Working in Greece and Turkey: A Comparative Labour History from Empires to Nation-States, 1840–1940(33 International Studies in Social History)

As was the case in many other countries, it was only in the early years of this century that Greek and Turkish labour historians began to systematically look beyond national borders to investigate their intricately interrelated histories. The studies in Working in Greece and Turkey provide an overdue exploration of labour history on both sides of the Aegean, before as well as after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Deploying the approaches of global labour history as a framework, this volume presents transnational, transcontinental, and diachronic comparisons that illuminate the shared history of Greece and Turkey.

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction and Historiographical Essay: Greek and Turkish Economic and Social History, and Labour History Leda Papastefanaki and M. Erdem Kabadayı Part I: Agrarian Property and Labour Relations, Rural and Urban Organization of Work Chapter 1. Were Peasants Bound to the Soil in the Nineteenth-Century Balkans? A Reappraisal of the Question of the New/Second Serfdom in Ottoman Historiography Alp Yücel Kaya Chapter 2. The ‘Invisible’ Army of Greek Labourers Christos Hadziiossif Chapter 3. ‘No Work for Anyone in this Country of Misery’: Famine and Labour Relations in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Anatolia Semih Çelik Chapter 4. Rural Manufacturing in the Mid-Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Countryside: Textile Workers in Three Plovdiv Villages Fatma Öncel Chapter 5. Ethno-religious Division of Labour in Urban Economies of the Ottoman Empire in the Nineteenth Century M. Erdem Kabadayı and Murat Güvenç Digital Appendix 5.1: Ethno-religious composition of observations in locations (.xlsx) Digital Appendix 5.2: PST2s and ethno-religious affiliations (.xlsx) Digital Appendix 5.3: PST2s in 16 locations (.xlsx) Part II: Political Change, Migration, and Nationalisms Chapter 6. Class Formation on the Modern Waterfront: Port Workers and Their Struggles in Late Ottoman Istanbul Akın Sefer Chapter 7. Labourers, Refugees, Revolutionaries: Ottoman Perceptions of Armenian Emigration Sinan Dinçer Chapter 8. The Greek Labour Movement and National Preference Demands, 1890–1922 Nikos Potamianos Chapter 9. Refugees, Foreigners, Non-Muslims: Nationalism and Workers in the Silahtarağa Power Plant, 1914–24 Erol Ülker Part III: Labour Market and Emotions in the Twentieth Century Chapter 10. “Fatherly Interest…”: Industrial Paternalism, Labour Management, and Gender in the Textile Mills of a Greek Island (Hermoupolis, Syros, 1900–1940) Leda Papastefanaki Chapter 11. The Changing Organization of Production and Modes of Control, and the Workers’ Response: The Turkish Textile Industry in the 1940s and 50s Barış Alp Özden Chapter 12. ‘It is Fair to Ask for the Improvement of Their Fate’: The Demands, Mobilization, and the Political Orientation of the Press Workers and Printers of Patras, 1900–1940 Asimakis Palaiologos Chapter 13. Children’s Domestic Labour: Intimate Relations, Family Politics, and the Construction of Identity of Domestic Workers in Interwar Greece Pothiti Hantzaroula Epilogue Leda Papastefanaki and M. Erdem Kabadayı Index

About the Author :
Leda Papastefanaki is an Associate Professorof Economic and Social History at the University of Ioannina, Greece and Collaborating Faculty Member at the Institute for Mediterranean Studies/FORTH, Rethymno, Greece.

Review :
“[This volume] brings together a diverse range of pieces that focus on a wide variety of occupations and economic sectors: work done on the docks, factory floors, in electric plantations, households, printing workshops, and agricultural fields on two sides of the Aegean Sea. Each piece is well researched, rich, and interesting in its own right. Together, they delve into less explored themes and debates on the labour historiography of the regions concerned—the editors deserve praise for the attention they paid on this point.” • Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies “This book will prove valuable to a wide readership among labor researchers interested in history from below—both within and beyond the territory of the Ottoman Empire and its successor states.” • Journal of Modern Greek Studies “This is the first collection of essays in English that attempts to systematically examine and analyse this complex and turbulent period of Greek and Ottoman/Turkish history… With its focus on the labour movement and its relation to social change from the nineteenth century to the twentieth, the book is an invaluable contribution not only for Greek and Turkish studies scholars and students but also for researchers who focus on global labour history. I am confident that this well-written and superbly edited book will also attract a wide readership and become standard reading, as it integrates both countries into the global labour history tradition. It will undoubtedly be several years before this work is surpassed.” • Social History “This book offers a new perspective on global labour history studies by focusing on neglected, under-studied themes rather than traditional themes. It includes a multidimensional approach by mobilizing different disciplines such as migration studies, environmental history, and gender studies. It is very important for global labour history literature to evaluate the impact(s) and interaction of local councils, central administration, governments, trade unions, craft guilds in order to study conflicts and nationalism emerging in the labour market; and to examine the association between the wage information and paternalistic methods despite the scarcity of knowledge about the role of women and children in the labour market.” • Meltem “This is a very welcome addition to the historiography of Ottoman and post-Ottoman politics and society in the age of nationalism and expanding global capitalism.” • Margarite Poulos, Western Sydney University