to explore the interactions, similarities and differences between industrial and agricultural work and to trace the decisive structures and conjunctures in the transformation of agricultural work in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Co-organisers and presenters:
Co-organiser 1: Juri Auderset, Archives of Rural History, Switzerland
Co-organiser 2: Peter Moser, Archives of Rural History, Switzerland
Presenters 1: Juri Auderset, Archives of Rural History, Switzerland
Commentator: Deborah Fitzgerald, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US
Your proposal should consist of an abstract (max. 200 words) and a short CV and should be submitted by 15th January 2017.
Please submit complete proposals to juri.auderset@agrararchiv.ch.